Leadership

New research from McKinsey highlights the need for new styles of management in order to navigate the challenges facing modern organizations.

Let’s look at how inclusivity can support organizations during a time of change and go over building blocks for inclusive leadership.

What does it take for managers to leverage the power of these diverse teams? And, how can you ensure they get the support they need to create an environment that makes employees want to stay? The answer is in cultivating inclusive management practices throughout your organization.

To be effective, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) starts with creating awareness and establishing a broad understanding of how employees can help cultivate a more inclusive work environment.

As you embark on the journey to becoming a more inclusive manager, remember that there will be progress as well as setbacks.

Disruption. It’s the only real certainty in today’s shifting business environment. From a pandemic to a labor shortage to a pressing inflation problem, organizations are grappling with a lot. To cope with what they have in front of them, and what may be ahead, they need to be resilient and nimble—which is only possible with an innovative, productive, and collaborative workforce.

When it comes to culture, let’s agree that creating change is everyone’s responsibility. No one person or group of people holds the exclusive power to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive culture. However, some people do have the ability to affect change in a particularly dramatic way. They are “people managers” who interact with and influence employees on a day-to-day basis.

What does it look like to prepare the world’s future business leaders to be stewards of diversity, equity and inclusion? For Yale School of Management (SOM), it means shaping an environment that reflects the value they place on inclusivity and the kind of culture they are striving to shape, within the school, and into the world.

You already know managers are critical to ensuring your organizational DEI efforts are successful. But did you know that to be a constructive part of DEI, managers have a specific set of needs that must be met?

Research finds that empathy is not only a nice-to-have, but the glue and accelerant for business transformation in the next era of business. Empathy’s ability to create a culture of trust and innovation is unmatched, and this previously overlooked trait must be at the forefront of businesses across all industries.