What is inclusive leadership?
An inclusive leadership style embraces, encourages, and connects to the creativity and ideas in non-homogeneous groups. That said, even the best leaders crack under pressure, and tensions and mistrust can arise within any team. Therefore, truly inclusive leaders make everyone in their workforce, regardless of gender, feel more valued, confident, authentic, and clearer about their career opportunities. This inclusivity increases loyalty and motivation, leading to better staff retention, more significant innovation, and better workforce advancement.
A perfect example: I recently received a call from a former colleague, and during our general conversation, I asked how everything was going at work? I didn’t get an immediate answer until 60 seconds later. Even though I had already heard through the grapevine that this particular colleague got promoted six months ago, I wanted to allow him to tell me himself. Being that he worked for a multinational firm and loved his job so much, his long pause before answering me led me to believe that all was not right at his workplace. Seeing that he struggled to answer me in a politically correct way, I interrupted his thought and asked how his firm’s diversity and inclusion campaign was going?
“Diversity is going great. We have a new diversity officer. However, inclusion is still a challenge with some senior leaders in the organization,” he replied.
I asked him how so.
He replied, “My Division-A manager truly embraced the inclusion part of diversity by critiquing my work when warranted and seeking my opinion on most of my assigned accounts, which lead me to learn new soft skills. However, since my promotion to Division-B, the manager only complains when I make an error on a project and does not provide any feedback when my work is good. Due to my current manager’s management style, division-B as a department is struggling to excel.”
Employers can bring the most diverse group of people to the table that they wish, but if what goes on around them is toxic, they will not perform at their best. They will remove their passion, their ideas, and often their wisdom. And eventually, they will leave the organizations. According to Siegers, organizations need internationally educated leaders and employees who can “build bridges across the divides” and are globally minded and sensitive enough to know when to act locally. With this in mind, “organizations need to invest in employees and managers to make sure they are equipped with the skills to operate globally,” concluded Siegers. Investing in training will result in ROI and a happier workforce while building a virtuous cycle of success and confidence, further strengthening the team’s sense of achievement and feelings of trust and camaraderie.
As professionals, we need to be convinced that the men and women in our organizations are the real beneficiaries of its success. By creating a diversity and inclusion culture, we lay the foundations for people to be attracted to working with us.
Author:
Phidelia Johnson is a global Human Resources Practitioner with eighteen years of leadership success. With a focus on streamlining Human Resources administration, she’s well-equipped to find the right solution to a myriad of concerns. Her experience as a commercial business leader gives her a unique ability to advocate for both the employer and the employee.
In her down time, Phidelia is a master of her kitchen, creating wonderful dishes filled with passion and flavor. If she’s not cooking delicious food, she’s stretched out with a good book. She hopes to use her experience to help others, guide company leaders to best practices, and help build better professionals and stronger organizations.