Inclusiveness is THE leadership quality you need to cultivate

Why do organizations lump Diversity in with Inclusion?
Questions that are on my mind today:
Why do organizations lump Diversity in with Inclusion?
Okay, I do understand…. But does it serve an organization to lump them together? I often hear people talk about diversity as the “mix” – that’s casual for counting the who’s and what’s. Diversity is about who’s being hired and promoted and what their backgrounds / characteristics / identities are (disability, gender, ethnicity, etc.). And inclusion is about the how.
How welcoming is the workplace for people who are not from the organization’s (or society’s) dominant group? I see inclusiveness as an art. It’s the music of your workplace and if you’re really inclusive, you can follow that music from everyday encounters into the behaviors and performance reviews. You see, a truly inclusive workplace fully integrates those values in all its norms, rules and systems for reward and advancement.
So, I do understand why organizations lump D&I together. But now it’s time for my big HOWEVER… wouldn’t it make more sense to make Inclusion one of the more important, if not THE most important, skill for Leadership?
Please name one skill that Leaders need more, especially in this day and age:
Communication – well, I’d say inclusiveness is part of the art of communication. You need to communicate your goals clearly and you need to win buy-in. If inclusiveness is front and center in Leadership, you make everyone an insider in your mission.
Motivation – nuff said.
Creativity – We all know that inclusiveness encourages a diverse workforce to be more innovative and studies show, more profitable.
Inclusion, or the more active, inclusiveness is at the heart of being a leader. As a leader, you want to include everyone in your dream, your vision, your strategy and tactics. That can’t happen when people are at the table but they’re not encouraged to share everything they’ve got just because they’re not of the majority group. Let’s do this. This is why I make the films and courses and workshops I do.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Although I’ve turned off comments because of robots on the web, please email me. I’ll continue in another post another day.
More From Our Blog…
Embodying Ethical Leadership
In an age when faith in our institutions—academic, corporate and government—is at an all-time low, it behooves leaders to “do the right thing.” Paraphrasing Charlamagne, “Right action is better than knowledge, but in order to do what is right, we must know what is...
Right Where She Belongs
How Lisette Martinez creates an inclusive culture and a world of opportunity as Jefferson Health’s Executive Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer By Gina Miller The innate desire to belong The year was 1984 in Ypsilanti, Michigan when the world fractured in...
The Accessibility Journey
Accessibility is typically about providing the ability to access a building, a vehicle or a service. In our world of online eLearning courses, accessibility means enabling all learners to engage with a course in the way they need and prefer in order to gain the...
The 21-Day Plan for Disarming Microaggressions Wins Two More Awards
The Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (AIVA) has recognized The 21-Day Plan for Disarming Microaggressions as a 2022 Davey Awards Silver Winner in the category of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The Daveys are an international award competition focused...
New! SunShower Now Offers the Most Modern and Flexible Formats To Meet Your Training Needs
Years ago, in a far-off time, SunShower delivered its training programs on VHS tape. All training rooms had tape players, TVs and projectors. Trainers would carry the training tapes, insert them into the machine and hope they wouldn’t be “eaten.” In those days, the...
Maslow’s Hierarchy and the Scientific Connection Between Belonging and Health
Humans have an innate need to belong. In fact, “love and belonging” are featured prominently in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This central model in psychology asserts that people are motivated by five basic categories of needs, and “belonging” (that is, the need to...
Diversity Is the Lifeblood for All Companies, but Is Diversity Enough?
“It's hard to imagine an economy driven by Latino and Latina growth when leadership at the board level and in the C-suite is far less than 5% Latino and Latina. That gap - between the face of leadership and the face of the economy to come - is a vast strategic issue...
Microaggressions… We have a lot to Learn
To be human is to be flawed, but our struggles have the remarkable potential to transform us. By addressing our mistakes and remaining open to learning, we broaden our understanding, increase our empathy and build our capacity to do better the next time. ...
Cristela Alonzo Reminds You That Your Microaggressions Were Never Okay
“I can’t say anything anymore”. That was the complaint from a participant in an online workshop on microaggressions. We had just watched a montage that weaves together common microaggressions and expressions of confusion and pain among those targeted and bystanders....
Focus on DEIB to Thrive During the “Great Resignation”
The “Great Resignation” continues along its historic path with 47.8 million workers quitting their jobs in 2021, which represented a record-setting average of nearly 4 million each month. As of March 2022, 8.6 million people quit their jobs this year. ...