Leveraging the business impact of inclusive leadership
The world is changing. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a global health crisis and has also led to a social awakening. Recent study by Deloitte among employees found that survey respondents strongly believe that to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. Companies are expected to benefit all their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate. Young workers are eager for business leaders to be proactive about making a positive impact in society—and to be responsive to employees’ needs. Respondents pointed to additional priorities, including an emphasis on diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) in the workplace. And the best way to promote DEI is through effective inclusive leadership.
- What Is Inclusive Leadership?
- What Does Inclusive Leadership Do on a Concrete Level?
- The Benefits of Inclusive Leadership
- Practical Steps to Develop Inclusive Leadership
What is inclusive leadership?
Innovation has always been the lifeblood of a strong company. Organizational cultures are shifting toward inclusive leadership and an environment where people thrive and want to give their best selves. Inclusive leadership is a kind of leadership that creates an atmosphere where people feel their opinions and contributions are valued and improve company’s well-being. Inclusive culture invites diverse perspectives and creates psychologically safe environment for them to be shared.
“Differences. Not just tolerated, but celebrated”
On a concrete level, inclusive leaders do the following things very well:
- Cultivating strong interpersonal relationships
- Building emotional and cultural intelligence
- Promoting psychological safety
- Committing to people`s wellbeing and success
- Respecting everyone`s uniqueness in an empathetic, bias-free way
- Open and inclusive communication
What are the benefits of Inclusive Leadership?
Data collected from direct reports suggest that inclusive cultures result in:
- 150% greater belonging
- 54% lower turnover intention
- 90% higher team innovation
- 50% higher team performance
Inclusive leadership unleashes massive team innovation and growth. The more inclusive the culture is, the higher the team empowerment and people are willing to do their best work. Business` impact and growth increase exponentially.
Practical steps to develop inclusive leadership
What can you do to implement inclusive leadership? Here are some key action steps and questions you might want to answer:
- Measure stress levels in your organization. Stress is an indicator of non-inclusive practices or people in your team that you need to handle and manage differently
- Assess your and your team`s emotional intelligence and find the blind spots in inclusive thinking that could be a good reference point for further training and development. The EQ-i 2.0. model is a valuable assessment tool that might show you the areas for individual and/or team improvement.
- Assess your hiring practices. Do you hire for education and experience or for character and ethics? Are there any biases in your hiring process that you could possibly reduce so that you become a more open and diverse place for great talents to join your team?
- There is a saying: “Take care of your people and people will take care of your business”. In what ways do you care as a leader? Do you really care of your people? How do you show them they are making the difference for your business? How big is the circle you are taking care of as a leader or organization?
- How far does inclusion spread from the inside-out your organization? Who is invited to your “party”? Are there the families of your colleagues, your partners, your wider community? Is there a social issue or cause dear to your heart that you are including in your priorities?
- How inclusive are you with yourself? How do you deal with the different parts of your psyche – the Inner Critic, the Highly Ambitious, the Never-good-enough, the Pleaser, the Stickler, the Restless, the Controller, the Avoider, the Hyper-Rational, etc. Do you see them? Do you create safe space for them all to speak up? Are you able to emotionally validate them even if you do not agree fully with what they are saying? Excluding or neglecting any of these difficult to handle aspects of yourself might create situations in your real life where these aspects are being projected out onto other people. So eventually you might need to deal with them anyhow.
I celebrate you wherever you are in your inclusive leadership journey. Reading these past few lines makes me believe that the right first step is already done – the one inside your heart.
Would you like to share? Let`s connect!
Antonia Kercheva
Inclusive Leadership Coach
About Antonia:
Antonia Kercheva is an inclusive culture and leadership consultant and trainer. She is the founder of Kollektiv:Aspirations – a consulting studio working with leaders and organizations to build a more human-centered workplace and to embrace practices that focus on bringing greater inclusion in the way they lead, manage and grow employees, along with their business.
Before launching her inclusion studio, she spent 17 years working in the congress management industry and public relations. She`s an experienced event facilitator and emotional intelligence coach, on a mission to reframe the current conversations around empathy and inclusion in the workplace.
After 4 years of focusing her practice on interpersonal empathy, she began exploring the delicate relation between emotional intelligence, humans, leadership, and organizational culture. She started developing the inclusive leadership ecosystem model – mapping the role of empathy in the workplace. At the center of her practice is the creation of curated inclusion initiatives and L&D programs that help organizations build happier and more inclusive workplaces where people want to give their best selves.
