Inclusive Leadership Training – What It Is and How to Become a More Inclusive Leader
Often, diverse thinking is a major key to a successful team. By bringing in diverse perspectives, a more comprehensive picture of a task or problem can be painted, allowing for innovation and collaboration. However, to create a diverse perspective on a team, leaders must first create a safe, inclusive workspace. This is where inclusive leadership training comes into play.
What Is Inclusive Leadership Training?
Inclusive leaders must be humble, empathetic, vulnerable and resilient to be effective. These can be difficult traits to learn on one’s own, which is where inclusive leadership training comes into play. This may take the place of workshops, classes and training sessions on topics such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) or cultural competency and identifying unconscious biases.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Training
Inclusive organizations seek to promote three key values: Diversity, equity and inclusion. By supporting several groups, including race, religion and gender or sexual orientations, teams can be more effective than homogenous teams. Emphasizing equity and inclusion allow for people of all walks of life to have an equal opportunity to be on the team. Organizations struggling with DEI can participate in inclusion and diversity courses to further develop.
Cultural Competency Training
Cultural competency courses can provide teams with the information and skills they need to better interact with coworkers of various cultures, thus improving the rate of inclusiveness and encouraging a welcoming environment. This typically involves taking a course focused on the five cultural competencies:
- Cultural awareness
- Cultural understanding
- Cultural knowledge
- Cultural interaction
- Cultural sensitivity
Upon completing cultural competency training, individuals should be capable of:
- Working in a culturally diverse setting
- Integrating cultural competencies throughout the work process
- Engaging in strategies that allow for intercultural communications that boost success
Unconscious Bias Training
Everyone has unconscious biases that play into their day-to-day interactions with teams and organizations. These biases can become roadblocks to productivity and success. Unconscious bias training helps employees to identify their unconscious biases and manage them to improve DEI success within organizations.
The Benefit of Being an Inclusive Leader
By training inclusive leaders, organizations can develop settings that promote diverse thinking and respectful teams. As a result, innovation is increased because the best of everyone is brought out and communication among the team is increased.
Inclusive leaders and environments also tend to create happier employees who know that they can come and be their true selves rather than trying to fit in with the company culture. A positive company culture also increases employee retention, productivity and engagement.
Creating an Inclusive Environment
Creating an inclusive environment is often as simple as adjusting small habits and providing the appropriate training. Some simple ways leaders can bring inclusion to their teams include:
- Using inclusive language, such as greeting a group with words like team, folks or other gender-neutral terms.
- Identifying exclusion when it occurs and making an active effort to include those who were left out.
- Create a mission statement that emphasizes inclusion and prioritizes inclusion in company culture
Leadership Coaching for Inclusivity
Leaders struggling with inclusivity can benefit from receiving leadership coaching. At Leadership Choice, we offer a range of leadership training, coaching and communication workshops designed to help leaders improve their skills and create happier, more inclusive workplaces for their employees.
