Inclusive Leadership (Paperback) | Released: 27 Sep 2019

Inclusive Leadership: From Awareness to Action helps readers to move from knowledge about unconscious bias to practical inclusive actions in their everyday work. The book outlines the current inclusion landscape, including major trends, the business case for inclusion and diversity, the problem of "bias fatigue," and the importance of both empathy and psychological safety.

Leaders at various levels, whether they are working with a diverse domestic team or with colleagues from around the world, will find relatable examples, anecdotes, advice, and useful recommendations for converting positive intentions into effective action steps.

Inclusive Leadership covers five important developmental stages. It moves from the concise and memorable "CIAO" model of unconscious bias to building key inclusion skills for assessing talent, providing feedback, running meetings, and making decisions. It then demonstrates how leaders can broaden their inclusion horizons by adopting an expanded set of diversity dimensions, and how to become an inclusion ally or champion while creating a workplace environment that produces strong business results.

Along the way, the book addresses a series of common questions about the topic of inclusion such as:

■ How can we deal with differences without increasing mutual grievances among employees?
■ What can leaders do to serve as effective models of inclusion?
■ How can inclusion improve team performance?
■ Are inclusion challenges the same everywhere, or are there differences across regions such as Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, or North America?
■ What are the value and limits of current neuroscience-based approaches to inclusion and diversity?
■ What kinds of organizational changes are essential to support inclusion?
■ Is it possible to measure progress toward a more inclusive work environment?

The authors' combined global experience of more than 50 years enables them to demonstrate how global inclusion initiatives can be combined with local insights to recruit, develop, retain, and engage valuable employees around the world, meanwhile mitigating a range of legal and other risks. They discuss the most powerful organizational levers borne out by decades of research and practical experience - recruitment, executive engagement, coaching or mentoring, key performance indicators, and company policies - and how leaders can best leverage these. Throughout the book, Dr. Gundling and Dr. Williams provide vital insights and actionable behaviors that leaders can implement in order to better achieve their goals.