“INCLUSIVE LEADERS BUILD INCLUSIVE HOUSES WHERE ALL FEEL AT HOME: A PRACTICAL GUIDE”

Diversity and inclusion is one of the most talked about topics in business the last few years. Not only because it is the right thing to do from a human perspective, but also because it creates economic capital ànd social capital. And that social capital is priceless for attracting and retaining talent, as well as for attracting and retaining customers…

In 2018 McKinsey stated already in “Delivery through diversity” that companies with inclusive leadership outperform their peers with 35% in terms of financial results. According to the CEPC whitepaper “Diversity & Inclusion in Corporate Social Engagement”, diverse and inclusive organisations are 70% more likely than their peers to capture new markets. And research by BetterUp indicates that teams with highly inclusive leaders have direct reports with 150% greater belonging, 140% greater perceived organizational support, 90% higher team innovation, 50% higher team performance, 140% higher team engagement, and 54% lower turnover intention.

So, the data is there. And still there are many companies struggling to get started. How comes? Well, diversity is easy to measure by simply counting the variety of people you have in your organisation, and most companies have made good progress in that area. Inclusion is a tougher nut to crack though. It is more difficult to implement and it is more difficult to measure…

Deloitte states there are 6 key characteristics of inclusive leadership (the 6 C’s): cultural intelligence, cognisance of bias, curiosity about the other, courage and humility, effective collaboration, and last but not least visible commitment.

But how do you turn those characteristics into action? Let me share 6 practical steps to help you, and show you how you can make your organisation an inclusive house where all feel at home.

STEP 1: DEFINE WHAT INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP MEANS WITHIN YOUR ORGANISATION

Make it part of your yearly strategic exercise and, within there, embrace the evolving opportunities and risks of cultural diversity

There is a Muslim proverb saying that a lot of flowers make a bouquet, but it still has different flowers… Let me explain with an example of one of my previous roles. We had a vacancy for a team leader in a blue collar environment in Belgium. The best candidate for the job was a woman, but in the team she would lead there were some men who, for a number of religious and cultural reasons, refused to work for a female leader…

We didn’t have a clear diversity & inclusion policy at that time, so we had to handle this conflict in values on the spot. We -rightly- decided to give the job to the best candidate, but we didn’t anticipate enough the need to support the team in accepting a woman as a leader and to coach her to handle the team’s sensitivities.

It worked out fine, both for the new team leader as for her team. But it showed us that inclusive leadership sometimes generates conflict, that we have to try to understand where certain sensitivities come from, that we should support our people to handle those sensitivities, but also that we should create a clear definition of what inclusive leadership means in our organisation.

Each person views business challenges and the world differently, dependent upon their culture. The risk is though what Karel Popper called ‘the paradox of tolerance’, that we are so tolerant for every individuals’ sensitivities, for every intolerance, that the intolerants define our environment and that we are completely stuck… So when focusing on inclusion you need to respect the value of the different cultural frames without necessarily copying it. You should be unafraid to cross cultures, while recognising the impact your own culture has on interactions. You need to be “culturally intelligent” (C1).

And just like you review your strategy and your values once in a while, it is important to review your definition of inclusive leadership. Inclusive leadership is a learning process, not a project, and it should be integrated in your daily business operations.

STEP 2: SUPPORT YOUR TEAMS IN TRULY GETTING TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER AND ONESELF

Improve their interactions and collaborations by organising trainings on personality typing (MBTI, Insights,…) and on understanding, recognising and addressing unconscious bias

An inclusive work environment is about making human relations work at their best. In order to make it happen, it is important to know oneself and to know the other(s). MBTI and/or Insights Discovery are great models for personal and team development, but these instruments are missing out on one important element of inclusive leadership: your and others unconscious bias. Most of us handle and cope with group dynamics intuitively, while that might not always be the best way.

There are many types of unconscious bias, but the most important ones are:

1. Affinity bias

Affinity bias leads us to favour people who we feel we have a connection or similarity to, in summary ‘people like us’. This means people with a different gender, colour, age, religion, etc might suffer from this bias.

