Introduction to Inclusive Leadership
Training to build the foundation of a diverse, innovative, and productive workplace culture.Today’s leaders must be able to effectively communicate and build trusting work relationships with many different kinds of people. We are moving from the era of “command and control” to an era of “engage and include.”
Some individuals have a natural ability to feel comfortable with many different types of people and can easily build camaraderie within their teams. Others are comfortable exhibiting inclusive behaviors themselves but have difficulty coaching and developing these skills among those who report to them. And still others have difficulty establishing comfortable working relationships with specific people or groups.
According to the Gallup Organization, disengaged (exclusive) managers are three times
more likely to have disengaged and actively disengaged employees, costing businesses
billions of dollars in lost revenue each year. If you are working to create a culture that values all employees and is inclusive of differences, your leaders must understand what inclusion is, how it is achieved and what specific behaviors and actions they can take to promote the culture you desire.
Inclusity’s Introduction to Inclusive Leadership Workshop (or series) provides your supervisors, managers, and leaders the personal insight and awareness, knowledge and skills they need to become the best and most inclusive leader possible.
In this four-, eight-, or 12-hour workshop (or series of shorter workshops if desired) we introduce your leaders to up to four Inclusity Models and the tools they need to actively become inclusive leaders.
Learning Objectives:
- Participate in and lead small group discussions about the factors that define their team members, in order to build trust and open communications
- Understand the attitudes and behaviors that create exclusion
- Identify situations in which team members are being excluded
- Increase their commitment to actively include instead of unintentionally excluding
- Utilize models presented during the training to intentionally create more inclusive workplace teams
From The Inclusity Blog
Inclusion: Driving Leaders and Business Outcomes to the Next Level
Inclusive Leaders
How many of us, at some point in our lives, have felt like we were an outsider – no matter how hard we tried to fit in? Who hasn’t attended a meeting and posed a thought-provoking question to only be met by the sound of “crickets,” or mustered up the courage to attend a social event or walked up to a group of people engaged in conversation and felt awkward and excluded? Merely bringing together a diverse group of people does not assure meaningful engagement, high performance or even a pleasant experience — we must focus on inclusion and inclusive leaders.
Today, companies are finding that inclusiveness is not only desirable for team success and the right thing to do, it is essential to business performance. This necessitates inclusive leadership – leadership that assures that all team members feel they are treated respectfully and fairly, are valued and sense that they belong and are confident and inspired. And research backs up this idea.
By the Numbers
Not only has research shown that inclusion impacts perception of business performance, it correlates to actual business performance. Harvard Business Review’s article “Why Inclusive Leaders Are Good for Organizations, and How to Become One” makes the business case. The article points out that teams with inclusive leaders are 17% more likely to report that they are high performing, 20% more likely to say they make high-quality decisions, and 29% more likely to report behaving collaboratively. Furthermore, they found that a 10% improvement in perceptions of inclusion increases work attendance by almost one day a year per employee, reducing the cost of absenteeism. This is a game-changer.
Leading the Way
Senior leaders and managers often carry a heavy load, at times even more than they realize. Employees’ perception of leaders and their behavior can have far-reaching influence and weigh heavily into their feeling of inclusion within the organization. You might ask if the qualities that make for a good leader in general are the same as an inclusive leader. Recent research by Deloitte found six traits “that distinguish inclusive leaders from others: visible commitment, humility, awareness of bias, curiosity about others, culture intelligence, and effective collaboration.”
Based on our training and coaching experience, Inclusity finds these traits important, along with others that we have identified during our decades of experience. We are moving to a leadership model of “engage and include,” in which specific behavior and actions can help to promote and achieve an inclusive culture. This is a culture that encourages productivity and engagement. Delivering meaningful culture change through inclusive leadership takes all these behaviors and an ongoing commitment to lead every day by example.
