Inclusive Leadership vs. Delegative Leadership
Different organizational leaders implement varying leadership styles. However, proper leadership plays a massive role in encouraging a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace setting.
Inclusive leadership vs delegative leadership is always a point of contention for many leaders as they explore which style works better. While both are have their benefits, organizations function better by creating a balance and choosing the right approach based on their circumstances.
Here is a detailed comparison guide between inclusive and delegative leadership that dives deep into each leadership style.
In this article, we will discuss:
What is Inclusive Leadership?
An inclusive leadership style works just as it sounds! Inclusive leadership is a management style that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion at work through inclusive hiring, diversity strategies, and communication practices.
An inclusive leader leads a diverse group of people, exhibiting the utmost respect and uniqueness for each individual without bias. A true inclusive leader thoroughly understands each employee, and their uniqueness, and supports them based on their unique qualities and skills.
An inclusive leadership style creates a safe, thriving, and positive work setting. This is because everyone feels heard, and represented, and gets to contribute to the organization. A leader who practices inclusivity doesn't regard the race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or background of any team member.
In fact, studies suggest that massive diverse hiring alone will not foster an inclusive climate. Inclusive leadership is needed to support diverse teams and create an inclusive climate in the workplace.
An inclusive leadership style doesn't just create a conducive working environment for your employees. Ultimately, this style of leadership is great for the organization’s bottom line.
Valued and respected employees exhibit more productivity, engagement, creativity, and innovation. Moreover, they have a better sense of autonomy and confidence, contributing to organizational performance.
If this is a profit-making entity, you have higher earnings than companies that practice other leadership styles. Moreover, a conducive and inclusive leadership style retains top talent from various backgrounds, keeping the company innovative and productive. You don't have to worry about recruitment costs or losing talent. Ultimately, this leadership practice is a great way to build the brand’s reputation and retain loyal customers due to the commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Inclusive leadership does come with its perceived drawbacks - mostly psychological. Among the common negative issues associated with inclusive leadership is ironically the sense of safety and advantage blindness. The feeling of unsafety and the fear of loss stems from the increased availability of resources and opportunities for all.
Advantage blindness refers to a cognitive and social phenomenon where individuals or groups fail to recognize or acknowledge the advantages or privileges they have, especially when these benefits are a result of systemic inequalities or biases. This lack of awareness can stem from various factors, including upbringing, social environment, and personal experiences, and often results in a diminished understanding or denial of the challenges and disadvantages faced by others who lack similar privileges.
Just because one perceives these advantages to being non-existent, it doesn't mean that’s the reality! These differences aren't just limited to race and ethnicity. Humans possess diverse characteristics in other categories, including age, position at the office (e.g. managers vs junior employees), and economic background, to name a few.
🔦Microsoft: Example of Inclusive Leadership
Many companies have embraced DEI practices - extending to their leadership and management styles. But not all of them have become multi-trillion dollar companies!
During his tenure at Microsoft from 2014 to 2021 Microsoft’s former CEO, Satya Nadella embraced an inclusive leadership style, focusing on a learning, empathic, and innovative culture.
Through this transformative leadership adaptation, Microsoft enjoyed significant growth in the market. During that time, Microsoft also did well in the company’s overall market value and product development - claiming its title as a leader in technology and innovation.
Inclusive Leadership Qualities
An inclusive leader must possess particular qualities to allow them to devise the right strategies and practices. Humility, curiosity, and empathy should be core traits of an inclusive leader.
This allows them to foster a sense of belonging and authenticity among their teams. An inclusive leader must truly create equal opportunities and access for every employee for a truly inclusive leadership style to work.
Traits of a good inclusive leader include:
Flexibility and adaptability
Open to learning
Conflict resolution skills
Cultural competence
Leading by example
The ability to grow and support an inclusive workplace
Emotional intelligence and self awareness
Open mindedness
Strong interpersonal and social skills
Respectful
Encouraging
5 Ways to Develop Inclusive Leaders at Work
Encourage open communication: Without the worry of reprehension, a good leader should encourage open and 2-way communication among staff, including junior to management or cross-cultural conversations. The key is to keep these conversations respectful and objective. Training programs and hard conversations are a great way to bridge concerns, such as advantage blindness or loss of fear and safety issues.
Create inclusive events: Inclusive leadership doesn't have to be boring, process driven, and always work based. You can incentivize and encourage your team through a wide range of diversity programs and events. This is a great way to foster team collaboration as staff get to know each other better during the planning process. Diverse events can include anything from potlucks to book clubs.
Support employee feedback and surveys to measure and improve on your efforts.
