How Many of These Critical Inclusive Leadership Traits Have You Mastered?
In our book, “Becoming an Inclusive Leader: How to Navigate the 21st Century Global Workforce,” we offer insights on critical traits that inclusive leaders need to have, or should develop, to ensure that they can engage others in achieving mutual goals and objectives.
Here’s the list:
Ego management. The capacity to direct your egos situationally, knowing when it's best to be center stage and, increasingly, when it's best to hang back and gather input and information from others.
Open to a wide range of inputs. The ability to seek and listen to varied inputs, recognizing that the wisdom of the crowd most often results in successful outcomes.
Intellectual curiosity. The ability to be continually attuned to, and positively impacted by, the conditions, events and circumstances around you.
Transparency. Being comfortable giving honest feedback and telling the truth.
Emotional intelligence. A concept that originated in 1990, and was brought forward by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, and then popularized by Daniel Goleman, emotional intelligence encompasses four key elements: perceiving emotions, reasoning with emotions, understanding emotions and managing emotions.
Futurecasting. The acumen to generate meaning from the various inputs around you to strategically plan for the future.
Humility. Valuing the expertise of others and recognizing when you do not have all of the answers.
Cultural agility. The ability to interact effectively with people form other cultures, both within and outside of the United States.
Collaboration. Moving from a "command and control," hierarchical structure to leverage radically different viewpoints to create better solutions.
Accessibility. Available and willing to listen to feedback from employees, customers and other constituents.
Diversity of thought. Being adept at drawing out diverse perspectives and valuing the differences that those who come from different backgrounds can bring to a discussion.
Adaptability. Having the capacity to rapidly assess the conditions and circumstances around you and adapting to change on an ongoing basis.
As you consider this list, how would you rate yourself on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being high) for each of these traits? How many have you mastered? Where do you have opportunities to improve?
As we near the end of another year, there probably couldn’t be a better time to commit to honing your inclusive leadership skills. Whether interacting with colleagues, customers, superiors, friends, relatives or others, being inclusive matters!
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