INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP HAS TO BE SYSTEMIC
In 2020, when the world suddenly woke up to racism, I knew I had to make sure my position on inclusive leadership was richer than just racial awareness or any other protected characteristic. For two good reasons:
My expertise is leadership. I don’t do DEI - no shade, that’s just not what I do.
I can add more value to a business or organisation by equipping them with a set of tools capable of tackling a host of challenges rather than focusing on just one.
My desire is for leaders to be more courageous and less fearful. Through coaching senior leaders, I realised that resistance to behavioural change usually starts with a fear of getting things wrong. The best way to reduce this kind of fear is to equip leaders with tools that:
help them understand the world around them
make informed decisions based on this knowledge;
and then take the best course of action.
The best thing about this approach is that it is systemic. No one person or small cohort is responsible for carrying the weight of this change. So many of the faux pas we have seen by organisations, from meaningless black squares to marketing and product boo-boos, are because the direction of travel is in the hands of one or two heroes or villains rather than something that is systemic. Systems shape the principles and governance and keep leaders at all levels accountable.
Inclusive leadership is a very tough and complex terrain to navigate. It is important to be honest about that as we are all flawed and are all on a learning journey about ourselves, let alone others. That said, I firmly believe that when you get the basics right, you then become more inclusive for your stakeholders because it is in your organisational DNA to be considerate. It doesn’t mean you always get it right, as we all know, but at the very least, it provides checks and balances and accountability to reduce the chances of leaders getting it very wrong.
