Inclusive Leadership

Mon, August 07, 2017

Diversity and Inclusion are often spoken about in the same breath but rarely framed as two very different things.

Diversity is generally understood as recognising that every individual is unique and recognising those differences. They can be along dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical and mental abilities, age, learning preferences, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies.

Diversity is often measured through monitoring data and can be quantified if done well.

Inclusion quite simply means ‘the state of being included’. However it is harder to quantify and requires a lot more time and effort to achieve. Two commodities that many managers don’t feel they have enough of.

Diversity in itself does not drive inclusion; in fact without inclusion there can be various degrees of conflict.

In order to achieve diversity and inclusion, there has to be more than headcount data. Organisations need to understand the narrative along with the numbers to draw a true picture and that requires inclusive leadership.

As the figure above shows there is a business imperative to create a culture of diversity and inclusion and invest in building inclusive leaders.

The typical characteristics of an inclusive leader are:

Cognizance
because bias is a leader’s Achilles heel

Curiosity
because different ideas and experiences enable growth

Cultural Intelligence
because not everyone sees through the same cultural lens 

Collaboration
because a diverse thinking team is greater than the sum of its parts

Commitment
because staying the course is hard

Courage
because talking about imperfections involves personal risk

Inclusive Leadership is the key to unlocking high performance potential.

Are you An Inclusive Leader? Ocean's 10.

Decide if you are an inclusive leader by answering the following 10 questions:

Do you sponsor someone with high potential who is from a group currently under-represented in leadership to support them in realising their career aspirations?

Do you ask those you manage or lead for feedback on the impact of your style and approach in supporting them to perform well and/or progress their careers?

Do you know the different values and drivers that motivate those you manage or lead and do you leverage these to help improve performance?

Do you challenge others if their behaviour or actions do not support inclusion and diversity?

Are you aware of the stereotypes, assumptions and judgements you make about different groups (unconscious bias) and what you can do to minimise the potential negative impact of these?

Do you involve and encourage those you manage or lead to identify problems early on, come up with solutions and improvement ideas?

Does your team reflect diversity in its demographic make-up, background and perspectives and do you leverage this to avoid group think?

Are you clear how inclusion and diversity can help you meet your own and the wider organisation’s business goals?

Do you help those you manage or lead understand the bigger organisational and strategic picture and their role within this?

Do you mentor others, including women and people from minority backgrounds and check that your approach meets their specific needs?