THE CORE OF INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP: THE ENABLING TRAITS

OUR RESEARCH ON INCLUSIVE LEADER TRAITS HAS taken us to the land of Of course. Of course inclusive leaders need to be authentic, self-assured, and inquisitive. Of course they are emotionally resilient and flexible. Our research uncovered these traits, and our colleagues, as well as those we asked in surveys and focus groups, confirmed that they make sense (see appendix B, table B-1).

But leaders who exhibit these vital personality characteristics without the actionable behaviors and competencies embodied in the five disciplines will remain as feel-good leaders who failed to lead transformation through diversity (getting the mix in the door), inclusion (ensuring the mix is working well), and equity (ensuring that all have equal access, opportunity, support, and reward). Conversely, leaders who focus only on “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” without cultivating the enabling traits of inclusive leadership through deeper personal work, will be lacking the energy and credibility sources that enable all of the five disciplines.

We have identified eleven enabling traits that reside within the five enabling trait clusters mentioned. As part of the validation process we surveyed talent and diversity and inclusion professionals (see table 1, next page). Next, we explore each cluster, calling out some of their less obvious implications for inclusive leadership.

Table 1. Korn Ferry Validated Traits Associated with Inclusive Leadership

AUTHENTICITY

EXPECTATIONS OF FORTHRIGHTNESS IN RELATIONSHIPS; HUMILITY; FREEDOM FROM ARROGANCE

• ■ Trust

• ■ Humility

The literature on contemporary leadership is replete with research that indicates that authenticity is one of the most valued traits in leaders. Generation X, Millennials, and Gen Z, having grown up in a time without an expectation of personal privacy, are cynical about leaders and institutions because of all that has been exposed about what happens behind closed doors. They expect that the truth about ethical lapses, corporate greed, or government corruption will come out sooner or later.

To create trust, leaders must be transparent about who they are, how they make decisions, and how their thinking may be evolving as it is challenged. This is why we begin inclusive leader work with individuals sharing their personal biographies and cultural identities.

We start out with the (true) assumption that everyone is diverse. Everyone has a unique, irreplicable story, including those in the majority. Of course, each person also needs to have a grasp on what advantages and disadvantages their diversity has provided them with—this is the work of inclusion and equity.

To share and disclose requires humility. While there are indeed leaders who grew up privileged, many have stories of growing up poor or in abusive homes. Some of the executives we have coached in the United States were members of White minorities in Black or Latino communities. Others were Black, Latino, or Asian minorities in White communities. Even those who grew up privileged often have mixed feelings about whether their lack of exposure to diversity has stunted their ability to be inclusive. There are myriad permutations. When leaders begin to be open about their stories and their implications, first to themselves and then by sharing them with others, it begins a process of establishing and deepening trust with those within a team or an organization.

But this kind of openness does not come easily at all, and this is not true just for leaders. Much of the failure to leverage diversity comes from the fact that those in the minority often feel the need to downplay or cover who they are because of a lack of trust in the majority culture. Covering is a term that was first used by sociologist Erving Goffman to describe how people with “known stigmatized identities” consciously choose to “mute” those identities.¹

Sixty-one percent of leaders queried in a Deloitte University survey said they cover at work. This includes people of different races, ethnicities, personalities, physical and cognitive abilities, and sexual orientations. Even 45% of straight White males—a group that historically hasn’t been the subject of diversity and inclusion studies—reported covering.²

This generates a Catch-22: I won’t show who I am because it’s not safe, but I won’t trust you if you don’t show me who you are. Inclusive leaders break this cycle by uncovering their identities and being authentic. When they do, this act of humility and of trusting those around them, is an enabler to the heavy lifting of each of the five disciplines.

EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

CALM AND COMPOSED UNDER STRESS; AWARE OF SELF IN THE MOMENT

• ■ Composure

• ■ Situational self-awareness

Diversity and inclusion can elicit a significant amount of hidden panic among leaders. After all, they often are the cited evidence that an organization is not diverse or inclusive.

In addition, the topics to address are fraught in the social and political discourses of our day, as captured in hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #TimesUp, #NoBanNoWall, #MarchForOurLives, #TakeAKnee, #Dreamers, #LoveIsLove, or #ÉCoisaDePreto (#It’sABlackThing, which was to laud the achievements of Afro-Brazilians). Each of these draws not only fervent supporters who retweet but also fierce opponents who troll. With the power of social media to make any misstatement or action go viral, many leaders are reluctant to go near these trending diversity topics within their organizations.

For this reason, the trait of emotional resilience is a must-have for leaders who seek to be inclusive. But this work is not for the faint of heart. Across countries, industries, and functions, leaders scored low on this enabling trait cluster in our global inclusive leadership analysis. That is because one of the hardest things about diversity is adapting to unfamiliar people and situations and keeping it together in the midst of the complexities of differences.

As inclusive leaders make declarations of the vitalness of diversity and inclusion to the organization, hopes will be raised, but backlash also will ensue. Voices that have long been covered and repressed will begin to be heard; they will begin to challenge and question more openly (as they should). The organization and its leaders will need to listen and be ready to respond.

In this environment, composure—the ability to remain calm and in control in the midst of stress and challenge—is vital. Employees understand that the issues are fraught. All sides, for the most part, seek out and value the leaders who can keep it together as the tugs and pulls take place.

Inclusive leaders also require situational self-awareness to tune in to the context in which they are about to speak or make a decision. But the contexts they need to be aware of are not just the ones within organizational boundaries; they also need to be tuned in to what is going on in the world at large and how it is affecting their employees. (See chapter 12 for more on managing when the outside comes inside.)

