Inclusive Leadership and Potential Barriers

Leaders should reflect the organization's commitment to inclusiveness and diversity in all functions. This resource specifically addresses women being excluded from top leadership positions in corporations. The text considers the characteristics of an inclusive leadership style and the barriers to exercising that style. The culture that keeps out women also keeps out other diverse members. The author states that women, immigrants, people of color, and refugees may struggle to fit in and feel excluded.

Introduction

Despite advances in diversity that have occurred in the past, women continue to be excluded from top leadership positions in the corporate environment. Today's diverse and constantly changing environment requires more than masculinity as the norm and a command and control leadership approach. It needs a leadership style that will advocate for inclusivity of traditionally excluded voices in leadership. It needs a leadership style that will enhance the four critical processes that are mobilized by leadership (setting mission, actualize goals, sustain commitment, respond to change).

In this paper, I will explore the tenets of inclusive leadership style, along with its distinct characteristics, and will demonstrate its ability to have "all voices on deck" in top leadership. I will also explore potential barriers to effectively apply inclusive leadership.

As a millennial woman of color of the African New American community in the United States, the subject of inclusivity in leadership is deeply personal. It is an issue that I constantly struggle with and in helping others not to feel as if it's a "solo struggle". The reality is that an African refugee woman in higher management in America is a rare find, given that women, in general, are already underrepresented.

Additionally, the representation of leaders is inherently gendered in the current leadership landscape. Leaders are judged based on stereotypes and expectations grounded in "masculinist perspectives about leadership,". This reality shapes my leadership opportunities and how I would choose to participate. My hope is that the inclusive leadership style will expand the discussion beyond just the gendered idea of inclusion to include other minorities, particularly the newest member of the U.S society, refugee/immigrant leaders.

Source: Graduate Studies and Granite State College, https://granite.pressbooks.pub/ld820/chapter/chapter-15/
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