Inclusive Leadership: Meaning, Traits and Practical Examples

Inclusive leadership is the practice of making sure people with different backgrounds, perspectives and working styles can contribute, influence decisions and access development opportunities. It shows up in how managers listen, assign work, give feedback and decide who gets a chance to grow.

Think about your last team meeting. Whose ideas shaped the decision? Who had something to add but never found an opening? And who will get the next visible project because they were the person everyone heard?

These are useful questions for any manager. For HR and learning teams, they also offer a starting point for building inclusive leadership into everyday work.

What inclusive leadership means at work

An inclusive leader pays attention to both participation and opportunity. Employees need a fair way to contribute today and a clear route to develop for tomorrow.

Diversity describes the range of people in a workforce. Inclusion concerns their experience of working there. Inclusive leadership connects the two through decisions: whose input is sought, whose work is recognized and how opportunities are shared. Our guide to DEI meaning and workplace examples explains the broader terms.

Fairness sometimes requires different support. Sharing an agenda beforehand, providing accessible materials or allowing written input can help people participate without changing the standard expected of their work. Ask what support someone needs rather than making assumptions about a group.

Inclusive leaders still make difficult decisions and address poor performance. They explain the criteria, hear relevant perspectives and give people useful feedback, even when the answer is disappointing.

Why inclusive leadership matters

Managers influence who gets noticed, supported and considered for the next role. When those decisions depend on familiarity, employees outside the manager’s usual circle can be overlooked.

Research supports taking that influence seriously. In its 2019 study of inclusive leadership, Catalyst surveyed more than 2,100 employees at large corporations, most working in eight countries across five continents. It found a strong relationship between managers’ inclusive behaviors and employees’ experiences of inclusion. This is evidence of an association, rather than proof that a particular training program will cause better business results.

For a manager, the immediate value is practical. Inviting a different perspective may reveal a customer need the team missed. Making project selection visible lets more employees put themselves forward. Asking for feedback can surface a recurring barrier before it becomes an accepted part of working life.

The six traits of inclusive leaders

Juliet Bourke and Bernadette Dillon set out six traits in Deloitte’s The six signature traits of inclusive leadership, published on April 14, 2016. The framework provides a useful starting point for reflection.

• Commitment: Making inclusion a sustained priority. Try: Review one team practice each month.
• Courage: Being willing to question familiar practices. Try: Challenge an unexplained shortlist.
• Cognizance of bias: Recognizing personal and process blind spots. Try: Check who was considered for a project.
• Curiosity: Seeking perspectives beyond your own. Try: Ask what you may have missed.
• Cultural intelligence: Adapting across cultural contexts. Try: Ask about communication preferences.
• Collaboration: Enabling people to contribute together. Try: Gather input before choosing a solution.

Use the traits to identify a behavior you can change. For example, if curiosity is a development area, ask someone to explain their reasoning before you offer your own view. Then notice whether you gave their answer enough time.

Inclusive leadership examples in everyday work

The following scenarios are illustrative. They show possible changes in practice, rather than results from named companies.

Make meetings easier to contribute to

A manager notices that decisions are often settled by the first two people to speak. Before the next meeting, she shares the question to be decided and asks everyone to bring a suggestion. During the discussion, she allows a short pause before inviting responses and accepts written comments afterward when the decision allows it.

She also asks privately how people prefer to contribute. Calling on a quiet colleague without warning can feel like a test. Offering a choice gives that person more control.

Open up stretch assignments

A team lead usually gives client presentations to the people who have done them before. For the next presentation, he shares the selection criteria and invites expressions of interest. An employee with less experience can co-present with someone who has done it before.

The manager records who was considered and what support each person would need. This makes it easier to distinguish a genuine readiness gap from a lack of previous opportunity.

Give specific feedback to every employee

Two employees need to improve their stakeholder communication. One receives detailed coaching; the other is told to “be more confident.” An inclusive manager checks that both receive examples, a clear expectation and a chance to practice.

For instance: “In the next project update, lead with the decision you need, then explain the tradeoff.” That gives the employee something concrete to work on.