“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”
– Roy T. Bennett
Diversity + Inclusion = Transformation
Building inclusive and diverse teams is not just good business. It allows individuals to bring their “whole” self to work while maintaining a sense of connectedness and safety. Without these experiences, how are we to build a solid foundation of trust? Are we going to remain confident and collaborative in the work environment? We have learned there are many benefits to a balanced focus on D&I; let’s look at innovation, customer satisfaction, and reduction of risk.
Innovation has proven to be a critical factor leading to success in business. It can set your business apart and oftentimes provides a competitive advantage. How does one create a diverse workplace environment that encourages and cultivates innovation in a global market? Inclusion. We have come to understand a strong correlation exists between inclusion and innovation; diverse perspectives ultimately enhance problem-solving and generates better ideas.
Customer satisfaction is highly dependent on exceptional customer service. Today’s customers are savvy; many are seeking authentic messages of equality that resonate with their personal values, thereby reflecting in their spend and social media “voice.” So, a diverse and inclusive workforce can provide organizations with a competitive advantage. As demographics change, organizations may depend on employees who offer different perspectives — employees who represent and understand the diverse backgrounds of the customers, clients and communities they serve.
What transpires when we bring together a group of diverse individuals who feel empowered, share their ideas openly, recognize their worth, and fully engage? When led by inclusive leadership with a strategic goal the probable result is a high-functioning team. Picture individuals of diverse backgrounds, knowledge, experience, gender, etc., sitting around the table exchanging ideas, challenging the status quo, sharing their expertise, and solving complex problems. This is where the magic happens: risks are mitigated, gaps identified, and cost savings realized.
Deloitte conducted research that captured the experiences and views of 1,550 employees in three large Australian businesses, which supports this concept. They found “that diversity of thinking is a wellspring of creativity, enhancing innovation by 20% and enabling groups to spot risks, reducing these by up to 30%”.
Why Lead with Inclusion?
The data has shown that diverse teams outperform others. They are also more innovative, provided they manage their diversity, practice inclusion, and leverage both their similarities and differences. Doing these things effectively can bring your organization to a higher level of performance.
Since its inception, Inclusity has embraced a holistic approach toward D&I work. We believe success lies where inclusion and diversity meet: a high energy, productive and collaborative environment in which all individuals are affirmed and valued for their unique contributions. To learn more about our Conscious Inclusion workshop or other training, coaching and consulting to build a culture of inclusion at your organization, please contact https://www.inclusity.com/contact/.
Empathy and Leadership
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential, is invisible to the eye.” – The Little Prince
Why is Empathy and Leadership so Important?
We are presented with a steady stream of messaging that encourages us to embrace others and see the world through their eyes. On the other hand, there are those that suggest empathy can be fraught with challenges, especially for those in leadership. In fact, in the book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, Paul Bloom argues that empathy can impair judgment.
For me, the challenge is not about taking my “empathetic” self to work but to refrain from being immersed in the situation. Empathy is as natural to me as breathing air – absorbing others’ vibes, putting myself in their shoes and “feeling” their pain.
Early in my career, I set aside my natural tendencies toward empathy and attempted to not ‘‘show up”. What I conveyed to others and what I felt internally were not aligned. This felt disingenuous. Through this experience I quickly realized that being myself was the only choice and made the personal decision to be authentic.
With a previous employer, I was faced with closing a division within the company. Working through the transition, moving a group of dedicated employees and loyal customers to a state of being displaced workers and customers without much needed services, was devastating. Trust me, I am by no means a hero, but to this day I am convinced that what happened next was due in large part to being in tune with my feelings of empathy.
My capacity for understanding propelled me forward and gave me the courage to ask leadership to consider and approve a different plan. Collectively, a few of us went on to move mountains, keeping the division open long enough to identify another source for our loyal customers and offer alternative employment to staff members. In fact, the team bond was strengthened and three of those individuals went on to work alongside me in another division. I believe demonstrating empathy in the workplace is key and we can’t lead effectively without it.
