How HR pros can be inclusive leaders

Despite recent coverage suggesting that employers are scaling back on DE&I, some are doubling down on diversity. In fact, 97% of companies had at least one DE&I initiative in 2023, and 78% prioritized it more in 2023, according to a Workday survey of 2,600 HR professionals and business leaders.

In her forthcoming book, Stumbling Towards Inclusion: Finding Grace in Imperfect Leadership, set to be published on April 16, author and psychologist Priya Nalkur explores what it means to be an inclusive leader.

“I’m a person of color, I’m a child of immigrants, and I was the target of discrimination in a very homogeneous neighborhood growing up in the ’80s in Canada,” she told HR Brew. “So, that informed the way I see the world and informed the way I understand inequity and justice.”

She shared with HR Brew how people pros can be more inclusive.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you define “inclusive leadership”?

Inclusive leadership is effective leadership. Period…good leadership means you’re communicating well, you’re authentic, you’re courageous, and you’re vulnerable…You’re seeing and understanding people, and ensuring that people who are following you feel valued…[that] happens to also encourage inclusion and makes people feel like they are included, part of a bigger puzzle. Their piece of the puzzle that they represent matters to the entire organization…the subtleties of inclusion are also that it means that you’re thinking about equity, you’re thinking about diversity, you’re thinking about justice, as you lead inclusively.

In light of recent DE&I backlash, how can HR leaders who may not have many DE&I resources be inclusive?

DE&I, for better or for worse, is kind of a polarizing topic. People are either with DE&I or they’re not with DE&I, and that can make it really hard for HR leaders to navigate, because there’s pressure to be neutral and to not take a side…So, how does an HR leader navigate this tension? What they have to do is really think of this as a moment of an opportunity…people are paying attention.

You don’t have to call it DE&I, but if you are someone who is listening actively to people, if you are practicing and encouraging empathy…you’re advocating for others. People who you’re advocating [for] are not the only people who benefit from your advocacy—you benefit from it, too…That is inclusive leadership, and you can continue to do those things even if your company has less resources or less attention [or] less capital to devote to “DE&I efforts.”

How can leaders build an inclusive workplace?

We have to be courageous and we’re going to get vulnerable…You could truly cause harm if you got it wrong, and so a lot of people just…eliminate diversity and equity.

I think that we’re actually eliminating our ability to overcome the fear and the resistance, and making it easier to talk about inclusion, which is like the most easy one of those four things to talk about, because it’s not as charged…I want to invite all of us to confront that fear, move through it, even if we do it imperfectly, give ourselves and others the grace to make mistakes, stumble along the way. But, learn how to repair those mistakes and work towards doing better each time.