The Secret Every Inclusive Leader Needs to Know
"You have been assigned this mountain so that you can show others it can be moved." – Mel Robbins
What’s the secret?
I just returned from a beautiful week in Napa and Sonoma with a group of truly remarkable women. Great food, great wine, and a great group of women with six busy jobs and sixteen very busy children back home. For a few days, we were able to leave our regularly-scheduled lives and reconnect with each other.
I love building community. I love making connections. Because that for me is the core of my work and my leadership - people-centered inclusion.
See, if you’re reading this, then you have the power to lead inclusion, in whatever space you are in. You have the ability to transform cultures, to build communities, and to ensure that everyone in the spaces in which you are in has the ability to not just belong, but to succeed.
But as an inclusive leader, you need to remember this secret about leadership. It's not just about direction, or vision, or goals, or inspiration. All of that is important, but none of that matters if you don't have this.
People.
People are the power behind any organization.
If you want to inclusively lead this world of collaborators, and innovators, and change makers, people are going to follow you not because they have to, but because they want to. You make them feel liked, cared for, valued, trusted. You help them produce in a world that emphasizes efficiency and shortcuts over long-term thinking. You help develop them, and most of all, you see them. See them for who they are and what they can achieve.
So what do inclusive leaders do? First, they acknowledge differences. The challenges of being a first generation professional, or of working across multiple offices and in multiple cultures, or of being a veteran returning to the workforce, or of being a parent with young children or elder relatives. An inclusive leader recognizes the discomfort that a man might have bringing their same sex partner to the workplace, or the isolation of undergoing gender transition.
And then inclusive leaders take it one step further. They don’t just understand and value differences. They actually make those differences work for the people who work there.
See, we all work in a knowledge-driven economy. Where the advantages come from our ability to innovate, to create new ideas, to find new revenue streams, to serve our customers better. Inclusive leaders understand that you need to use all the unique knowledge, all the skills, all the potential from all of us.
What client relationships do we build? Where do we find them? What technologies do we use? How do we form teams? How do we manage teams? How do we deliver feedback? When do we deliver feedback? What type of external vendors do we use? How do we involve customers in our work? Innovate compensation. Innovate teams. Innovate work.
Because we are all different. We have different lives. We come from different spaces. We communicate differently. We compete differently. We work differently. That’s what inclusive leaders do. They make those differences count.
The secret is people.
Make their differences matter. Make their diversity matter. Build a community that lasts. That’s inclusive leadership.
Do the work
This week, I commit to being curious and learning more about the people at my organization. I commit to keeping an open mind and seeking out perspectives different from my own.
Spread the word
If you want to keep going
Six Steps to Achieving Authentic Success at Work
Authentic is the Word of the Year! From social media bots to generative AI, everyone is searching for authenticity in their world. But what does that mean for us in the workplace?
Based on my forthcoming book, This is How You T.H.R.I.V.E.: Six Steps to Achieving Authenticity, Success, and Fulfillment at Work, I'll share with you my step-by-step guide to claiming real authentic success at work - at every level and for every generation. I'll share my own career journey - the highs and lows - and showcase how embracing your identities, values, and life stories is the real secret to career success.
Then, I'll teach my six steps to T.H.R.I.V.E. at work: Tell Your Truth, High Five Your Impostor, Rewrite Your Road Map, Identify Your Champions, Value Yourself and Your Voice, and Embrace Your Community.
Through storytelling, interactivity, case studies, and real-life examples, your attendees will leave with the certain knowledge of how to show up authentically and open doors to trust, loyalty, and enduring success in the workplace and beyond.
