Over recent decades, companies have come to understand the importance of inclusive leadership and the role it can play in supporting success. Inclusive leadership is a leadership style that looks to incorporate varied, diverse perspectives, ensuring that all individuals feel a sense of belonging, regardless of their background.
Inclusive leaders promote diversity and inclusion, creating an environment where everyone can make a unique contribution. Inclusive leadership assessment evaluates various aspects that contribute to a healthy culture of inclusion.
How do you demonstrate inclusive leadership?
There are a range of qualities and practices that will typically characterise inclusive leadership. These include:
-
Fostering Diversity & Inclusion
Inclusive leadership begins with an active commitment to diversity. Leaders will seek to create diverse teams where differences are valued. In practice, this is likely to mean representation from different backgrounds, organisational experiences and cultures.
-
A Trusting Environment
Inclusive leaders build trust between team members, ensuring that they feel safe expressing their opinions and ideas. There should be no fear of judgement or reprisal, with all views being taken seriously and evaluated fairly.
-
Active Listening
Active listening is crucial to different leadership styles but is particularly important in inclusive leadership. Active leaders take time to understand diverse perspectives and validate different experiences. Looking for active listening is a key element of inclusive leadership assessment.
-
Empowering Team Members
By recognising and utilising their unique skills and talents, inclusive leaders empower team members to achieve. They create opportunities for people with different talents and skill sets to grow professionally.
-
Cultural Understanding
Inclusive leaders are well-versed in different cultures and perspectives. This enables them to effectively navigate cross-cultural interactions to avoid unintentional biases or stereotypes.
How is inclusive leadership assessed?
There are a range of methods and techniques that can be used to assess the effectiveness of an inclusive leadership strategy:
-
Employee Feedback & Surveys
Collecting feedback from employees through surveys and interviews is a valuable method for assessing inclusive leadership. Survey questions could focus on their perceptions of inclusion, and whether individuals feel that their voices are valued.
-
Diversity Metrics
Diversity metrics, including demographic information such as gender, age, and ethnicity, can indicate the success of inclusive leadership initiatives. Inclusive leadership assessment is an ongoing process that should be measured repeatedly over time.
-
Observation & 360-Degree Feedback
Observing leaders in action and gathering feedback from various sources across the organisation can provide a comprehensive view of inclusive leadership. 360-degree feedback helps to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
-
Leadership Assessment Tools
There are a range of leadership assessment tools available to assess the effectiveness of inclusive leadership policies and practices. The best leadership assessment tools will give you reliable, understandable and actionable data.
Inclusive leadership assessment from Leadership Success
At Leadership Success, we’ve developed a suite of leadership assessment tools that can be deployed across leaders and individual contributors. Our assessment tools can critically assess the degree to which your organisation demonstrates inclusive leadership, providing you with actionable data that can inform your future strategies.
Contact us to find out more about inclusive leadership assessments and how we can help.
Expert advice on leadership assessments
How do I pass a leadership assessment test
Common leadership assessment questions
Assessing leadership strengths and weaknesses
Assessing leadership skills in interviews
Assessing leadership behaviours and potential
Assessing leadership style