How to be an inclusive leader

Diversity of thought, skills, and experiences within teams leads to better outcomes. Think about the Super Bowl champs, the Kansas City Chiefs. Each player on the team embraces and plays a different but specific role that helps the team succeed. In your favorite bands, each person plays different instruments or sings different harmonies to create a cohesive song. And on your own team, it is only through embracing and nurturing differences in people that a great team emerges.

As leaders, it is our responsibility to create an environment that is inclusive of people with different cultures, backgrounds, or lifestyles who openly share their points of view and ideas to create better solutions and increased results.

How to create an inclusive team environment

Gallup, a global leader in employee engagement, has found that employees have three expectations of their leaders to feel included:

1. My leader treats me with respect.
2. My leader is committed to building on my strengths.
3. If I raise concerns, I am confident that my leader will do the right thing.

When leaders provide these experiences, an employee’s feelings of inclusion increase. The good news is that these expectations are included in our core values behaviors, so they’re already part of our culture and our approach to leadership.

Here are a few things you can do in each of the three areas to help you build an inclusive team environment.

1. MY LEADER TREATS ME WITH RESPECT

Two engagement drivers increase an employee’s feeling of being respected:

• My leader cares about me as a person.
• At work, my opinion counts.

In short, employees want to matter to the people they work with and they want to feel they contribute to the team’s success.

As leaders, are you spending enough time in your one-on-one meetings getting to know your team members on a personal level? Do you know about their families, interests outside of work, or how they want to grow their careers? Do you celebrate their birthdays and anniversaries? Are you flexible with them on how, when, and where they accomplish their work? Are you empathetic and supportive in the more difficult times of their lives? All these are easy ways to show the employee they matter to you and aren’t just a number.

Do you also include your team in problem solving? One of the most unproductive behaviors I see in leaders is the need to feel, and act like, they have all the answers.The irony is that leaders are not very good at finding solutions to most issues around processes, customers, and day-to-day operations since they are too far removed. If you want to build respect with your team, don’t try to be an expert and have all the answers. Instead, become a coach and facilitator, helping and supporting your people to find the best solutions themselves.

2. MY LEADER IS COMMITTED TO BUILDING ON MY STRENGTHS

We all bring different strengths and talents to our jobs. Instead of spending so much time trying to “fix” a weakness, spend it helping an employee maximize their strengths for higher success. Helping an employee learn about their strengths, and then developing them further, gives them a sense of value and belonging, and most importantly, creates better outcomes. As leaders, let’s stop trying to make everyone the same and value the different talents of each team member.

3. IF I RAISE CONCERNS, I AM CONFIDENT THAT MY LEADER WILL DO THE RIGHT THING

This one seems like a no-brainer. At CHG, our purpose is to make a difference in the lives of those we serve — our people, our customers, and our communities. The majority of a leader’s time should be spent serving their employees: facilitating their problem-solving and decision-making, developing their strengths, and addressing concerns or obstacles and helping them overcome them. It is often difficult for employees to be vulnerable and share their concerns with leaders, so when an employee does bring a concern up, we must work to understand it and, if possible, solve it.

Leading with core values

If you want a more engaged and successful team, start by leading with core values. Use them as a compass when making decisions about your team, especially our core value of Integrity and Ethics, which states:

“All our actions and decisions are guided by an unwavering commitment to integrity and ethics. We strive for the best in ourselves and encourage and expect everyone to do the right thing all the time.”

If you are not leading with Integrity and Ethics, your people will quickly lose trust in you. Without trust there cannot be mutual respect or a positive, caring relationship, and ultimately, you cannot create an inclusive and highly successful team environment.