Inclusivity is a foundational part of effective management—and if you want your employees to thrive, you need to embrace inclusive leadership principles across your organization.
Prioritizing inclusive leadership can transform an organization, helping them to attract top talent, empower their employees’ best work, and ensure that said employees feel seen, valued, and understood while doing that work. This, in turn, can help the organization retain talent and give them a competitive edge in the market.
But what, exactly, is inclusive leadership? Why is it important—particularly in the current work landscape? And what inclusive leadership behaviors do you need to learn (and, just as important, unlearn) in order to become a truly inclusive leader—and reap the rewards that go along with it?
What Is Inclusive Leadership?
Inclusive leadership (also known as inclusive management) is a leadership approach that actively embraces diversity. It invites and celebrates contributions from all team members, whatever their background or experience, and creates an environment of belonging where employees feel empowered to bring their whole, authentic selves to work.
At the core, inclusive leadership is about maximizing the talent and potential of everyone on your team, regardless of their background, identity, or perspective—and realizing that bringing together diverse backgrounds, identities, and perspectives will ultimately help teams and organizations thrive.
Why Inclusive Leadership Matters
Inclusive leadership behaviors matter because it helps include all employees. When you’re a truly inclusive manager, every employee on your team knows that they can be their full, real selves at work—and that their ideas, opinions, and contributions are not only welcome, but valued, regardless of who they are or where they come from. This can be especially powerful for employees that come from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups.
This leadership approach can also offer major benefits to the company, including:
- Enhanced innovation and creativity. When diverse perspectives are valued, it can help teams come up with more creative and fresher ideas—which, in turn, can help the company continually innovate and drive revenue. For example, according to data from Boston Consulting Group, organizations with inclusive, diverse leadership teams reported innovation revenue that is 19 percentage points higher than companies with below-average diversity.
- Improved decision-making. When only certain perspectives are considered, companies risk making decisions that benefit only a portion of their customers. However, by broadening the approach and including more diverse perspectives in the discussion, more well-rounded decisions can be made that appeal to a wider target audience. In fact, according to data outlined in the Harvard Business Review, inclusive teams are 50 percent more likely to make better decisions.
- Increased employee engagement. When employees feel truly included and valued in the organization, they are also generally more engaged, motivated, and committed to the company—all of which leads to higher productivity.
- Better talent attraction and retention. Employees want to work for an organization that values and appreciates them—and inclusion can play a major part in whether they decide to work for and/or continue to work for a company. As such, organizations that center inclusive leadership have a much easier time attracting—and retaining—top talent.
Want to learn more about the new forms of leadership (including inclusive leadership!)—and how these frameworks can transform your organization? Download our Next Generation Leadership ebook today!
The Do's of Inclusive Leadership
Clearly, taking an inclusive approach to leadership can help you attract and retain diverse talent (and enjoy all the perks that go along with it). But it also ensures that every employee, no matter who they are, feels valued, respected, and appreciated—empowering them to do their best work and to feel good while doing it.
But what does this leadership style look like in action? What are the inclusive leadership traits or skills managers need to embrace in order to not just “talk the talk,” but actually “walk the walk?”
Let’s take a look at some of the top inclusive leadership behaviors managers need to learn on their quest to learn how to be an inclusive leader:
1. Practice Active Listening
As mentioned, inclusive leadership is about amplifying diverse voices and opinions. And, as such, if you want to be an inclusive leader, you need to listen more than you speak. When talking to employees, practice active listening by:
- Giving them your full attention during all conversations
- Asking questions to get more information and/or clarify potential unknowns
- Summarizing employees’ ideas/thoughts/insights back to them to ensure you understand what they’re trying to communicate—and that you don’t miss and/or misinterpret any important information
- Acknowledging their contributions in a meaningful way
2. Embrace Self-Awareness and Humility
An inclusive manager is both self-aware and humble. And so, inclusive leadership behaviors involve recognizing the areas where you need to grow in order to truly create an inclusive work environment—including understanding and working on your own existing biases and limitations.
As an inclusive leader, you’ll need to:
- Regularly reflect on any assumptions and prejudices you may hold (either consciously or unconsciously)
- Acknowledge when you don't have all the answers
- Take responsibility for mistakes (intentional and unintentional)—and turn them into learning opportunities for yourself and your team
- Seek feedback about your leadership approach—and be willing to listen to that feedback and adjust your approach as needed
3. Cultivate Psychological Safety
One of the most important elements of inclusive leadership is cultivating an environment of psychological safety, where team members feel safe to express themselves authentically, no matter what it is they need to express.
Leaders can foster psychological safety by:
- Creating an “open door” policy where employees feel empowered to come forward and share their thoughts with leadership
- Responding positively to questions, concerns, or critical feedback
- Thanking employees for speaking their mind—even if what they have to say is hard to hear
- Protecting team members that speak up from any sort of negative consequence (for example, preventing another manager from retaliating against an employee that shared critical feedback)
- Normalizing vulnerability in the workplace by modeling it yourself—and speaking openly, honestly, and vulnerably as a leader
- Framing challenges and failures as learning opportunities, both with yourself and with team members
4. Distribute Opportunities Fairly
As mentioned, an inclusive workplace is one that values diversity. But having a diverse team isn’t enough. To be a truly inclusive leader, you need to make sure that everyone on that team has the opportunity to shine and move ahead in the organization.