2. Halo effect

The Halo Effect occurs when we know or perceive one great thing about a person, and we allow this to colour our opinions of everything else about that person. This is often an issue when promoting people; we should not promote people to repeat something they did great in the past, we should promote them for their potential to shape the future.

3. Horns effects

The Horns Effect is the direct opposite of the Halo effect, and occurs when our perception of someone is influenced by one negative trait. This can be someone’s behavior or a specific action, but also something which is totally unrelated to a person’s professional qualities, like the way someone dresses or someone’s weight.

4. Attribution bias

Attribution bias affects how we assess other people and their achievements. For one or another reason we are sometimes more likely to consider the achievements of others as a result of luck or chance; and their failings as a result of their personality or behaviour. When it comes to assessing ourselves however, we often think the opposite is true...

5. Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information that aligns with our preconceived opinions. We subconsciously look for evidence to back up our own opinions. We want to believe we are right, and that we have made the correct assessment of someone.

Being aware of these various biases (“cognisance of bias” – C2) can help you counter their influence over you, and aid in more sound decision making during hiring and promotion. It can turn unconscious bias into conscious behaviour, not only for you as a leader but also for your team members. Training your team members on unconscious bias is as important as training yourself. Inclusive leadership is a dialogue, not a keynote speech. When you lead, your real job is to create more (inclusive) leaders, not more followers.

STEP 3: CONNECT THROUGH STORYTELLING

Explore the different layers of your authentic self to adapt your story to your audience, individual or group, in order to reach them at their heart and make them feel safe. Be humble enough to value a diversity in opinions and to lay out a problem, but also brave enough to courageously lead the change

We tend to think we are doing a good job when we are treating people like we would like to be treated… This is definitely a good start, but with a personality mapping of yourself and your team you will for sure notice that besides everything we have in common there will always be differences, especially in the appreciation of the timing and the intensity of certain behaviours. Simon Sinek rightly said that you need to treat the other like ‘they’ want to be treated, not like ‘you’ want to be treated…

I like the analogy that diversity is inviting people to the party, whilst inclusion is being asked to dance. But don’t force people to dance. Make sure they feel comfortable and let them decide if, and when, they want to dance.

Between forcing and inviting lies persuasion though. Your role as a leader is to try to persuade your team members, taking into account who they are... In order to do so Aristotle’s Persuasion Triangle is a valuable model. It supports you to take into account three fundamental angles: your Ethos, your Pathos and your Logos (figure 1). Ethos is about who you are, your character and your credibility. Logos is about how you bring your message, and looks for consistency and clarity. Pathos is where the connection with the other is made and where you reach emotional impact with your story.

Figure 1: Aristotle’s Triangle of Persuasion

When connecting with a group of people (e.g. when giving a presentation) your main role is to ‘feel’ the current emotional state of the audience, to determine the target emotional state you want to elicit from the audience and to find stories to bridge that gap.

When connecting with an individual your main challenge is to explore your right level of em-pathos -being sufficiently empathic- and adapting your story to the other’s current state of mind. Be aware not to fall in the trap of being too sympathic (sym-pathos), and thus losing your ratio, or, on the other side of the spectrum, remaining apathic (a-pathos), and thus losing your emotional connection.

You can only succeed when showing true “curiosity about the other” (C3), not only curiosity on who they are but also on what they think. An inclusive leader knows that a variety of ideas and experiences allows for different perspectives. Don’t fear them, embrace them. They enable both personal growth and successful organisational growth. You should be willing to keep your mind open to new things while actively seeking out how others see the world differently.

STEP 4: CREATE PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

To support you in your leadership challenges and to help you act with courage and humility

Feeling psychologically safe in a team is the single most discriminating factor for a team to be succesful, and it is your role to take care of that.

