How Can I Be a More Inclusive Leader?
There’s no doubt that inclusive leadership has become a critical part of contemporary leadership. We live and work in diverse communities, which is an immense source of strength and vibrancy. As a leader though, this comes with an imperative to understand how to empower a diverse group of people with a joint purpose and make them all feel truly part of the team.
Perhaps even more fundamentally, talent in organisations are calling out for facilitative, relational and inclusive leaders. There’s no shorter route to team attrition than an old school command-and-control mentality or scarcity cultures.
It makes sense then that people are talking about inclusive leadership everywhere from the American Bar Association to the NSW Public Service. It is now possible to obtain ISO accreditation in inclusive leadership approaches. And a related concept of equity-centred leadership has become an important focus in the school and education space enabling all children to thrive in learning environments.
Let’s dive into this key skillset.
Inclusive Qualities
The Diversity Council of Australia (DCA) defines inclusive leadership as “the capabilities (i.e. mindsets, knowledge, skills, and behaviours) which ensure that a diversity of employee perspectives shape and improve an organisation’s strategy, work, systems, values and norms for success.” This definition speaks to the need for a deeply co-creative approach to our ways of working and our shared vision for the future.
Along with this, the DCA has developed an Inclusive Leadership Model Framework with five key mindsets for inclusive leaders:
- Identity-Aware
- Open and Curious
- Growth-Focused
- Relational
- Flexible & Agile
Similar qualities come up in research conducted by Juliet Bourke and Andrea Titus and shared in the Harvard Business Review. They speak to visible commitment, humility, awareness of bias, curiosity about others, cultural intelligence and effective collaboration. These sets of skills prioritise a relationality and openness which elides any hierarchical structures and is able to move beyond biases. They also highlight the importance of being aware — of how you are thinking and how you and your teams might experience the world differently.
At PF, we highly value the 3 C’s: curiosity, compassion and connection. For us to live out those particular values means committing to a deep level of inclusivity, and we try and practice that every day. Underpinning this practice for us is listening at an even deeper level: Radical Listening (RL).
Inclusive Actions
Manisha Amin, the CEO at the Centre for Inclusive Design, also champions inclusive leadership in her work around inclusive design. Amin recently shared a number of concrete actions leaders can take when developing a more inclusive leadership approach:
- Think about yourself — what are your strengths, weaknesses, privileges and biases?
- Think about the diverse people in your world — how can you lift them up?
- Be humble and understand you will make mistakes
- Build inclusivity into the way you work every day so that it becomes a habitual practice
Inclusive leadership forms part of a broader movement towards leaders who are more attuned to and facilitative of their teams. Modern leaders who are looking to live their values around diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) should get clear on the steps they can take each day to become more inclusive in their leadership practice.
At PF we are passionate about DE&I and celebrate those leaders and organisations who are moving beyond thinking about DE&I as simply a business case and championing it as an acknowledgement of our shared humanity.
Every step in this direction is a step forward for us, our teams and our world.