From a leadership perspective, equitable distribution of opportunities includes:
- Creating transparent processes for assigning high-visibility or important projects, ensuring that all team members understand the selection criteria—and eliminating the potential for favoritism
- Making learning and development opportunities -accessible to everyone on the team
- Recognizing barriers that specific groups might face (for example, female employees, minority employees, or employees with disabilities)—and addressing those barriers to create more access to opportunities for said groups
- Regularly reviewing who gets opportunities and making adjustments to more fairly and evenly distribute opportunities across the team
5. Value Diverse Perspectives
As an inclusive leader, it’s important to seek out diverse perspectives and viewpoints. Not only does this ensure that everyone on your team feels heard and valued, but it also gives you access to different ideas and ways of thinking—which can help you make better decisions and become a better leader.
Make sure that you’re continually seeking out new and different perspectives as you lead your team, including by:
- Encouraging employees to openly share their opinions—including (and perhaps especially!) when they disagree, and showing genuine appreciation when that happens
- Asking for input from employees with a variety of backgrounds and experiences
- Creating systems that allow employees to regularly share their opinion, both with you and other team members
- Implementing a participative decision-making process that allows you to take employee’s perspective into account when making decisions for the team and/or business
6. Champion Work-Life Balance For All
All employees deserve to work in an environment where their personal lives and time are respected; that’s a given. But as an inclusive leader, it’s important to recognize that each employee has different circumstances that influence their work-life balance—and that those circumstances need to be understood, respected, and accommodated. This includes:
- Respecting boundaries around work hours and availability
- Offering schedule flexibility to accommodate diverse needs (for example, parents may need to start the day later in order to get their children to school—while caregivers may need to occasionally take time off during the workday for medical appointments)
- Acknowledging any work-life balance biases or opinions you hold as a manager (for example, “if an employee cares about their job, they’ll put in as many hours as we need them to”)—and then working to change them
- Focusing on performance and results—rather than evaluating employees strictly on hours worked
- Supporting team members through life transitions and challenges—and creating a manageable schedule that allows them to better navigate those periods
7. Create Clear, Inclusive Processes
Inclusive leaders recognize that clarity, transparency, and structure are part of inclusion. When all employees have a clear view into processes—what they are, how they work, and how they impact the team—it ensures that everyone is on the same page and is being held to the same standards.
As a leader, your job in creating clear, inclusive processes includes:
- Documenting and communicating decision-making processes
- Creating multiple channels for team members to contribute ideas—and giving the entire team access to those channels
- Establishing transparent criteria for evaluations, performance reviews, and promotions
- Structuring meetings in a way that encourages participation from everyone
Inclusive leadership is an important part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. But it’s only one piece of the puzzle! Want more ideas on how to promote DEI within your organization? Download our DEI checklist today 👇
The Don'ts of Inclusive Leadership
Becoming an inclusive leader means embracing positive behaviors, but it's equally important to unlearn habits that create barriers to inclusion. Here are the key behaviors to avoid:
- Micromanaging. Dictating how work should be done communicates distrust and limits autonomy. Instead, set clear expectations and focus on outcomes rather than controlling the process.
- Playing favorites. Even unintentional favoritism damages team trust. Avoid relying on the same people for key assignments or creating "inner circles" for communication and decisions. Distribute opportunities across your team.
- Dismissing ideas too quickly. Responding with immediate criticism or phrases like "We've tried that before" shuts down creativity and discourages employees from speaking up. Listen with an open mind and create space for all ideas to be explored.
- Dominating conversations. You're there to elevate voices on your team, not center your own. Talking significantly more than others, interrupting, or allowing the loudest voices to control discussions silences diverse perspectives. Create space for all voices and show up ready to listen.
- Assuming universal experiences. Avoid creating "one-size-fits-all" solutions or expecting everyone to adapt to a single way of working. Recognize the diverse needs and experiences of your team and adjust your management style accordingly.
- Tolerating exclusionary behavior. When leaders ignore disrespectful behavior, they become complicit in it. Address inappropriate comments immediately and hold everyone accountable for inclusive behavior.
- Resisting feedback or change. Responding defensively to feedback discourages team members from sharing their thoughts and limits inclusivity. Stay open to criticism, listen actively, and make changes as necessary.
Now, if you want a quick recap of what you should and shouldn't do as an inclusive leader, check out this infographics:
How Talkspirit Supports Inclusive Leadership
Becoming a more inclusive manager is a journey that requires both embracing inclusive leadership behaviors and letting go of management habits that might inhibit inclusivity within your team.
But to create a truly inclusive work environment, you need to do more than just changing your habits as a leader. You also need to empower your team with the right tools that foster inclusion, create transparency, and elevate diverse voices across the organization—tools like Talkspirit.
Talkspirit is an all-in-one collaboration, communication and governance platform 100% made in Europe that supports inclusive leadership behaviors in a variety of ways, including:
- Promoting role clarity with features like the org chart, which uses AI-powered visualization to clearly map out your organizational structure, roles, and responsibilities.
- Ensuring equal access to information with the library, a centralized, searchable knowledge base that promotes clarity on processes, policies, and other key topics. Additional features like the newsfeed, real-time document collaboration and mobile access also help employees find the information they need, when they need it.
- Building psychological safety through flexible communication tools (like chat and videoconferencing), inclusive participation methods for different working styles, and transparent project management and tracking.
- Enabling participative decision-making with structured proposal workflows, polling features, and meeting tools that ensure diverse perspectives are included in every step of the decision-making process.
Ready to learn more about how Talkspirit can help you build a more inclusive workplace? Request a demo today!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=spacer}
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
