Inclusive Leadership and Climate for Inclusion: A Conceptual Model of Transformational Leadership

Background and aims:  Research is mounting to suggest that a diverse workforce plays an important role in the main activities of human service organizations.  Despite some progress in diversity recruitment efforts, workforce diversity in these organizations still lags behind the diversity of the clients they serve. Recently, there has been a call for research to examine leadership within multicultural contexts, yet few studies have attempted to develop a theory-based understanding for what inclusive leadership really means. 

The primary focus of this paper is on the theoretical underpinnings of inclusive leadership. We argue that diversity representation is necessary but not sufficient to affect the desired outcomes and we propose that inclusive leadership is needed in order to channel the high potential of diverse workforces into positive outcomes. 

Theory and conceptual underpinnings:  Transformational leadership theory posits that a leader’s ability to motivate and inspire others is dependent on four main domains: (1) Individualized consideration -- recognizing and appreciating individual needs; (2) intellectual stimulation -- encourage different perspectives, (3) inspirational motivation -- ability to inspire and motivate staff, and (4) idealized influence -- ability to instill values, beliefs, a shared sense of mission.

According to social identity theory and optimal distinctiveness theory, individuals desire to belong to social groups that enjoy distinct and positive identities. At the same time, individuals desire to be recognized for their personal uniqueness. In essence, people from diverse groups identify with others in the organization who share their characteristics, and feel more included if they are accepted into these social groups, while also being recognized and appreciated for their unique attributes.  Recent seminal work by Shore et al (2011) proposes that inclusion is composed of two main elements:  uniqueness – individuals’ desire to be recognized for their distinctive attributes, and belonging – individuals’ need to belong to the group and organization.

Proposed conceptual framework for inclusive leadership

Put together, transformational leadership, social identity and optimal distinctiveness theories provide a conceptual framework for inclusive leadership.  More specifically, the individualized consideration domain recognizes individuals for their unique contributions. Leaders’ ability to value others for their personal differences speaks to the “uniqueness” aspect of inclusion.  The intellectual stimulation domain encourages individuals to accept and seek out different perspectives, promoting acceptance of differences among team members. The idealized influence domain creates a shared sense of purpose and collective goals, thus increasing commonality among group members as they are encouraged to join together for a common purpose.  Therefore, the combined ability to recognize individual needs and foster commonality among members (uniqueness and belonging), is the theoretical path between leadership and organizational climate for inclusion and is the theoretical foundation of inclusive leadership.

Discussion and implications. 

Inclusive leadership is central to creating a climate of inclusion and should be an important ingredient in preparing leaders at all levels of human service organizations. This paper provides the theoretical path and a conceptual framework that could provide the foundation for inclusive leadership training programs and for organizational policies that support diversity and inclusion in human service organizations.