SELF-ASSURANCE

BELIEVES IN OWN CAPABILITIES; HAS POSITIVE EXPECTATIONS FOR THE FUTURE

• ■ Confidence

• ■ Optimism

We all know it’s difficult for people to change in their personal lives, and this is no less true of people within organizations. When favored or legacy behaviors have been institutionalized through processes, structure, policies, and requirements, it becomes clear how audacious a declaration to become more diverse and inclusive really is.

Consider the confidence and optimism all pioneers exhibit in the face of uncertainty and long odds. Examples include NASA, in its quest to get a man on the moon; the Polynesians who embarked on rafts to see where the massive Pacific Ocean currents took them, and landed in South America; Polish-French physicist and chemist Marie Curie, who remains the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two different scientific fields; or gymnast Simone Biles, who performed the first-ever triple double tumbling pass. None of these achievements would have been possible without the people involved possessing the self-assurance that they could be done.

Inclusive leaders also require this trait for the very hard, perilous, and long-haul work of diversity and inclusion. Employees may be cynical about the prospect of change, but they also are receptive to those who charge forward with the confidence and optimism to make it happen anyway.

INQUISITIVENESS

SEEKS UNDERSTANDING AND SENSE-MAKING; WANTS TO KNOW HOW OTHERS THINK AND FEEL

• ■ Openness to differences

• ■ Curiosity

• ■ Empathy

Inquisitiveness is the heart and soul of the enabling trait composites. It’s this inquisitive demeanor that pries things wide open when it comes to unleashing the power of diversity in an inclusive way. For all the talk about how organizations need differences for all sorts of compelling reasons, the propulsion inherent in this diversity often remains bottled up—like the fuel in a rocket that sits ready to be ignited and to cause liftoff but never does.

The only way to ignite diversity and all the power it brings is to tap into it, explore it, and understand it through inquisitiveness.

Paradoxically, one of the greatest inhibitors to diversity and inclusion is an early concept of D&I that required the opposite of inquisitiveness: blindness to differences. Among its most hallowed manifestations is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s wish that his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” There is no denying the healing power this approach has had in breaking down the judgments against differences, which often are even codified into law and training solutions. But this uplifting message of unity could potentially make us noninclusive, because this assumption of similarity can mask ways in which we are different and thus can cause us to ignore each individual’s diverse life experiences.

Lack of curiosity and openness to differences can lead to a form of bias, an assumption that everyone is the same. The result can be the dismissal or minimization of other people’s feelings, ways of thinking, and experiences.³

Furthermore, when openness is limited to just an embrace of those who are different, without an accompanying empathy for their different experiences, people may be reticent to bring their whole selves to work, as they have been invited to do. It negates the very benefits we seek out in attracting greater diversity.

This is the moment where many start to bump into cognitive dissonance. If we call out differences this way—even in the constructive spirit in which it’s meant—what about unity? Does this not create a separation, the very antithesis of what we are after in inclusion? Therein lies the inclusion paradox: in order to achieve inclusion, rather than just focusing on what we have in common, we need to proactively surface our differences as well.⁴

The only way to navigate this paradox and be truly inclusive is to be inquisitive through an openness to the implications of people’s differences, curiosity about who they are and the choices they have made about individual and group identity, and empathy that not only seeks to understand but honors and respects the choices people have made about who they say they are.

A study of inclusive leadership by Catalyst shows that people want both unity with others and to have their differences recognized. As the research authors, Jeanine Prime and Elizabeth R. Salib, explain, perceiving similarities with coworkers engendered a feeling of belongingness, while perceiving differences led to feelings of uniqueness. Across the six different countries studied (Australia, China, Germany, India, Mexico, and the United States), these perceptions were strong predictors of inclusion. Employee feelings of uniqueness and belonging contributed, on average, more than 20% to employees’ perceptions of inclusion. Meanwhile, uniqueness accounted for 18% to 24% of an employee’s perception of inclusion, and belonging accounted for 27% to 35%.⁵

FLEXIBILITY

COMFORTABLE WHEN THE PATH FORWARD IS NOT CLEAR

• ■ Tolerance of ambiguity

• ■ Adaptability

Certainty can be comforting. But when it comes to organizations made up of a diversity of humans, there are way too many situational variables, way too much mystery about human emotions and motivations, and way too many unknowns about what has shaped people’s world-views to be certain about the best way to achieve greater D&I.

Inclusive leaders understand that there is no one answer or set of practices that will achieve their goal of diversity and inclusion and unleash the power of all of us. That is because D&I is always about testing and questioning the status quo. (If the status quo were already equitable, there would not be any need for diversity and inclusion interventions.) This means that inclusive leaders must be adept at moving from a place of organizational and individual certainty to one of exceptional flexibility. They must have a tolerance for ambiguity, because the contexts in which they find themselves are not always clear and we really don’t know what the future holds. They must demonstrate adaptability to situations in which the information is always incomplete and vital voices often are missing from the room.

In martial arts, a stiff stance sets one up for an easy takedown. So, too, with leading inclusively. Instead, assume a flexible crouch and you will have the greatest set of options to counter the next strike of injustice, inequity, and exclusion.

TRAITS AND DISCIPLINES GO HAND IN HAND

Leaders who exhibit the vital personality traits of authenticity, emotional resilience, self-assurance, inquisitiveness, and flexibility are critical to D&I efforts. But without the actionable behaviors embodied in the five disciplines, these leaders will fall short in achieving D&I transformation. In part 1, we will explore the five disciplines that operationalize inclusive leadership and unleash the power of us all.

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