From our “Keys to Successful Inclusive Leadership, No Matter your Position” episode with Audrey Daniels
How unfortunate to see a lot of times, innovative people leaving just because they’re not being heard or taken seriously. Employers are losing out on amazing individuals. Usually, senior leadership or the owner presidents really don’t know what’s really going on when it comes to that.
So it’s really up to us. No matter your leadership title, no matter what leader you are. Leader of a team, leader of yourself that we can do to provide that inclusive and culture but also have the courage to stand up and talk about it when others aren’t
What are some of the ways that someone can be a leader without a title or someone with the leadership title creates inclusive leadership?
- Have courage
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- We have to be mindful of ourselves and of other people. Be mindful of them in a way of interactions. Having that courage to challenge mindsets and practices stifle diversity
- Provide honest feedback
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- Communicate honesty and have that empathy to understand other people’s feelings at times. Seek understanding, have empathy and be inclusive.
- Have resilience
It’s about sprinting back from adversity. It’s about knowing failure is a part of what we’re gonna do. Being resilient enough to overcome adversity, not ignore it but know that it’s there and really get in tune to that. Embrace it so that you can create that inclusion atmosphere.
Resilience and Inclusivity
If problems arise, miscommunication or your feelings are hurt by others, be courageous enough to be open-minded. You have to be resilient to bounce back from that and continue moving forward in a positive way with that person.
It’s about being human. That’s okay for you to have that feeling, it’s okay for that to happen because we’re all growing from this and so on. It’s about working together to know that we may not identify with the same concept and things, but at the end of the day we were hired to do a job and we’re hired to get those results.
So how can we overcome this?
Connect to get to the results that we need and the only way we can do that is when we have that courage, empathy and resilience to push through anything that comes.
When we want to implement things like inclusion, belonging and diversity, it needs to be actually a project not a meeting. It’s a project with people having duties in that with people, your team, allowing them to get immersed in what that looks like.
Inclusion is so different for every group. It’s so general. So it would be first to understand what inclusion means to your team, what inclusion means to you and what inclusion means all together connected. Write down those things that you all as a team would like to see and then put those as projects.
The mind is something that, as we know, can take a life of its own. yeah we have to be patient with people and ourselves.
In the very fabric of your policies and procedures, include things that incite inclusiveness, belonging, policies and procedures in our practices. and that may include a policy about how we treat each other.
When it comes to diversity, have the courage and do it with sincerity. Have courage in your why. If you know that you’re inclusive, that you’re doing what you can, just be a great human being. Forget all the other stuff from your why and move forward. Go through that adversity because that’s the only way.
So we’re dealing with a lot of things. Slow down just a little bit so you can speed up for success.
The best way is to have the courage to challenge mindsets that stifle diversity. No matter your position, we all have the authority to drive inclusion.
