Guess how many employees want a culture where everyone feels included? Nearly everyone—99 percent—values a workplace with an inclusive culture.1 In one sense, the conditions for inclusion are straightforward: the values of leadership determine the values of the organization. That means to build an inclusive culture, you need inclusive leaders.
So what happens when an organization lacks inclusive leaders? Well, it’s not good. A recent survey found 31 percent of US respondents felt excluded at work, which motivated 55 percent of them to seek employment elsewhere.1 That’s equivalent to 17 out of 100 employees trying to leave. But retention isn’t the only business metric taking a hit. The absence of inclusion at work can cause shortfalls in productivity, engagement, quality, innovation, and many other outcomes.
“Organizations often ask for coaching on inclusive behaviors,” said Arlene Pace Green, PhD, an executive coach in the Hogan Coaching Network. “Treating people in a way that they feel heard and respected, being able to collaborate well with others, valuing the people around you—those are elements of many coaching engagements.”
What Is Inclusive Leadership?
Inclusion is the effort to create an environment that produces a feeling of belonging. In organizations, nearly all meaningful work is accomplished in teams. One of the ways leaders build and maintain high-performing teams is by promoting inclusion. Leadership behaviors that promote inclusion include listening to others, building rapport, resolving conflict, showing openness and curiosity about other cultures, and leveraging diversity.
Note: Diversity in this context refers to more than just demographic differences. It also includes individual differences in skills, experience, and even problem-solving approaches.
Why Inclusion Matters
Aside from the fact that everyone wants an inclusive workplace culture, inclusion promises both measurable and intangible business benefits. Beyond higher team performance, the impressive list includes greater innovation, more effective problem-solving, improved employer reputation, and expanded cultural and global perspectives.2
Diversity alone cannot achieve this improvement. In fact, even in companies with diverse workforces, employee sentiment about inclusion can still be quite negative if trust is low.3 When leaders are unwilling to leverage diversity, employees might not view any inclusion efforts as meaningful. Instead, inclusive leaders provide an element that often goes unmeasured when successful—a “sense” among employees related to belonging, openness, psychological safety, and trust (i.e., a sense of fairness, a sense of respect).
Any talent strategy that promotes inclusion effectively must be based on data. Let’s look at how personality data can predict a leader’s likelihood to demonstrate inclusive behavior.
How to Identify Inclusive Leaders
Using personality data, we can estimate how likely someone is to show certain skills, including those associated with inclusion. During our research process, we review scientific articles to determine relevant skills and match those skills to specific personality scales. This enables us to use personality to predict inclusive leadership behavior.
Characteristics of Inclusive Leaders
Hogan researchers have identified two important behaviors associated with inclusion: leveraging diversity and caring about people. Leveraging diversity refers to respecting and valuing individual differences to obtain a desired effect or result. Caring about people refers to displaying sensitivity towards the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others. What does this look like in practice?
Hogan research shows people likely to engage in inclusive behaviors are "emotionally stable, agreeable, conscientious, tolerant, open-minded, trusting, humble, honest, sympathetic, and concerned for others.”4 A leader like this would try to understand people, relate well to a variety of people, and see the world through the eyes of others. “Being inquisitive and having curiosity is one of the most important behaviors leaders can exhibit,” Green said.
Another typical characteristic of leaders who promote inclusion is cultural competence. Also called cultural intelligence or intercultural competence, cultural competence refers to the ability to appreciate and navigate cultural differences. Like other socioemotional skills, cultural competence is not a one-time achievement but a process of continual growth. Our research on cultural competence indicates that effective global leaders can leverage diversity, handle stress, leverage people skills, process information, and negotiate well. If it sounds difficult to find and develop a leader with these characteristics . . . it certainly can be! The commitment, however, is worth it.
Assessing for Inclusion
When you assess leaders—which is appropriate for executive selection, leadership development, and high-potential strategies—you need to keep inclusion in mind. Consider the butterfly effect. The flap of a butterfly's wings is proverbially said to cause a typhoon on the other side of the world. The better you can select and support inclusive leaders in your organization, the more widespread, far-reaching, and positive their influence is likely to be.
