For decades, the private sector has known of the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in building strong businesses.
Organizations recently have doubled down on their diversity and inclusion efforts due to greater internal and external pressures stemming from the heightened global focus on race and social justice. Still, organizations struggle to truly nail it when it comes to inclusion.
Unlike policy- and practice-driven diversity and equity efforts, inclusion is more of an art than a science, and it takes everyone championing it — especially leadership — for organizations to get it right.
But organizations are not getting it right. According to DDI’s “Diversity & Inclusion Report 2020,” only 31 percent of employees believe their leaders promote an inclusive environment. An inclusive workplace isn’t just a nice thing to have — it’s an absolute necessity to attract and retain talent to drive organizational success.
Companies qualified in the report as “Best Places to Work” stand out for inclusion. More than a third of leaders from those companies — about 35 percent – reported that inclusion is a strong component of their work culture and values. This is in comparison to only 20 percent of leaders from other companies not labeled as best companies to work for.
The report is part of DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast series, which surveyed 15,787 leaders and 2,102 human resources professionals from 1,740 organizations across 25 industries, globally.
Numbers like these beg the question, why aren’t leaders more inclusive? There are a few key obstacles holding them back.
The obstacles
Ignorance. Leaders struggle with inclusion because they don’t really know what it looks like or means. They look to their organizations to sketch out a profile of an inclusive leader and to set expectations for behavior. For the lucky leaders, there’s a clear set of expectations, which are baked into performance evaluation conversations and leadership development programs.
But for the unlucky ones, they’re expected to figure it out on their own. This leaves them thinking they’re doing a great job when really, they are not. Others have vague notions of what they think inclusive leadership ought to look like, but they are not quite sure how to put it into practice.
Fear. Inclusion makes many leaders deeply anxious. This is especially true for new leaders and diverse team leaders who fear the prospect of saying the wrong thing. It’s not just uncomfortable — it’s paralyzing.
Leaders with fear-based inclusion blockages tend to avoid the sensitive conversations that are key to inclusive leadership. Often, they skip important coaching conversations, remain neutral in instances of conflict or act as a bystander in meetings rife with exclusion. For these leaders, it seems better to stay out of the conversation than make it worse with a well-intentioned, but offensive, foray into these touchy areas.
Bias. Leaders, like everyone else, typically have blind spots when it comes to their own implicit biases. This very specific version of the ignorance obstacle can be one of the most difficult to shake.
It requires painful self-honesty and nearly constant internal vigilance. Often, examining and reckoning with bias is one of the first steps a leader must take on their journey toward building a diverse and inclusive team. Otherwise, even the most educated leaders will fall into old habits and patterns of exclusion.
Resistance. For very few leaders, the issue is that they do not feel secure enough to really put into practice the behaviors that make up inclusive leadership. But why?
Perhaps an ego gets in the way of assigning credit where it’s due. Maybe they face a fear of failure, which gets in the way of delegating assignments to less tenured team members. Family upbringing and personal obliviousness might even get in the way of being inclusive. Leaders are human, after all, and flaws have a role in our ability and willingness to master inclusion.
Lack of practice. Leadership development and practice play a key role in helping leaders master inclusion.
Without development and practice, leaders will fall victim to ignorance and fear. They could also continue grappling with bias and other sources of resistance. For some leaders, the issue is truly just that they haven’t been at it long enough. So, just like any other leadership skill, inclusion requires intentional development and practice.
With so many obstacles potentially blocking the way for leaders to build an inclusive workplace, it might seem overwhelming or easier to just ignore the issue and hope for the best. But that’s not an option.
The stakes
Organizations need their employees to innovate, take risks, dissent and stretch their limits to compete in an increasingly dynamic and unpredictable global market. But they can’t just ask people to behave this way without creating a psychologically safe and inclusive culture. Research from varied sources such as a Google internal study, leadership experts and scientists prove a culture of psychological safety and inclusion supports innovative behaviors.
There’s science to this. The brain is hard-wired to treat situations of social exclusion like a physical threat. According to an article from Forbes, during these moments our brain literally narrows in on what it considers a survival instinct to maintain the status quo. It narrows memories into bits of information so it can work more reactively and sticks with what it sees as tried-and-true methods.
Does that sound like a brain that’s going to help your organization succeed in new markets, solve complex customer problems or help others to feel engaged at work? Of course not.
The relationship between psychological safety, inclusion and innovation means that creating inclusive leaders is a business problem. But luckily, it’s a solvable problem.
The skills
Inclusive leadership feels like a complex, scary term. But, at its core, inclusive leadership is as simple as recognizing the humanity of ourselves and others. It’s about love, acceptance, kindness and respect. Inclusion means listening to, understanding, supporting and lifting up one another. This happens by seeing our colleagues as people and putting those people first.
