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The Importance of Inclusive Leadership and How You Can Nurture It

By
Richard Williams

Inclusive leadership has been a key HR topic in recent times but after speaking with clients at the beginning of the year, it was clear that inclusive leadership to help drive the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion agenda was a high priority for many in 2023.

What is inclusive leadership?

Inclusive leadership is probably a term you’ve heard being used more and more in HR circles over the last few years. Harvard Business Review defines it as “Leadership that assures that all team members feel they are treated respectfully and fairly, are valued and sense that they belong, and are confident and inspired” 1.

What are the benefits?

Some of the benefits of inclusive leadership for an organization are 2:

Increased trust between leaders and their teams
Happier, more-engaged employees who feel valued, listened to and have a sense of belonging
Increased innovation sparked by a wider range of knowledge and experience
An open and safe communication, where employee voices are heard
The ability to tap into a more diverse talent pool and new customer markets

Organizations with inclusive leadership teams and effective DE&I strategies are reaping the benefits. Statistics show that 85% of businesses say that diversity drives the most innovative work and 30% of companies with inclusive policies generated up to 30% higher revenue per person compared to those who don’t 2.  

Other research suggests that teams with inclusive leaders are 17% more likely to report that they are high performing, 20% more likely to say they make high-quality decisions, and 29% more likely to report behaving collaboratively 1.

Further to this, having inclusive leaders at the helm of your organization can help drive a truly effective DE&I strategy, attract and retain a more diverse workforce, as well as help promote increased ‘diversity of thought’ throughout your organization. This diversity of thought can help you overcome the pitfalls of ‘group think’ (where workers of similar backgrounds and culture perspectives are unable to see the bigger picture) leading to potential cultural blunders and PR disasters 3.

What traits do inclusive leaders have?

There are numerous models and perspectives that try to capture the definitive traits and behavioral characteristics that inclusive leaders tend to have. When looking into them, these are the areas that we found appear several times across the various models:

Collaborating
Decision making should be for the many not just the few.
Demonstrating Empathy
Curiosity and understanding without judgment.
Advocating for Others
Commitment to inclusivity, the ability to challenge status quo.
Consulting with Others
Empowering all individuals to contribute.

Within our own research, the behaviors that we continuously see predicting leadership success, regardless of organization or industry, are:

Pursuing Goals – being driven to achieve outstanding results, being ambitious and being able to persevere through difficult challenges.
Directing People – being oriented towards a leadership role, coordinating people and taking control of things.
Taking Action – being good at making things happen, being impatient to get things started and being energetic.
Developing Strategies – being effective at developing strategies, taking a very long-term view and creating a clear vision for the future.
Providing Insights – being able to identify ways to improve things, being very quick to get to the core of a problem and trusting intuition to guide judgment.

When we start to explore the effect of critical behavior combinations, the importance and the value of empathy also starts to shine through. What our research is telling us is that leaders who are able to do all of the above AND understand and empathize with others do better than those who solely focus on the above.

How can we help you measure these traits?

The first step to building inclusive leadership capabilities is to raise leaders’ self-awareness. Dr Rohini Anand, Senior Vice President & Global Chief Diversity Officer at Sodexo explains that: “Those who lack the self-awareness and humility to learn and admit they don’t know everything are leaders who miss an opportunity to learn, and who will be blindsided if they are not careful 4.  

Feedback and behavioral psychometrics provide the mechanism to enable this. Our Leadership Impact model provides a framework to discuss Leadership Styles and the ‘People’ cluster within the model helps to deep dive into the inclusive leadership behaviors.

Whilst this model is not a direct measure of inclusive leadership, it can be used to instigate and drive meaningful conversations with leaders, based around the behaviors identified as important:

Collaborating

Within the Leadership Impact model, a Collaborator leads by encouraging others to work together constructively in order to achieve goals. Discussion points within this area consist of:

Benefits of understanding motivations and points of view of others
Understanding people’s concerns and needs
Encouraging a culture where people are focused on meeting needs of others
Benefits of being considerate and tolerant

Demonstrating Empathy

A Facilitator leads by responding to the needs of others. Discussion points within this area are:

Collaboration’s impact on diversity of thought
Focusing on team cohesion benefits feelings of inclusion
Involving others promotes better/more rounded decision making
Working to resolve issues by highlighting importance of differences of opinions/perception

Advocating for Others

An Enthusiast engages others by building rapport and taking an optimistic approach while a Persuader leads through active communication and seeks agreements which are mutually beneficial. We encourage discussion around the following areas:

Ability to use persuasion to communicate the issues that will make a difference
Interacting widely and spreading enthusiasm
Linking initial advocacy with understanding for longer-term change
Speaking for people who are not confident speaking for themselves
Enthusiasm and optimism for diversity/issues not otherwise highlighted
Visibility of commitment

Consulting with Others

A Consulter develops a wide network of contacts and is responsive to external feedback while an Inspirer leads by motivating others and asserting themselves in the leadership role. Discussions around this area should consist of:

Empowering people to feel they can come forward with ideas and contribute freely
Being receptive to what others are feeling/saying/doing
Ability to change stance based on different views/opinions
Balancing encouragement with also motivating and driving people forward
Interacting with people and taking time to understand what is important to them

Our Leadership Impact report is a great tool for starting open and meaningful conversations around inclusive leaders and can be used in conjunction with our two Leadership Clusters, Pioneering and Professional, which allows you to really consider how other areas will impact their ability to be a truly inclusive leader:

For Example:

Within the Professional Cluster, you may want to ask yourselves

Are they delivering in a way that aligns with the DE&I agenda?
How does their management of risk impact people decisions?
Are they providing equal opportunities to build expertise across the team/organization?

Within the Pioneering Cluster, it’s important to consider:

Fostering a culture where original ideas and diversity of thought is valued
Pushing to change the way things are done, creating a more inclusive workplace
How diversity and inclusion of employees and ideas can offer a competitive advanta

The Time is Now

While there’s no silver bullet, and changing leadership cultures can take some time, using tools such as ours can help you open up developmental discussions and align your leaders with your values and inclusive DE&I strategy.

Truly inclusive leadership helps create a ‘safe’ environment where employees feel valued and their voices heard, and can help lead to increased innovation, better talent attraction, retention and increased productivity. If it isn’t in place, or high up on your talent agenda, isn’t it time you ask yourself why not?