Inclusive Leadership: Driving Multilevel Organizational Change

Very excited that a chapter I wrote about the need for organizational change at multiple levels has been published in the book INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP: TRANSFORMING DIVERSE LIVES, WORKPLACES, AND SOCIETIES edited by Bernardo M. FerdmanJeanine Prime, and Ronald E. Riggio and was released on Sep 29, 2020 by Routledge.

Here is a short excerpt which represents the essence of my arguments in this book chapter. (A pre-publication version may be downloaded HERE)

“To drive change, many diversity and inclusion researchers and practitioners have focused on a bottom-up approach, one that involves changing mindsets and behaviors one at a time: one person, one group, one unfair rule, and one HR policy at a time. Although this strategy might result in incremental changes, and those small changes may have ripple effects that extend beyond one individual or group, their effects can be disparate, fleeting, and may not necessarily amount to large-scale, lasting, and sustained change. The systemic or top-down approach, in contrast, involves challenging the ecosystems that currently validate and perpetuate bias and inequality; this approach focuses on changing behavior and interactions by changing the contexts and systems in which they take place. The former approach lacks the scale and scope often needed for sustainable systemic change, while the latter approach lacks the nuance and agility that can make for quick impact.

[…]

For organizations, communities, and societies to embrace inclusion more wholeheartedly, both bottom-up efforts and systemic top-down changes are required. The role of inclusive leaders in this conceptualization is to create the conditions and take the courageous steps required for more bold, systemic action that harnesses both individual agency and the power of structural change.”

Demystifying Inclusion in Indian Startups

Startups in India show a great deal of promise when it comes to creating inclusive climates and engaging organizational cultures from the get-go. Serein and Psymantics recently completed the first study of its kind in India, to focus on the relationships between team climate factors (e.g. psychological safety, climate for initiative etc.), inclusion (composed of a sense of uniqueness, belonging and authenticity) and employee engagement

We focused on startups in India, and investigated how they are building inclusive climates and organizational cultures to ensure employee engagement and retention. The key findings of the study are highlighted below and the public report is available for download.

  • Women and men working for startups in India are mostly seeking the same things from work – a culture that supports innovation, results orientation and being a reputable organization that one would be proud to work for.

  • The good news is – the startups in our sample seem to be set up to provide all this. The employees in our study felt high (and equal across organizations, across genders) levels of psychological safety, climate for initiative, autonomy and a sense of clear direction from their organizations: these are the conditions where inclusion exists.

  • This is critical because the key finding of our study is that inclusion really matters! Inclusion is key for retaining employees and also to foster a sense of engagement in them.

We did this study to see if the enabling work environment one seeks exists in startups - and whether they are set up for diversity to thrive, and we think they are, based on our small sample. Their challenge is to ensure that gender gaps or other gaps don’t appear in these over time, as they grow, stabilize and scale up.

Interested in learning more? 

Download the study