I’ve been thinking about leadership for wicked problems for a while and a recent conversation with a lovely ex-colleague had me reflecting on this topic again. We got talking about our disappointment in how much of the leadership training we’d each experienced over the years did not frame inclusion as a central concern. That set me thinking about the lessons I’ve learned about inclusive leadership while leading transformation work and teams and also reading about and researching inclusion. Here’s a quick set of starter suggestions, get in touch if you’d like to dig deeper or you think of something to add to my list.

• If I had 5 minutes when I’m processing emails or working through social media I would remind myself to pause for longer on posts or email from people from groups that are minoritised in my area of work. That’s who I can learn most from. Too often minoritised groups don’t get a foot in the door because people in power default to others who feel familiar.
• If I had 30 minutes I’d think about who is tacitly considered an ideal colleague or employee and who is seen as ‘difficult’. Maybe I’m favouring colleagues who are nice, obliging, calm and efficient at giving me what I want? If so, am I excluding colleagues who are: justifiably angry about exclusion; from a culture where different ways of being are valued; expressing the stress of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world …
• If I had an hour to revisit my presentations and writing I’d check I’m modelling the good basics that help give the message that inclusion matters to me. If I don’t get that right no-one is going to feel confident telling my about other exclusions. Wear the microphone, check the subtitles, add the alt-text, use inclusive fonts, check the contrast …
• If I was having the informal conversations that build teams and priorities for new projects I’d ask who wasn’t in the room. Often minoritised groups get invited in when the agenda and the power have already been established.
• If I was setting strategic priorities I’d make sure I wasn’t getting distracted by what seemed most urgent right now (e.g. Artificial Intelligence and assessment) and dropping yet-again the persistent inequalities (in my area I’ve been taking about inclusion for Disabled students for 30 years and so much has still not changed!)
• If I was designing assessments or recruitment tasks I’d think about whose knowledge is included and whose habits of communication were being privileged.
• If I felt I didn’t have time just now to reflect on inclusion I’d remind myself how priviledged I must be to have that possiblity. If you are Disabled, or Black, or living in poverty in the UK you don’t have a choice about facing exclusion every day.
• If I felt I didn’t have emotional bandwidth to deal with inclusion I’d think about how minoritised colleagues have to find that extra energy every day, whether they want to or not.
• If I had a few hours or days I’d look at:
  • statistics from my organisation: Who is succeeding, who is missing?
  • the messages given by the images in my organisations’ online presence.
  • who could I invite soon to give deeper insights into an inclusion topic.
  • I’d read Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
  • I’d read Me and White Supremacy
  • I’d read Hospicing Moderning: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism
  • I’d read bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Judith Butler, Robin Kimmerer
  • I’d watch CODA
• Tell me what’s missing from my top of the head list!

Photo by M F on Unsplash