Include remote colleagues in decisions

A hybrid team makes an informal decision after a meeting ends. The manager writes up the proposal in the shared workspace and invites input from colleagues who were not in the room before confirming it.

For recurring global meetings, the team rotates inconvenient times. It also checks whether captions, documents and meeting tools are accessible to the people using them.

Use consistent evidence in promotion discussions

A manager hears that one candidate has “leadership presence” while another “isn’t quite ready.” She asks what each phrase means against the published role criteria and requests comparable work examples for both candidates.

The purpose is to make the assessment explainable. Employees should understand what they need to demonstrate and how the decision was reached.

How to develop inclusive leadership skills

Start with a recurring decision you control. Meetings, project allocation and development conversations are good places to look because you can observe them and try a change relatively quickly.

1. Review what happens now. Look at recent decisions. Who contributed, who was considered and what criteria were used?
2. Ask the team about their experience. Use a private conversation or a confidential survey where appropriate. Ask what makes it harder to contribute or access development.
3. Choose one or two behaviors. For example, share decision questions before meetings and publish criteria for stretch work.
4. Practice with support. Discuss a real situation with a mentor, rehearse a difficult conversation and try the revised approach.
5. Follow up visibly. Explain what you changed, ask whether it helped and adjust the practice.

A useful question for your next one-to-one is: “Is there work you would like to try that you haven’t had a fair chance to do?” Listen for barriers you can address, and agree on a specific next step.

What inclusive leadership training should include

Inclusive leadership training should help managers change how they work. Ask providers to show the situations participants will practice, the support they will receive afterward and how changes will be assessed.

Look for realistic exercises involving feedback, meeting participation, hiring criteria and work allocation. Managers should leave with an action they can apply to their own team and a planned follow-up.

Be cautious about treating attendance or increased awareness as evidence of lasting improvement. In their 2020 review of anti-bias training, Evelyn R. Carter, Ivuoma N. Onyeador and Neil A. Lewis Jr. recommend combining awareness with strategies for behavior change and connecting training to wider organizational efforts. Anti-bias training is one part of this broader leadership work.

Pair learning with changes to the processes managers use. A workshop on fairness has limited practical value if stretch assignments still depend on private invitations and promotion criteria remain unclear.

How mentoring supports inclusive leadership

Mentoring gives managers a regular setting to examine a difficult situation, hear another perspective and plan what to do next. The conversation is most useful when it returns to a specific decision and a follow-up action.

Different forms of support serve different purposes:

• Leadership mentoring helps a manager reflect on decisions and practice skills such as listening, feedback and delegation. Our leadership mentoring program guide explains how to structure a program.
• Reverse mentoring lets a senior leader learn from a less senior colleague. For example, an employee might help a leader understand how a team process affects people working remotely. Participation should be voluntary, with agreed boundaries and confidentiality.
• Sponsorship involves advocacy. A sponsor might recommend someone for a visible assignment or introduce them to a decision-maker. It goes beyond offering advice.

Avoid expecting one person to speak for an entire community or educate leaders about every inclusion issue. Ask participants what they want from the relationship, protect their time and give them a way to raise concerns or request a different match.

A practical 30 day plan for managers

Use this as a starting plan, then adapt it to your team. Thirty days is enough to test a habit and gather early feedback, not to establish lasting culture change.

• Week 1: Review recent meetings and project decisions. Review: Who contributed and who was considered.
• Week 2: Ask about barriers and select two changes. Review: Whether the changes address a stated need.
• Week 3: Practice the changes and discuss one situation with a mentor. Review: What worked and what felt difficult.
• Week 4: Ask for feedback and agree on the next review. Review: What to keep adjust or stop.

Keep a brief record of the decision, the change and the follow-up. You need enough detail to learn from the experience without recording sensitive personal disclosures.

How to measure inclusive leadership

Combine employee feedback with evidence about access to opportunity. A manager’s self-assessment can start a conversation, but it cannot tell you how the whole team experiences their leadership.

