What change can I expect from inclusive leadership training?

As a leader, our day-to-day actions play a big part in determining how included others feel, but we don’t always recognise these key moments or understand the real-world impact that they have. It’s also the case that we are well-intentioned but don’t know what ‘being inclusive’ looks like in practice, and we may inadvertently be doing things that make people on our team feel under-valued or excluded.

Inclusive leadership has long been recognised as key to improving team performance. Research by the Harvard Business Review found that teams with inclusive leaders are 17% more likely to report that they are high performing, with 29% more likely to report collaborative behaviour. The study also found that inclusive leadership helped to reduce workplace absenteeism, with a 10% improvement in perceptions of inclusivity leading to an increase in work attendance by almost 1 day a year per employee.

Inclusive leader training enables us to realise our impact and know what actions we can take to be more inclusive of those around us, and these changes in turn act as the catalyst for change across our entire team.

Research shows that insight is key to getting behaviour change. The more insight we have into our own behaviours, the better able we are to understand what we’re getting right and what we need to work harder on. Becoming an inclusive leader brings with it a host of benefits for both leaders and their wider teams, but it all comes down to learning from these insights, trying out new behaviours, being ready to admit when we get things wrong and – very importantly – accepting feedback on how we’re doing.

Every leader who completes our Inclusive Leadership training programme receives personalised feedback highlighting their inclusion strengths and development areas. Based on this feedback, they then receive a tailored action plan with exercises to help them build the skills they need to be more inclusive and specific actions they can practise.

Leaders learn how to create an inclusive culture, where people feel safe to be themselves and speak up and act without fearing negative consequences for their reputation or how they are perceived. They become more aware of their biases and how they impact their behaviour, helping them to make fairer and more sustainable decisions. Crucially, too, they learn how to build better professional relationships in order to build trust and nurture diverse talent across their teams.

Our Inclusive Leader programme prompts leaders to start with small changes – a tweak to how they begin a meeting, for example, or changing how they listen to colleagues – and helps them to build on these as they go, establishing new behavioural habits that over time become second nature. We also give them the tools to measure the impact of their inclusive actions on those around them so they can see first-hand the difference they are making.

Day-to-day interactions become inclusion opportunities

As they become more inclusive, leaders start to see their day-to-day interactions and decisions through a diversity, equity and inclusion lens. The weekly team meeting becomes an opportunity to empower new colleagues, for example, or to strengthen team ties. One-to-one meetings become an opportunity to build psychological safety or to provide some informal mentoring, and a new project becomes a chance for someone from an under-represented group to hone their skills and raise their profile.

Inclusive leadership skills don’t just stop at the office door. Something that we often see is that leaders experience personal growth as they become more self-aware and open to new ideas and different perspectives, which can have a transformative effect that extends far beyond the workplace. The changes that occur in teams with an inclusive leader are wide-ranging. As leaders hone their inclusive behaviours, they can expect to see:

When leaders have a deeper understanding of bias, stereotypes and systemic inequalities, they create a more inclusive culture with zero tolerance for bullying and exclusion and one in which people feel included and valued and able to be their authentic selves at work – which in turn leads to higher performance and levels of satisfaction and wellbeing. People are also better able to spot exclusive behaviour and are prepared to intervene when they see it, and are more likely to engage in allyship behaviours.

Team members know they can speak up and ask questions, make suggestions or express concerns without the fear of negative repercussions – something known as psychological safety. This in turn leads to increased innovation, enhanced collaboration, more effective conflict resolution, better problem solving and an enhanced ability to spot risks and opportunities. If leaders are able to leverage the diverse experiences and perspectives of the whole team, they will be better able to solve complex problems and find creative, innovative solutions to the challenges they encounter.

Inclusive leadership helps to reduce the likelihood of ‘quiet quitting’, where people put in the bare minimum effort in order to stay in their jobs but don’t go the extra mile for their employer. If leaders know how to make their people feel valued and appreciated, then there’s a far greater likelihood of them putting in discretionary effort – going above and beyond the requirements of the job and making an extra effort to help and support others – meaning that team performance will go up as a result.

Being able to build trust, communicate clearly and empathise with others, as well as developing skills such as active listening and cultural competence, makes for better, relationships and consequently for better collaboration and cooperation.

Diverse teams with an inclusive culture are more likely to adapt successfully to change, learn from failures and bounce back from setbacks. There is also less likely to be a culture of blame when things go wrong and people will be more ready to take accountability for their own mistakes and learn from the experience.

We know that small inclusive behaviours, repeated consistently, can have a huge cumulative impact on a working culture. Colleagues benefit in the moment and each time the behaviour is repeated. Other people then copy those behaviours with their own teams and the cycle continues, and inclusive behaviour then becomes self-reinforcing.

Inclusive leaders have the power to transform the culture of a workplace and ensure that everyone has the chance to reach their potential. Get in touch today to find out how Inclusive Leadership training from Kandola+ can help you to nurture your next generation of inclusive leaders.