On the subject of nature metaphors, one of the best ways to think about the value of inclusion is the difference between the terms weather and climate. Weather is a location’s specific, momentary temperature; climate is the location’s average temperature over time. Weather corresponds to short-term actions or initiatives that may have temporary outcomes. Climate, on the other hand, relates to long-term, systematic inclusion efforts, which may affect organizational culture when integrated with business strategy.5 This is the very thing that 99 percent of employees want! Assessing leaders for inclusion can help shift the climate of an organization in a positive direction.
How to Develop Inclusive Leaders
Although it’s possible to develop more inclusive behaviors, inclusive leadership isn’t something that can be “mastered.” An inclusion climate can always be improved upon or refined for any given context. That said, developing for inclusion means (1) measuring progress, (2) being intentional, and (3) being strategic.
Measure Progress
Just as with a fitness goal, a development objective involves establishing a baseline, setting SMART goals, and tracking progress. Meaningful leadership development uses assessment as that baseline, as well as to inform goal setting and help define continuous improvement.
Green told a story about a leader she coached who was new to an organization and was under pressure to deliver. The person was leading a team of about 35 in an aggressive, demanding way. The leader also had a handful of go-to people, which made the team dynamic seem to be divided into the haves and have-nots. A 360 showed that the leader was truly unaware of how his leadership affected his team members. After adjusting their mindset and implementing some specific, tactical, and visible behavioral strategies, the leader dramatically changed the team dynamic. “By the end of the six months, I interviewed the team, and they felt so much relief,” Green said. “The leader was working to lead differently and truly find the value in each person.”
Be Intentional
Intentionality in some ways supersedes inclusion policy because every situation is unique. Consider the complexity of making accommodations for employees with disabilities, which can have both physical and nonphysical dimensions. Two people who have the same disability might require different job accommodations, making it nearly impossible to create policies specific enough to be practical in all cases. As Larry Martinez, PhD, pointed out on episode 52 of Hogan’s Science of Personality podcast, “it’s good management practice to know your employees on a level that allows you to facilitate them doing the best job that they can.”
Developing inclusive behaviors involves knowing what actions to take—and then intentionally taking them. “For people who want to, it’s definitely possible to learn how to be more inclusive,” Green said. Caring about people, for instance, can involve a variety of deliberate practices. Promoting teamwork and mutual support may include recognizing and celebrating team achievements, as well as providing opportunities for professional growth. Or maintaining a trustworthy and supportive environment may entail making decisions that are consistent, transparent, and fair.
Be Strategic
Creating an inclusive climate isn’t possible without a holistic inclusion strategy. According to interviews with 40 outstanding leaders, inclusion at its best is everyone’s job, not just HR’s.6 The interviewers observed that the most successful DEIB initiatives are represented in organizational values, embedded into the entire employee lifecycle, and built into business strategy.
Likewise, a more inclusive culture isn’t possible without the leaders themselves. If an organization selects top leaders value inclusion, then development efforts for them and others will be more successful at all levels. Remember the butterfly effect? Both selection and development are necessary components of an inclusion strategy.
Expert Contributors
- Arlene Pace Green, PhD, CEO at Enelra Talent Solutions and executive coach at the Hogan Coaching Network (HCN)
- Larry Martinez, PhD, A. Dale Thompson Endowed Chair of Leadership at the University of Texas at Arlington
References
- Traliant. (2025). The Inclusion Report: Traliant’s Inclusivity Pulse Survey. https://www.traliant.com/resources/report-the-state-of-inclusion-in-todays-workplace/
- Miller, J. (2023, August 16). The Power of Diversity and Inclusion: Driving Innovation and Success. Forbes Business Council. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/08/16/the-power-of-diversity-and-inclusion-driving-innovation-and-success/
- Dixon-Fyle, S., Dolan, K., Hunt, V., & Prince, S. (2020, May 19). Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters.McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters/
- Winterberg, C., Walker, J. M., Nei, K. S., & Burkhart, A. L. (2021, April). Improving D&I: Personality Predicts Inclusion Behaviors [Poster presentation 111844]. Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Annual Conference, Virtual.
- Perham-Lippman, K. (2024, July 2). Inclusion As Climate, Not Weather: A New Perspective for Business Leaders. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2024/07/02/inclusion-as-climate-not-weather-a-new-perspective-for-business-leaders/
- Zheng, W., Kim, J., Kark, R., & Mascolo, L. (2023, September 27). What Makes an Inclusive Leader? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2023/09/what-makes-an-inclusive-leader/