Inclusive Leader

Thank you for embarking on this journey. It is my hope that this workbook will contribute to having us all have more productive, growthful and compassionate interactions with each other.

— Dr. Robin

I.N.C.L.U.D.E.

Given all that’s been happening recently, I’ve been asked repeatedly by practicing managers how they can become more Inclusive Leaders? How can they deal with Implicit / Unconscious Bias in their organizations? How can they respond to community and team member expectations regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?

In response, I have synthesized research and practice from years as an executive educator into this Inclusive Leader Course. The associated workbook … How You Can Become an Inclusive Leader … shares seven sets of competencies organized using the acronym I.N.C.L.U.D.E.

I	—	Include \| Use the inclusive Six Secret Soft S.K.I.L.L.S.
N	—	Nerve \| Understand that it takes Nerve and Courage to do this
C	—	Cultural Competence
L	—	Listen
U	—	Unconscious Bias Mitigation
D	—	Diversity \| Learning from Diverse Perspectives
E	—	Empower

Online Zoom Course

The focus is on you becoming an inclusive leader — developing and using the skills you need to so that inclusion is the lived experience for people on your teams in your organization.

What do I mean by Inclusive Leadership? Inclusive Leadership is creating and sustaining an environment where all kinds of team members …

Get the job done …
Learn from and leverage differences, and …
Are engaged in their work — with each other — and the organization.

The competencies you need to be an effective leader and an inclusive leader are essentially the same. What differentiates Inclusive Leadership is an explicit acknowledgment that diverse experiences matter, attention to how they matter, and willingness to enact equitable treatment within your organization so that everyone contributes their best. In this course, you’ll become intentionally inclusive in your leadership.

The Inclusive Leader Course is a series of ten Zoom online content sessions, two content sessions per day, sandwiched with interactive group conversations about how to apply and use the content in your organization. Check in, two-content sessions, breaks, and T-E-A conversations are done in a 5-hour block. All sessions are interactive with Mentimeter polls, open Q&A, and/or chat.

Ideally, participants would also do a couple of hours of pre-work and a couple of hours of homework related to the sessions’ content and application.

The group conversations after the content sessions are called T-E-A sessions. T-E-A stands for Talk—Engage—Align. These post-session conversations are where participants discuss the content of the day, strategize about how it relates to them / their organization, and make commitments to apply the content. The group members hold each other accountable by selecting someone who sends their commitments to me after the T-E-A session. That person then reports back to the entire class about what progress participant-team members made at the beginning of the next session.

To maximize interactivity, the course is limited to 24 participants. To keep sessions psychologically safe, no recording is allowed.

The course can be taught as an intensive five days in a row (not recommended); over a one-month time period with one week in between session days (preferred), or over two months with two weeks between session days.

For more information about my online Zoom course for becoming an Inclusive Leader, please check out the “ONLINE ZOOM COURSE” tab below where you can find a sample course design plus a more detailed description of the I.N.C.L.U.D.E. competencies.