According to Google, psychological safety refers to an individual's perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk. In a team with high psychological safety, all team members feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

You as a leader should lead by example, by focusing on the Ethos of Aristotle’s Triangle of Persuasion: your ethics. Your character and your truthfulness will define your credibility and authority. People will only feel psychologically safe when they trust you. And people will only trust you when you act with “courage and humility” (C4), when you dare to show vulnerability. When you speak confidently as if you are right, but also listen carefully as if you are wrong. When you actively seek for a diversity in opinions and challenge the status quo, but also courageously lead the change.

A valuable piece of advice I got when I felt stuck as a leader, was to explain the problem to my team. Often simply laying out the problem would present a solution. Being humble, and daring to be vulnerable makes you a stronger leader.

And if you are still in the construction phase of your team, and you yourself don’t feel psychologically safe yet, you should create a personal advisory board (PAB), a group of people from within and/or outside the organisation to whom you give your trust and receive theirs in return, and who help you navigate through stormy weather.

STEP 5: REMAIN IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT OF YOUR EMOTIONS

Lead consciously, focus on the ‘ask’ to fully enjoy the value of the team, and show your visible commitment to your principles of inclusive leadership

We have tackled Pathos and Ethos from Aristotle’s Persuasion Triangle, but the third angle, Logos, is as fundamental to maximise your impact. Being reasonable, consistent and clear at all times will reinforce your story. The opposite might harm all your good work… And no matter what, you will be confronted on your journey with challenges, with stress situations which will push you very naturally into your intuitive way of (re)acting.

Your personal advisory board will not always be around to help you. So how can you make sure you remain in the driver's seat of your emotions and secure an ongoing “effective collaboration” (C5) within your team?

It is important to find out what works best for you, and build your own toolbox. So I will share with you 5 tips and tricks to play with and build upon.

1. RET

Rational Emotive Thinking (RET) is based on a therapy introduced by Albert Ellis in the 1950s. It's an approach that should help you manage your emotions and thoughts when under pressure or stressed, and thus keep control over your behavior. The objective is that you identify situations or circumstances that trigger irrational behavior, and that you have a ritual ready to rationalise the emotions provoking that behavior. The most known example is to force yourself to count until 10 before reacting (or not reacting, which is also an option (see below)), which has the advantage that you can use it on the spot. But you could also anticipate expected issues by using for example an alternative form of meeting and go for a walk and talk where you are not literally confronting each other but walking side by side looking in the same direction.

2. STOP

When you feel you risk losing control over your emotions, and you prefer not to react on the spot, you can apply another acronym: STOP. This stands for Step back, Think it over, evaluate different Options, and only then Proceed. It is far better to tell the person who is the trigger of your stress that you prefer to come back later on a topic than risking to lose control over the conversation.

3. I + FACT + FEELING

And when you feel that you need to react for whatever reason, and thus you ‘choose’ to react, you can apply a method coming from Haim Omer’s approach ‘New Authority’. You start with ‘I’, you state a fact, you add what feeling this provokes with you, and then you pause, waiting for a reaction from the other. A simple example could be: I notice that you have been late for our last three team meetings; this gives me the feeling that you don’t respect the team and that you put yourself above the team. Pause. Your team member might give a valuable explanation, and then the issue is off the table. Or your team member might indeed not respect the team, and then you know action has to be taken.

4. ASK > TELL

One thing you hàve to apply, and you have to force yourself using, even if it feels uncomfortable for you, is to ‘ask’ instead of ‘tell’.

A proven process for team decision-making is to focus on powerful open questions with an appreciative intention, and then encourage self-reflection within the team. To reinforce this process it is very valuable to provide the team with relevant information beforehand. Some people are good at reacting immediately; others prefer to reflect before reacting. The above equalises the process for all involved, and makes sure you don’t miss out on interesting insights and opinions. Add a formal round table before closing any topics, so all those opinions are expressed and captured, also those of the introverts or the insecure in your team. And finally, you are part of the discussion, but if you want to fully enjoy the wisdom of the team, speak last as a leader.