Use a small set of measures with clear definitions:

• Employee voice: Repeat a question such as “I can offer a different view without being dismissed.” Track the response rate alongside the answers.
• Access to development: Divide the number of eligible employees receiving a stretch assignment by the total eligible population for the same period. Define eligibility before comparing groups.
• Useful feedback: Ask whether employees receive specific guidance they can act on, rather than simply counting completed reviews.
• Progression and retention: Review internal moves, promotions and voluntary departures over a suitable period. Account for role, tenure and other relevant differences before drawing conclusions.

Collect only the data needed, explain its use and protect confidentiality. Small groups and open-text responses can make people identifiable. Agree on reporting thresholds before sharing results.

Treat changes as signals to investigate. A higher survey score does not establish that training caused it, and promotion outcomes often take longer to assess. If mentoring is part of the plan, use our mentoring program metrics and KPIs guide to build a complementary scorecard.

How to use Mentorgain for inclusive leadership

Mentorgain helps HR and learning teams turn inclusive leadership goals into a structured mentoring program. You can connect managers with relevant mentors, give them practical tasks between sessions and gather feedback on their progress. Here is how to apply that structure to the leadership habits covered in this guide.

Start with a specific leadership goal

Choose a behavior managers can practice, such as inviting different views before a decision or making development opportunities more visible. Set that as the focus of the mentoring relationship. For example: “Over the next month, test two ways to gather input before team decisions and review the feedback with my mentor.”

For help choosing participants, preparing mentors and planning a cohort, read Mentorgain’s leadership mentoring program guide.

Match managers with relevant mentors

Use Mentorgain’s mentor matching to consider development goals, experience and department when reviewing potential pairs. A manager working on cross-functional collaboration might benefit from a mentor outside their own function who has experience leading across teams.

Depending on the program setup, participants can explore mentors or coordinators can arrange pairs. Review the fit with the people involved and agree on expectations before starting.

Turn conversations into tasks and practice

With Mentorgain’s mentoring journeys and tasks, the mentee can set a goal and the mentor can assign and track practical activities. For inclusive leadership, a task might be to share a meeting agenda in advance, ask for written input and reflect on whose ideas informed the decision.

At the next session, discuss what happened and what to try differently. Keep the task focused on observable behavior rather than a broad promise to “be more inclusive.”

Review participation and employee feedback

Use Mentorgain’s reporting and surveys to gather participant feedback and review development progress. Ask what managers applied and where they still need support. Compare this with the team feedback and opportunity measures described above, using your organization’s approved data processes.

Completed tasks show participation. To assess whether leadership is becoming more inclusive, you also need to understand the experience of the people being led. Our DEI mentoring programs guide explains how to connect program design with evaluation.

If you are planning a cohort, explore DEI mentoring with Mentorgain or talk to our team about the behaviors you want managers to develop.

Frequently asked questions about inclusive leadership

What is inclusive leadership in simple terms

Inclusive leadership means giving people a fair chance to contribute and develop. A manager does this by seeking different views, using clear criteria for decisions and checking who may be missing out on support or opportunity.

What are the six traits of inclusive leadership

Deloitte’s 2016 framework identifies commitment, courage, cognizance of bias, curiosity, cultural intelligence and collaboration. They offer a way to reflect on leadership habits and choose areas to practice.

How is inclusive leadership different from diversity

Diversity describes who is represented in a team. Inclusive leadership concerns how people experience working in it, including whether they are heard, treated fairly and considered for development.

Can inclusive leadership be learned

Managers can practice inclusive behaviors through realistic scenarios, feedback, mentoring and repeated application. Evaluate what changes in daily work rather than assuming that completing a course demonstrates the skill.

How does reverse mentoring help leaders become more inclusive

Reverse mentoring gives a senior leader a structured opportunity to learn from a less senior colleague’s experience. Its value depends on voluntary participation, clear boundaries and a leader who follows through on relevant feedback.

Put inclusive leadership into practice

Choose one decision your team makes often and examine who gets a voice in it. Then make one change you can explain, repeat and review with the people affected.

If your organization wants to support that work through structured mentoring, talk to the Mentorgain team about your leadership development goals.

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