Inclusive leadership: What makes this leadership approach special?

Leadership is a much-used term. Transformational, transactional, agile, lateral or systemic leadership: there is hardly a management approach that does not have its own idea of leadership. But what distinguishes inclusive leadership from all these concepts? And why is an explicitly inclusive leadership approach needed in organizations that are characterized by diversity, complexity and inequality today?

 

The short answer: because traditional leadership models do not question structural and historically evolved power asymmetries such as patriarchy. Inclusive leadership goes a decisive step further and does exactly that: it questions.

 

Inclusive leadership: not a style, but an attitude

 

It is not a leadership style that managers “apply” depending on the context. Rather, it is a basic attitude that sees leadership as an active, continuous commitment to human dignity, justice and participation. Inclusive leadership starts with the question: who is heard, who is seen and who is systematically not? It is about making power, privileges and exclusions visible and shaping leadership in such a way that as many people as possible can experience themselves as co-creators, especially those who are structurally and institutionally disadvantaged.

 

 

Inclusive leadership therefore differs significantly from traditional approaches:

 

Transformational leadership emphasizes vision, inspiration and the power of change. But who is inspired and at whose expense? Who can be considered visionary? Inclusive leadership not only asks for leadership by inspiration, but also for leadership by inclusion and thus for justice.

Agile or self-organized leadership (e.g. Frédérik Laloux) focuses on trust, decentralization and self-management. However, exclusion can also continue in “teal organizations”, subtly, unspoken, normatively. Inclusive leadership complements this perspective by analyzing structural inequalities. After all, self-organization is not automatically fair.

Servant leadership (Robert Greenleaf) and ethical leadership (Hollander) emphasize servant leadership with moral integrity. However, even here it often remains unclear who is actually being served and whose experience is recognized as “morally relevant” in the first place. Inclusive leadership concretizes these questions along the lines of intersectional justice.

Otto Scharmer’s Theory U offers a deep understanding of transformation through collective sensing and action. But here, too, it needs to be supplemented: Who is sitting in the room? Who is left out because language, time, resources or power asymmetries remain unreflected? Inclusive leadership ensures that such processes are not only deep, but also fair.

 

 

Inclusive leadership is context-aware and self-reflective

 

While many leadership models formulate universal principles, inclusive leadership is context-sensitive. It asks: In what power structure am I operating? How do race, gender, social background or disability affect my leadership actions? And what structural conditions do I prevent or reproduce?

The focus is on four areas of development:

1. Designing relationships: How do I create spaces in which people feel they belong, not despite their differences, but because of them?
2. Self-reflection: Who am I as a manager and what privileges, biases and values do I use to shape things?
3. Vision: What future am I designing and for whom is it viable?
4. Change competence: How do I use my creative power to break down barriers and enable structural justice?

And what does that mean in concrete terms?

It is a claim to leadership that wants to be measured in terms of decision-making power, participation and visible change. It means consciously taking responsibility for your own position in the system and not being satisfied with goodwill.

 

 

Inclusive leadership not only asks: How do I lead well? But rather: For whom, against whom and with whom?

 

Based on a comprehensive scientific literature review by Ayfer Veli Korkmaz, Marloes van Engena, Lena Knappert and René Schalk, there is now a consolidated understanding of inclusive leadership. Previously, the term was vaguely defined and the concepts were – and in some cases still are – inconsistent. The researchers propose a multidimensional model of inclusive leadership. According to this model, inclusive leadership unfolds on three levels: the individual, the team and the organizational level. And it can be described along four central behavioral dimensions:

1. Promote uniqueness:Inclusive leadership begins with recognizing the individual person, with all their perspectives, experiences and potential. Building on this, it is about actively promoting diversity and the targeted empowerment of employees. The connection to leadership concepts that focus on learning and development, such as transformative leadership, is central to this.
2. Strengthen affiliation:If you want to lead, you have to be able to create a sense of belonging. This means creating fair framework conditions, enabling co-determination and actively cultivating relationships, both between the manager and the team and within the team. Inclusive leadership is always about shaping relationships.
3. Show appreciation:What is often dismissed as “soft” is actually a key lever for inclusion. Appreciation does not just mean praise, but the conscious recognition of effort, contribution and impact, both individually and as part of a team. It fulfills a deep human need and strengthens psychological security, commitment and solidarity.
4. Support organizational efforts:Inclusive leadership does not end at the team boundary. It actively relates to the strategic direction of the organization, supports DEI initiatives and visibly demonstrates change. Inclusive leadership means taking responsibility, also structurally.

