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INCLUSIVENESS: THE KEY TO BEING A SUCCESSFUL 21st CENTURY LEADER
By Mr. Andre's T. Tapia, Senior partner and global practice leader of Korn Ferry's Workforce Performance, Inclusion and Diversity practice
Leaders today are panicked about the leaders of tomorrow. There are not enough of them. And where there are leaders, they are not properly equipped for the unprecedented threats and opportunities these tumultuous times have shaken us with.
In short, the times require 21st century leaders with 21st century skills, and both are scarce. What are those skills? Recently we mined the Korn Ferry normative database of 2.5 million leader assessments and in evaluating those who have been successful, found that 21st century leaders need to exhibit four forms of leadership: Global, Innovation, Change, and Results.
And guess what? When we scan the most desired behaviors for each of these types of leaderships, different kinds of inclusive behaviors show up: to be a Global Leader one has to demonstrate awareness of unconscious bias and possess an arsenal of cross cultural agility; to be an Innovation Leader one needs to be open to diverse points of view; to be a Change Leader one has to engage, motivate, and lead unprecedented diverse workforces; and to be a Results Leader one has to transform the organization to effectvely reach vastly diverse consumers and clients.
But todays leaders -- whether they be in New York, Mumbai, So Paulo, Shanghai, Frankfurt and all points in-between-- are mostly under-prepared for leveraging inclusiveness for these forms of leadership. Wherever I travel, leaders admit that while many of them are convinced of the business case for diversity (best talent, new markets, innovation, reputation and brand, sustainability), they struggle in translating these beliefs into action.
These smart, highly successful, financial gurus, supply-chain masters and marketing experts feel inhibited by the fundamentals of listening that is, listening to voices not heard or heeded before. The very voices needed to challenge, via new imaginations, the established “the way we have always done it.”
To be inclusive, leaders need to build collaborative relationships, optimize diverse talent, communicate cross-culturally, and be flexible, open and adaptable. Much of the how is based on being agile with a diverse workforce: inquisitive about the unknown; humble enough to ask simple questions; self aware about varied cultural beliefs and preferences; open to being a learner of others cultures; and able to use the underlying differences to create new and innovative answers. Then be able to show up as authentic and transparent, and in this, motivate others to do the same.
In fact, there is a developmental path for inclusive leaders to grow fully into most effective form of inclusiveness:
• As the chart below shows, it begins with being open and aware that diversity and inclusion is an imperative given tectonic shifts in demographics.
• As they see more diversity come in the door due to these efforts, they actually hit the hardest dimension of diversity: truly having equipped leaders and managers to nurture an inclusive environment. This requires them to be able to build a trusting and open culture via a bundle of skills that can be headlined crosscultural agility.
• And as they begin to see results in leveraging their diversity inclusively, they begin to increase their organizational influence because now they are much more effective at balancing diverse stakeholders in a global matrix.
Finally, pay day arrives as The Inclusive Leader optimizes organizational performance by generating greater innovation throughout the organization, reaching more diverse consumers in new markets, and generating armies of high performing diverse teams.
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