Ally Action Project Week 7: Inclusive Leadership

As we look inward this week, we highlighted how inclusive leadership benefits the organization, and we can use this strategy anywhere we are in positions of leadership. Inclusive leaders use diverse talent to drive performance towards a shared vision. Repeated studies show the increase in productivity and reduced risk by leveraging a diverse perspective. Having many different experiences and perspectives helps to arrive at conclusions with more depth because you already have representation from various cultural, gender, and racial groups. If the group is diverse, but not inclusive, the members may not feel safe to provide their most honest feedback. Making your team inclusive starts with the leader showing a visible commitment, humility, awareness of bias, curiosity about others, cultural intelligence, and instigating effective collaboration.

Based on a Deloitte study, teams with inclusive leaders polled as 17% more high performing, make 20% more high-quality decisions, and behave 29% more collaboratively. These results are magnified at a company level, and organizations with inclusive cultures are 8x more likely to achieve better business outcomes, 6x more likely to be innovative, 3x more likely to be high performing, and 2x more likely to meet or exceed financial targets.

An inclusive culture begins with an inclusive leader, so surround yourself with a diverse staff via equality-based hiring, give equal time to all meeting attendees, and use a broad range of pronouns when using metaphors and addressing an audience. Ask for and accept honest feedback, and openly describe your vision of an inclusive environment that you want to achieve. Earning trust takes time, but the actions that you will display will show your team that you are serious about building something, and not just providing lip service. If you would like more formal trainings and inclusion specific forums to learn more, engage with companies who are specifically helping to make workplaces better, like Inclusion Inc. We can all strive to be inclusive leaders and create a safe space for equality while being an ally to underrepresented groups.