This multidimensional approach does not view leadership in isolation, but rather links individual behaviour, team dynamics and organizational responsibility. It becomes clear that inclusive leadership is not a style, an add-on or a soft skill, but an understanding of leadership that takes diversity seriously, reflects power relations and actively helps to shape justice.

 

You can request our training for the deep dive here.

 

 

For initial inclusive leadership practice ideas, I have these examples

 

• • Leaders share their own learning journey
    Managers are encouraged to talk openly about what they are learning in relation to DEI – whether it is starting to recognize their own privileges, dealing with racism in everyday working life or experiencing how challenging it can be to talk about disability, classism or queer life realities. Making this learning journey visible shows that Inclusion is not a state, but a process. And learning is part of leadership.

 

• • Training managers beyond checklists
    Effective DEI development cannot be achieved through mandatory training and compliance modules. It needs space for uncertainty, irritation and reflection. Workshops on microaggressions, allyship and privilege are only effective if they are emotionally tangible and managers are actively invited to explore their own white spots. The decisive factor is: if you don’t have to show defensiveness, you can listen. This requires didactic sensitivity, which we at Floria & Co attach particular importance to.

 

• • Anchoring inclusion in leadership expectations
    Inclusive leadership is not a personal preference, it is a professional standard. That’s why it belongs in job profiles, feedback systems and target agreements. In some companies, it flows into bonus regulations or is made visible in 360-degree feedback, e.g. through questions such as: “My manager creates an environment of psychological safety” or “I have the impression that my identity is respected in the workplace”.

 

• • • Celebrating “Moments of Inclusion”
      It doesn’t always have to be a big campaign. When a manager consciously asks: “What pronouns do you use?” during the introductions at the team meeting, when they think about Ramadan at the team lunch or when they make sure that not only native speakers speak during international calls, these are not small things. They are signs of an inclusive attitude. Organizations that make these moments visible strengthen a culture of looking.

   

  • • Systematically gathering marginalized perspectives
      Inclusive leadership also means not asking whether someone is affected first, but assuming that there are people in the team who have certain experiences, even if they do not (yet) say anything. This can be seen, for example, in how feedback processes are designed: Are there anonymous formats? Is it actively asked whether people with disabilities, experience of racism or care responsibilities feel sufficiently taken into account? Is this even seen as a management issue?

   

  • • Recompose decision rounds
      Anyone who regularly makes decisions with the same people is not leading inclusively, even if the team is diverse. Inclusive leadership pays attention to whose voices are missing. In concrete terms, this means specifically inviting people who are otherwise not consulted on important topics, even if they are not (yet) in leadership positions. Inclusive leadership does not see representation as a nice-to-have, but as a democratic necessity.

   

• • Understanding time and flexibility as a resource for justice
    An inclusive manager not only asks: Who can participate? They also ask themselves who has to sacrifice what. Late afternoon meetings, weekend events or spontaneous deadlines are not equally feasible for everyone. Those who do care work, live with chronic illnesses or operate outside the norms are quickly structurally excluded. Inclusive leadership considers resources, not just tasks.

 

Sources:

Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.

Hollander, E. P. (2012). Inclusive Leadership: The Essential Leader-Follower Relationship. Routledge.

Korkmaz, A. V., Van Engen, M. L., Knappert, L., & Schalk, R. (2022). About and beyond leading uniqueness and belongingness: A systematic review of inclusive leadership research. Human Resource Management Review, 32(4), Article 100894. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2022.100894

Laloux, F. (2014). Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Brussels: Nelson Parker.

Randel, A. E. et al. (2018). Inclusive Leadership: Realizing Positive Outcomes Through Belongingness and Being Valued for Uniqueness. Human Resource Management Review.

Scharmer, Otto. C. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.