Leading Inclusively: What Really Makes a Difference?

By Graham Sparks, MARC Facilitator at Catalyst & Former Chief Diversity Officer at Shell

The new year marks an anniversary for me—10 years of rich association with Catalyst, initially in a corporate DEI role and for the past four years as a MARC facilitator. I’ve learnt a lot during this time, working across cultures and geographies from Sydney to Cairo, from Aberdeen to Zurich. Each MARC event has had its own stories, its own characters, and its?own memories.

Here are?some of my learnings.

Accountability & Ownership

Accountability and ownership are key attributes in the?Catalyst model of inclusive leadership. In my corporate days, accountability and ownership were driven by plans, scorecards, RACI matrices, and the much-repeated mantra: "What gets measured gets done.” I always found this rather simplistic, and my experiences in MARC have helped me understand that in reality, it’s “What we?commit to?gets done.” That’s why as facilitators, we ask MARC participants not to jump right into making well-intended lists of actions and instead to reflect first on their personal motivations around gender equity.

Courage & Humility

At MARC, we also speak a lot about courage and humility. These attributes, which are also predictors of an inclusive workplace, describe a willingness to be less than perfect, to be open and to be vulnerable. It’s about individual leaders telling stories about personal experiences of discrimination and not relying on a convenient script provided by their Human Resources or Communications teams. Courage and humility speak to authenticity, which can’t be mimicked.

Personal Commitment in the Real World

Let me illustrate these two learnings with a recent experience working in Kenya. For the past 10 years I have worked closely with?Workplace Pride, a Dutch based non-profit dedicated to improving workplace inclusion for LGBTQI+ people. Recently, I co-facilitated a roundtable event in Nairobi, which brought together business leaders with civil society organizations representing the local LGBTQI+ community. This event, hosted by the embassy of the Netherlands, aimed to raise awareness, start collaborative conversations, and secure a commitment to continue future dialogue about LGBTQI+ inclusion. All of this took place in a country where social and cultural norms mean that identifying as LGBTQI+ carries stigma and personal risk (not to mention a lack of legal protection from discrimination).

What mattered in this forum was business and civil society leaders working together to create a safe space for discussion, demonstrating this through words and actions in the moment. We heard thoughtful stories of lived experience, what it’s like to survive discrimination, and how those with privilege can act as allies and advocates. Telling these stories required courage, humility, and a willingness to be vulnerable. Listening to these stories required curiosity and an awareness of how personal bias may influence one’s understanding.

Plans, outcomes, and clear accountability would doubtless follow, but it was the level of passion and personal commitment to change which was critical in igniting and sustaining this work.