What it was

A half day’s training in London on 20 November 2018, attended as part of the Future Leaders Scheme.

What I learned

• There are broadly three components of inclusive leadership:
• Culture
• Relationships
• Decision making style

Inclusive culture

• Imagine a time you felt alone in a crowd. How did you feel/think? How did thismake you behave? How might others have interpreted this?
• Psychological safety: a shared belief that the team is a safe environment to put oneself at risk
• Psychologist standing: a sense of entitlement to speak up and act
• Servant behaviour: collective goals and team working for one another
• Components of trust: cognitive (are they technically capable), affective (do Iget on with them), transactional (do what they say they will do)

Culture tips:

• Actively encourage everyone to contribute
• Listen to different views and challenge
• Value others expertise and experience
• Create a sense on entitlement to speak up

Inclusive Relationships

• Building team cohesion:
  • Creating a shared team identity
  • Avoiding fault lines
  • Avoiding favourites
• Investing time:
  • Get to know people as individuals
  • Increase contact with people from different backgrounds
  • Mentoring people from under represented groups
• Networks:
  • Diversity of your network
  • Developing their networks

Relationship tips:

• Conduct a network analysis – how inclusive are you?
• Work as a team, not sub groups
• Challenge yourself, don’t go to the usual suspects
• Invest time
• Mentor someone different

Inclusive decision-making

• Openness versus perception of risk
• Flexibility
• Avoid gut instinct
• Awareness of bias
• Bias thrives under these decision making conditions: Pressure, high cognitive load, need to reach closure, overall impressions, tiredness
• Micro-messaging: brief verbal and non verbal interactions that make people feel under valued, undermined and excluded
• Negative micro- behaviours: interrupting, assumptions / benevolent attitudes, limited eye contact, ignoring contributions
• Micro- affirmations: Non verbal: eyes, body language, acknowledgment, time and attention; Verbal: involving, encouraging; Recalling: remembering (contribution)

Decision making tips:

• Understand your biases
• Stand back and look at how decisions are being taken
• Set the right conditions
• Be aware of micro behaviours
• Listen to diverse points of view

We completed a quick inclusive leadership assessment. Actions to address these weakest areas are captured below.

• My strongest areas were:
  • Psychological safety
  • Openness
  • Flexibility
• My weakest areas were:
  • Investing time
  • Diverse networks
  • Psychological standing

What I will aim to do differently as a result:

• Actions to create a more inclusive culture:
  • Allow time for people to speak up, and not just at the end
  • Ask people to say what they want out of the meeting, then cover that
  • Make more time with team leaders to discuss things, not just updates
• Actions to create more inclusive relationships:
  • Spend more time with my teams at other sites, don’t just go for a meeting and leave
  • Involve a wider set of people in planning and senior team meetings
  • Become a mentor e.g. to a staff member from a minority group
  • Make appointments with colleagues outside my area and increase network contact
• Actions to create more inclusive decisions:
  • Have one to ones with team members other than team leads. Some people may not feel able to speak up in a group
  • Try the Harvard bias ( implicit association) test