Leading Inclusively

Jun 19

Over the last couple of weeks, I did a short research project on diversity and inclusion. The core question: what should leaders actually do about it? This post explores that question.

Of course, there are many enterprise-wide steps that organizations can take to improve. But this post isn’t about those interventions. Rather, it’s about what everyone else can do in their individual leadership practice.

And the reason I focus on that is because there was one big takeaway from my research: organizations need both diversity and inclusion to make a difference, and those start with the actions that leaders take every day.

“Hiring diverse talent isn’t enough—it’s the experience they have in the workplace that shapes whether they remain and thrive.”

That’s a quote from McKinsey & Company’s report Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters. Dr. Melissa Thomas-Hunt, Airbnb’s head of global diversity and belonging, takes this further:

“Though culture change is hard, and the path to it seems murky, we do know that managers are the front line. They’re the ones with the power to make employees feel safe enough to contribute their knowledge and perspectives.”

So if day-to-day leadership is critical to achieve diversity and inclusion goals, where should leaders start?

First, start with yourself.

In an article in Harvard Business Review, Courtney L. McCluney and her co-authors suggest that the extent to which the leader includes himself or herself affects whether others feel comfortable. They write: “By bringing more of yourself to the table, you may encourage others to do the same.”

This doesn’t mean you have to bear your soul and all of your vulnerabilities. But it may mean simply sharing when you’re having a bad day or when your kids are frustrating. It may mean telling people that the reason you’ll be out of the office is to take care of kids or because you need a mental health day or because you serve on a community board. Those actions signal to others that (a) you’re a human being and (b) it’s fine for them to do the same.

It takes courage to be more open with those around you, but it may also yield a greater sense of authenticity and deeper relationships, which can benefit your leadership practice, irrespective of the impact on others.

...but understand that it will take time to build an inclusive culture and that some will hesitate.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett and her research collaborators shows that minority executives often hide their volunteer experience because they’re uncomfortable talking about it at work. McCluney cites others’ research that suggest that black people downplay aspects of their personality where “negative stereotypes of black people run counter to what are considered ‘appropriate’ behaviors and norms for a specific environment.”

Building an inclusive culture may take time. People from marginalized groups may start from a place of skepticism about how much they can share without being judged by others. And that may be a grounded assessment based on what they’ve experienced in the past.

As the leader, you can’t fix that. But what you can do is consistently send the signal that you welcome everyone and all parts of their identity.

Proactively create space for sharing

Beyond intention, leaders must proactively create the space in their team for team members to build relationships with each other. And that isn’t about periodic team-building events; it’s building the day-to-day culture and interactions between team members.

Inclusion starts with team members feeling comfortable with each other as human beings. Building relationships is what helps us have each others’ backs. It’s often why when someone makes a mistake, we give feedback and support rather than just letting it drop. It’s what enables us to give grace when someone is having a bad day. And it’s what helps us when there is conflict—related to one’s identity or otherwise—communicate effectively.

As leaders—the ones setting the team routines—we have a big impact on whether these relationships flourish. It’s about asking in 1:1 meetings how team members are doing, not just how the work is going. It’s about how we allow time for someone sharing a great story from their weekend before “getting down to the agenda.” And it’s about how we infuse that space with genuine interest in the lives of teammates.

Create a culture of feedback, and ask for it constantly

Giving feedback to someone else is an act of courage. It assumes that we have standing to give it. It assumes that the other person will receive the feedback with grace and believe that we have their best interest in mind.

As leaders, we know we have an obligation to give feedback, but it takes work to create a culture in which team members are comfortable providing it to one another and to the leader.

In her book Radical Candor, Kim Soctt recommends starting this work with yourself. “My advice is to start by explaining the idea and then asking people to be Radically Candid with you. Start by getting feedback, in other words, not by dishing it out.” And by modeling good behavior—saying thanks, receiving without defensiveness—you can set the tone.

What makes this an inclusion is the act of asking for the feedback in the first place. This is especially true when your questions indicate that you authentically care about someone's perspective and their experience. It’s not just about asking, How can I perform better? It’s asking:

What do you think we should do?
What’s one thing I could do to make your life easier?
What, in your opinion, could we change about how the team operates to improve things?

Of course, you need to act upon the feedback!

Start with the identity we all share

While the conversation about inclusion often focuses on identities like race, gender, age, and sexual orientation, I think the best place to start as a leader is with the identity we all share in the workplace: professional.

At a basic level, no matter our background, we all want to feel welcome, heard, and respected at work. There’s almost no way to make you, black engineer or gay lawyer or woman designer, feel fully included if I’m not leveraging your perspective as a engineer, lawyer, or designer.

And there’s no way someone will say, “I feel included based on how my company operates, but my boss never asks for my opinion.”

Put another way: the work itself needs to be inclusive.

Making the work inclusive does not mean managing by consensus. Rather, it’s about how a leader:

Invites people to the problem solving table, giving them an opportunity to be heard;
Structures meetings to maximize the contribution of everyone;
Proactively solicits the perspective of others (“What do you think we should do?); and
Gives team members opportunities and space to put their professional talents to work.

Those are the ways that people are literally included in the work.

A final thought

One thing you may have noticed is that while the topic of this post is inclusion, it doesn’t start with identity. The reason why is that, as a practical matter, it’s awfully hard to have a leadership strategy that starts there.

For one, we’re all a bundle of multiple identities. This is the concept of intersectionality. As a leader, there’s no way for me to put you into one category and then focus solely on how you fit in the team based on that categorization. Instead, to help you feel included, I need to understand your individual experience and outlook.

This isn’t to say that cultural competence isn’t helpful. Understanding the history of our country and how the average experiences of people from different backgrounds differ can surely help you navigate the world. So yes, it is important to read those books about bias and anti-racism.

But what you won’t get from that work is the exact experience of the specific person on your team whom you want to feel included. To do that well means being curious and asking them about their unique experience. And really, that’s not that hard.

At the end of the day, inclusive leadership is mostly about being a quality human being and building human-to-human relationships with those with whom we work.

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