But that’s likely not specific enough direction for leaders who ask how to do better. Instead, tell them: To create a psychologically safe and inclusive environment, ground yourself in empathy and master the following skills.
Communicate inclusively. Most leaders tend to be deeply uncomfortable engaging in sensitive conversations about inclusion, equity and justice. Instead, they opt to ignore the emotions and personal needs people bring to work. But inclusive leaders make space for these kinds of conversations by building trust with their team through authenticity and vulnerability. They know that for team members to feel psychologically safe and included, their personal needs — not just their practical needs — must be met.
Leaders need to make their teams feel included in their everyday communication. If they hope to achieve this, they need to maintain or enhance self-esteem so people feel valued and respected, and listen and respond with empathy so they feel heard and understood. They also need to ask for help and encourage involvement so individuals feel included, and share thoughts, feelings and rationale to build trust. Finally, they should provide support without removing responsibility so people feel empowered.
Run inclusive meetings. We’ve all been in exclusive meetings before — the kind where the same few people participate while others are interrupted, dismissed or talked over. Inclusive leaders don’t just run meetings, they facilitate them. They’re aware introverts and members of historically excluded groups are disproportionately sidelined in meetings. They work to mitigate exclusive habits and maximize collaboration, manage ineffective behaviors and use differentiated strategies to engage all attendees.
Leaders should set explicit expectations for respect and equitable airtime at the start of meetings and hold attendees accountable. During meetings, they need to watch for disrespectful behaviors — like interruptions or inaccurate assignment of credit for good ideas — and be prepared to course correct. They can ensure more introverted folks have a voice by using techniques like pre-work, partner discussions and polling software.
Delegate to provide opportunity. A wise mentor put it simply: If you’re not being intentionally inclusive, you’re probably being unintentionally exclusive. In the context of delegation, this couldn’t be truer. It’s easy to get into a habit of reflexively delegating, which can result in constantly giving important projects to the same people. Inequitable delegation leads to overlooking and overbooking talent.
On the other hand, inclusive leaders bring rigorous intentionality to matching people with projects. They start by identifying the skills, experience and motivations necessary for an assignment and then find a team member who fits. Often, this process leads to a surprising diversity of options. By delegating to people who bring unique perspectives and expertise to the table, not only do inclusive leaders increase team engagement, they uncover new methods, ideas and best practices that would have otherwise remained hidden.
Give honest feedback and coaching for growth. It is well-documented that women and people of historically excluded racial and ethnic backgrounds receive less actionable and less useful feedback and coaching opportunities compared with counterparts in the majority. This is because leaders tend to be uncomfortable giving feedback for improvement, especially to people who are different from themselves.
But there are a few things leaders can do to make sure they’re providing honest feedback and coaching. They should make sure to clarify and check for understanding. Often, leaders think of coaching as telling someone how to solve their problem. But often, they’ve misidentified the problem or the reason why the person may be struggling with the concept.
Next, they need to understand how to not only show empathy, but also share their own perspective. Many leaders aren’t comfortable with self-disclosure, but these are moments where they connect by sharing their own stories, and that can go a long way to bridging the connection between people. Finally, leaders need to show that they believe in the person’s abilities to thrive through even the most difficult challenges.
Resolve conflict fairly. Diversity, almost by definition, breeds conflict. People see the world through the lenses of their lived experiences. So, in a group of people with diverse experiences, they’re likely to see things differently from one another. This is great if you know how to deal with clashing perspectives. Unfortunately, leaders tend to avoid conflict, and when they can’t avoid it, they tend to side with people like themselves or encourage mentees to overlook issues by suggesting that perhaps the offending person “didn’t mean it.”
Meanwhile, inclusive leaders create space for healthy conflict by setting expectations that disagreements are welcomed and modeling respectful dissent. In cases where conflicts among team members do need to be escalated to conflict-resolution status, leaders support their team members by helping them see their role in the conflict as well as the benefits of resolving it. They ask powerful questions to uncover solutions, encourage empathy and build team members’ confidence in their ability to find common ground.
Leaders are organizations’ greatest avenue to creating the cultural change needed to foster a psychologically safe environment of inclusion. They can empower those in their immediate circle of influence, unleashing the potential of their team. By doing this, leaders serve as a positive model, setting explicit and unspoken expectations for similar behavior.
It’s important to remember that inclusive leadership is not a different or separate type of leadership. Great leadership is inclusive leadership.
Inclusive behavior sends positive shockwaves throughout an organization, and a handful of inclusive leaders can lead to a grassroots revolution.
