Inclusive leadership was the subject of a session at the June 2023 BA Manager Forum led by Laura Barlow. During the session, delegates explored how they could become more supportive, inclusive leaders.

What is Inclusive Leadership?

Being an inclusive leader is about being an equitable leader, understanding other people's experiences and perspectives and appreciating the uniqueness of every individual member of your team. 

Inclusive leaders also understand the value of diversity. Diverse teams are more profitable, happier and innovative which is supported by extensive industry research.

What do People Want from their Workplace?

The latest industry research shows that wellbeing, diversity, inclusivity and feeling valued, flexibility and autonomy are key to what people look for in the workplace. Gen Z and millennials are particularly focussed on seeking out diverse and inclusive workplaces, and the company culture has become as important as the salary and role. 

The Qualities of a Great Leader

A visualisation exercise during the session delved into delegates' memories of leaders they'd enjoyed working for, who appreciated them and helped them to thrive.  The following qualities were highlighted:

• Great leaders trust their team and offer autonomy;
• provide protection;
• value team members, and their input and ideas; 
• create a fun and light-hearted work environment;
• lead by example;
• can admit when they've got things wrong.

How to Create a Supportive, Equitable Team Environment

In groups, delegates discussed how they could create a more supportive and equitable team environment, looking at the 'what' rather than the 'how' when feeding back on performance. 

An example of this is the following scenario: A woman is told by her manager in a performance review that she needs to improve her confidence in order to improve her performance. This feedback is focussing on the 'how' she works rather than the outcome that the leader wants her to achieve. 

To make this feedback more inclusive and of a high quality, the manager should change the focus to the 'what' that they want her to achieve. The manager focussing on the 'what' would say: "It would be great to see you taking ownership of facilitating the workshop and hit the objective of ensuring the process for Project X is documented. Can you come up with a plan for how you want to approach and deliver this?" 

This manager then gives the team member the autonomy to define and facilitate the workshop however they want, but has provided them with outcome that needs to be achieved. 

Equality vs. Equity

Equality means each individual or group is allocated the same resources or opportunities. However, Equity recognises the different circumstances and disadvantages that individuals experience and allocates the resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. 

An example of this would be: Everyone is expected to work the hours of 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, this is providing equality of opportunity. For someone with ADHD, who might not be able to effectively maintain continual focus for those hours during the day, a flexible working pattern may help. Allowing this person to flex the hours or days they work would be providing them with equity of opportunity. 

Key Takeaways and Actions

The groups came away with some amazing positive actions to help make their leadership and teams more inclusive. 

"I'll be removing requirements for a degree from job adverts to make them more inclusive and to attract more people from different socio-economic backgrounds and educations." 

"I am going to take the 'years of experience' requirement off job adverts and start articulating experience through outcomes and achievements, thereby not basing applications on tenure." 

"I am going to reduce the number of requirements I put on a job advert and start using the gender decoder tool to ensure the most diverse selection of candidates apply." 

"I am going to connect with my internal company networks, for example the Muslim and Sikh networks, to understand more about the intersectional experience of individuals and how I can better support those on my team and the wider company." 

"I commit to reviewing the pay of the individuals on my team to ensure there is no gender, race or diversity pay gap." 

"I will read and educate myself to understand the experience of marginalised people, so I am better able to support those on my team." 

If you are interested in developing your leadership skills, you may be interested in AssistKD's course on Team Leadership.

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