A second goal for which asking is an incredibly valuable approach is when you want to stimulate continuous improvement within your team (which I think you should). The best way to stimulate continuous improvement is to install a feedback culture. And the best way to do so is to lead by example, and ask for feedback to your team members. Asking for feedback is the single most powerful intervention in a people-centric approach. If done well, you will be surprised how much this will help you and your team grow, and how much appreciative feedback you will receive.

5. “STRONG COFFEE”

And if you don’t get to appreciative feedback, you can always apply a trick I ‘borrow with pride’ from Telenet’s CCO, Benedikte Paulissen. She gave all her team members a card with which they could buy 10 coffees. The only condition was they would use it together with another team member, and they would use that moment together to talk about each others’ strengths. Simple, but very effective. And if you don’t like coffee, I am sure you will find alternatives with the same principle.

STEP 6: COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE

As an overarching step, you should make sure you communicate, invite your teams to communicate, and show your visible commitment to your principles of inclusive leadership.

A final key characteristic of inclusive leadership is to show “visible commitment” (C6) as a leader, because these objectives align with your personal values. Remember that your actions to develop an inclusive leadership culture, or to correct it when things go in a different direction, should be consistent and predictable. Make sure the crucial ones are visible, so other people or newcomers in the team discover more rapidly your authentic self, and immediately know what to expect from you.

As said before, inclusive leadership is a process, and staying on course is hard. Therefor you should celebrate every progress, accept mistakes and learn from it, with the team. And never ever underestimate the importance of communication. Throughout your 6 steps you need to explain your organisation why inclusive leadership is so important, give examples what it means, discuss progress, lead by example by actively listening to input and feedback, and communicate about that. In short: communicate about all kind of initiatives to amplify your story and your organisation's journey.

SUMMARY

When we speak about diversity and inclusion, we tend to focus a lot on the visible elements: gender, colour, etc. Let’s make sure we look beyond that, and pay attention to the invisible elements, elements we will only discover if we truly connect with one another. It will make us better leaders.

Inclusive leadership not only delivers instant economic capital. If done from the heart, it will also deliver you and your company a lot of social capital. And that social capital is priceless for attracting and retaining talent, and for attracting and retaining customers… The ‘need’ for an inclusive leadership culture comes from your people, your staff and your clients, but the ‘lead’ should come from the top, from you.

With this in mind and with the 6-step model, you are now ready to make your organisation an inclusive house, where all feel at home.

Figure 2: Inclusive leaders make their organisations an Inclusive House, where all feel at home

This model works at 3 levels: the organisation (step 1 and 6), the team (step 2, 3 and 4), and the individual (step 2, 4 and 5).

And it touches your 3 key tasks as a leader: to inspire, to enable, and to organise.

Step 1 is your foundation; it starts at the level of the organisation and is embedded in your strategy. Step 2 and 3 are the core of your house, and are enabling your organisation to grow; step 2 happens team by team, step 3 is focusing on the interaction and the engagement between the leader and the team. Step 4 and 5 are your retaining walls, where your individual leaders are supported so they can act and engage in the right way at all times. Step 6 finally is your rooftop, where you keep all the ‘warmth’ in your house, because you bring inspiration, enablement and organisation to life with your communication throughout all the steps.

If you would be triggered by this approach, I will be more than happy to be your architect and your site supervisor.

About the author:

Stefan Lameire is the founder of ACT11 and a Partner at Business Markers, an atypical advice and implementation company, focused on 4 main pillars: actionable strategy, valuable customer, engaged people and executional excellence.

He spent most of his career working in Belgium and abroad in commercial and leadership positions for great companies like Unilever, Clear Channel Outdoor, DPG Media and RTBF.

Those 20+ years in a corporate environment allowed him to develop a broad toolbox, which since then has proven its value when leading the business transformation at Belgian SME Remedus, within his role as a board member of HR-tech start-up Sympl, and as a mentor and advisor for many start-ups at accelerator Birdhouse.

During those years he had many examples of inspiring authentic leadership but he also witnessed toxic leadership and leadership which only focused on diversity and inclusion to avoid negative press. Based on all those experiences, he developed a practical 6-step model to support organisations in building a lasting inclusive leadership culture.