How inclusive leaders drive well-being and engagement

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The link between inclusive leadership and employee wellbeing

Inclusive leaders play a crucial role in driving employee wellbeing and engagement. Sam Phillips and Kayla Thwaite from our CMI Training team share some practices for leaders to consider.

Be Authentic

Every training session brings a new conversation and a fresh set of ideas, but one theme crops up time and again when discussing inclusive leadership. It doesn’t seem to matter what sector you work in or what position you hold. People want one thing in their leaders: authenticity.

Too many of us have seen the opposite at some stage in our careers. Stood before a leader, nodding in all the right places whilst we listened to the same old buzzwords and promises, knowing that they contained no real substance (but looked good on paper!) If that sounds familiar, you have also probably seen and felt the effect this has on the team.

It’s an anecdotal experience that The Centre for Creative Leadership would agree with. “Organisations that foster authentic behaviour are likelier to have engaged, enthusiastic, motivated employees and psychologically safe cultures.”

Trust is a critical ingredient of psychological safety, so leaders must be able to ‘talk the talk’ and walk the walk. Otherwise, their team will see straight through them, and subsequent actions are seen as performative. The collateral damage of this can be far-reaching.

Imagine how refreshing it feels when you find a leader who does what they say and means it. The benefits don’t just stop at it feeling refreshing. They do wonders for overall employee wellbeing and engagement. People feel safe to push their levels of innovation, the discretionary effort will increase, and people are far more likely to discuss their wellbeing when they feel connected to their leaders.

Practise humility

It’s not commonly taught or highly prized. But humility is a vital part of the inclusive leader’s toolkit. At its simplest, humility is valuing and promoting other people’s interests over your own. It’s recognising your inherent value but not thinking too highly of yourself. It’s the opposite of a leadership style in which the leader is the centre of their organisation’s universe.

Humble leaders tend towards empathy and are more likely to consider other people’s beliefs, opinions, and feelings. They are good at handling disappointment or failure – and learn from both. They know they don’t know everything and listen to those around them, especially those they lead.

Employees working with humble leaders are likely to feel valued. Seeing a leader who is comfortable with failure, they, too, are likely to be more comfortable with mistakes and have a greater capacity for learning, creativity, and innovation. In times of personal struggle, they are more likely to be open and reach out for help.

Inclusive leaders understand the importance of work-life balance and support employees to achieve it. They promote flexible work arrangements, offer resources for managing stress, and encourage self-care.

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Lean into discomfort

Inclusive leaders must also have the tenacity to face into difficult conversations and be able to effectively manage them. A lot of us prefer to shy away from this, and hope that during this period of procrastination things will merely ‘blow over’ but rarely is this the case. Chances are that avoided conversations will just grow horns and become more difficult to deal with in the long run. So ‘striking while the iron is hot’ can be key to dealing with difficult situations and to earning or maintaining your team’s trust.

Also, when difficult conversations are timely and well-handled, disagreement becomes healthy and conflict-free. So, employees know where they stand, feel safe to challenge the status quo or offer a differing (perhaps even controversial) opinion. Truly listening to – and embracing – diversity of thought might not be comfortable. But with it comes fresh ideas, healthy challenge, and new direction. Engagement increases, unnecessary stress reduces.

Coach people to find their own solutions

Coaching has been part of good leadership practice for decades. Why? Because engaging someone in a process, or finding a solution to a problem, means that they feel part of it. They feel heard, useful, and valued. Done well, the combination of structured questioning, active listening, and the assumption that the coachee knows best, leads naturally to greater inclusion.

In fact, the best coaching borrows hospitality whizz, Will Guidara’s motto; ‘one size fits one’. And what better way to foster well-being and engagement than treating your employees as the individuals that they are?

More so, coaching focuses on setting clear goals and proactively pursuing them, a process that is linked to improved well-being. A recent CoachHub article suggests that even small steps in the direction of a goal (without necessarily achieving said goal) result in greater individual well-being.

But it must be a sustained practice. Research suggests that individuals see an immediate improvement in perceived well-being after coaching, but this wanes after the coaching ends. If leaders want to see tangible and lasting improvements in how employees feel – they need to embed coaching into their daily routine.

Support work-life balance

Lastly, inclusive leaders understand the importance of work-life balance and support employees to achieve it. They promote flexible work arrangements, offer resources for managing stress, and encourage self-care. They role-model the same things. And they create a culture where this is expected. By demonstrating concern for employees’ wellbeing beyond the workplace, inclusive leaders enhance engagement and create an environment where individuals can thrive at work, and in life.

Inclusion drives engagement and wellbeing. All three are cut from the same cloth; they’re just the natural results when people are prioritised. Each of these practices helps to create a culture of inclusion and well-being that will permeate throughout your organisation.

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Members can download our Inclusive Leadership factsheet for free

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May 7 2024 @ 10:00 am - 11:30 am

Grow your team

When you become an Inclusive Employers’ Member you grow your I&D team.

Your account manager works with you to understand your goals, your challenges and achievable next steps.

Do you need more support for your inclusive culture to thrive?

Learn about membership today

How inclusive leaders drive employee wellbeing and engagement

Grow your team

The link between inclusive leadership and employee wellbeing

Be Authentic

Practise humility

Inclusive leaders understand the importance of work-life balance and support employees to achieve it. They promote flexible work arrangements, offer resources for managing stress, and encourage self-care.

Lean into discomfort

Coach people to find their own solutions

Support work-life balance

Upcoming webinars – Members receive 5 free place on each and every webinar

Grow your team

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