Empathy is also key to building an inclusive work environment where a business and its employees can thrive. Leaders must be able to effectively communicate and build trusting work relationships with different kinds of people. Some individuals have a natural ability to feel comfortable with different types of people and can easily build camaraderie among their co-workers and subordinates. It’s a mark of strength – a balance of intelligence, self-awareness and understanding.
Recently I attended a training class designed to help define yourself, what connects you to other, and why. I took away a better understanding of how important it is to recognize and value every part of myself. Empathy is the core of emotional intelligence and how can you possibly be a leader without it. That’s why empathy and leadership are intertwined.
One thing I know for sure is that I must recognize and value every part of myself. And I am not alone, Lucas Pols echoes my sentiments in his Forbes article, “The Importance Of Empathy In Leadership” where he states, “The ability to get out of your own mental framework and put yourself in other peoples’ shoes is essential for impactful communication, crisis management, business strategy, sales and marketing and successful business.” Forbes article. Simply – I am a work in progress.
Why Focus on Inclusion vs Diversity
At that time, organizations were launching diversity initiatives as a way to increase representation of women, racial/ethnic minorities, and other under-represented groups. It seems now that their rationale for these efforts was that by merely increasing the amount ofvisible diversity, they would become more productive, their workers increasingly motivated, and increased sales/profits would result. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
Problem with diversity training
In the 2012 Harvard Business Review article, “Diversity Training Doesn’t Work”, Peter Bregman writes, “diversity training (has) had no positive effects in the average workplace.” In this article, Bregman cites a study of 829 companies included in the EEOC’s data base over 31 years. The study found that “overall, companies that try to change managers’ behavior through training and evaluations have not seen much change.”
If you ask me, diversity training hasn’t worked because its focus was no different than the Affirmative Action training it replaced. Organizations used this training to continue their focus on achieving numerical goals in hiring, promotion, and representation. As a result, the organizational culture, and even the contribution of all employees, was neglected.
I have seen a great deal of change occur over the past 30+ years, and have also experienced some of the backlash that emerged as a result of diversity initiatives. Some diverse individuals were very successful, assimilating themselves to the existing culture or helping organizations adjust to their styles. Others left corporations in droves, starting a wave of new women and minority owned businesses in the 1990s that has continued to the present time.
I have facilitated diversity training in many organizations, and I have encountered employees who were either white, male, or both. As they came to trust me, they shared that they felt completely disengaged from their organization’s diversity efforts. They described diversity training as a negative experience that intentionally made them feel uncomfortable. And most recently, they felt like diversity initiatives were euphemistic for “reverse discrimination”, in which less qualified women and minorities were advantaged, to their detriment.
As a result, the term “diversity” has become synonymous with “race and gender.” Individuals bring a compliance mentality into the training, and they leave the training having complied with it—but not having truly engaged. The best of this training may have enlightened some folks, or heightened bias awareness, but it has not motivated them to behave differently, or to genuinely engage with their co-workers who are different on many fronts.
Not surprisingly many employees, have fully embraced political correctness and eggshell walking, keep their opinions to themselves. They avoid talking about differences altogether, and hope that they will stay out of trouble by hiring women and minorities who will conform to the status quo and not draw attention to “issues of difference.” This has created cultures of exclusion—except that now everyone feels excluded, not just women and minorities!
Move to inclusion
By focusing on diversity and ignoring culture, the result is conformity. The people may look different, but they behave the same. That is why it is time to change the emphasis within these organizations—focusing on developing inclusive cultures rather than just increasing diversity. By seeking to create a culture in which leaders are trained to value and utilize individual talent, true diversity can emerge.
A culture of inclusion is much more difficult to achieve (and measure) than it is to simply count the number of women and racial/ethnic minority members represented. However, it is the truly inclusive cultures to which diverse and talented individuals will be attracted, be developed, and choose to stay and add the tremendous value we have to bring.