Collaborate and Engage: A true leader cant do everything by themselves. A good leader should always seek additional support and resources to complement their strategies. Whether through HR support, training programs or hiring DEI audit experts, collaborating with experts can help you pinpoint your vision for the organization and staff.
Organize and Invest in Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)!
When Doesn’t Inclusive Leadership Work?
Inclusive leadership works in many instances and for many organizations. However, it’s easy to slip through to the other side and fail to meet expectations you set. According to Myers-Briggs, leaders may fail to be truly inclusive due to their own perception.
Whether through lack of proper inclusion measuring or traits, like self-awareness, 1 out of 3 leaders perceive themselves to be inclusive than they truly are. In fact, up to 33% of leaders report lacking the skills to implement an inclusive environment.
In other instances, while leaders are adequately equipped, the organization’s own design may limit inclusive efforts. Fortunately, many issues encountered in inclusive leadership can be addressed and rectified with the right strategy.
What is Delegative Leadership?
Delegative leadership, also known as laissez-faire leadership, gives employees more autonomy and power to decide their direction. As the name suggests, delegative leadership is less intrusive with the leader delegating major tasks and initiatives to teams or individual staff.
As with every leadership style, delegative leadership comes with its pros and cons. A recent study suggests that delegative features of leaders are necessary to effectively use human resources. With the right techniques, leaders can harness creativity, and innovation through a delegative leadership style.
With a shared responsibility culture, every employee enjoys a reduced workload, and therefore also benefits from a lower likelihood of burnout. Team members are likely to be more satisfied and productive as they are given more autonomy and ownership of their experiences at the company. Furthermore, delegative leadership can create a sense of pride and satisfaction as employees feel closer and relatable to the company.
Delegative leadership has its drawbacks too! This system requires the right working conditions to thrive, with employees that are able to understand and perform their duties. However, in times of significant change and disruption, whether from internal or external forces, a hands on manager might be required to steer the ship.
In the wrong environment, delegative leadership can be disastrous. But when done right, delegative leadership is healthy for the organization and its members.
🔦 Delegative Leadership in a Tech Start-Up
In many tech startups, the founder or CEO ends up taking a delegative approach to starting the company. With limited funds, there is no option to hire a management team to then oversee the entire operation.
When done correctly, a CEO can use delegative style to run the tech start-up by:
Setting clear goals and visions for the project, e.g. a product development
Hiring a team of skilled and experienced engineers and product designers
Assigning specific tasks of the project to the appropriately qualified team members and give them the autonomy to make decisions.
Instead of micromanaging, a empowering CEO gives their employees the freedom of direction on technicalities, design elements, and timelines. It allows individual team members to step up and complete their deliverables and grow into managers and leaders in their own time.
Delegative Leadership Qualities
A good delegative leader possesses particular qualities that make their style successful. Remember, the core value of delegative leadership is letting your employees take the lead while you lend them support and encouragement. Therefore, a delegative leader must possess genuine trust and supportive elements.
To adequately delegate and cover all grounds, a delegative leader must possess a strategic vision. A Delegative environment is ever-changing as you have different players involved in the decision-making and driving of the project. So, a flexible and adaptive leader is needed in such an environment - adjusting their level of involvement as needed.
Here are other essential skills of a good delegative leader:
Clear and open communication
Patience and reduced urge to control everything
Empathy
Availability
Empowerment
Today, you can find many examples of mainstream laissez-faire leaders for inspiration and the know-how to adopt this style. Prominent businessman, Warren Buffet, with his well-documented business acumen and leadership style is a good example of a leader with delegative qualities.
Warren Buffet is known to surround himself with skilled people he trusts to creatively perform tasks and deliver without his help. He only intervenes when needed or when necessary to correct unfortunate unfavorable situations.
But, modern delegative leaders should be strategic enough to set certain parameters to ensure productivity. These include establishing milestones for their teams or staff, creating results-tracking systems, and tracking individual and team performances for effective feedback and improvement.
How to Encourage Delegative Leadership
Organizational leaders can work to create the right environment for a laissez-faire leadership style while minimizing the drawbacks. The first step is ensuring you have a skilled and empowered enough team and trusting them.
A good leader must also refrain from micromanaging and truly allow employees to use their judgment. But, delegative leadership is a two-way effort. Employees must also be trustworthy, accountable, and reliable. As empowering as delegative leadership is, it can create a laid-back environment that not all team members will easily adapt to.
Here are practical strategies for a leader who wants to adopt a delegative style:
Practice open and consistent communication
Be there to extend support and make yourself accessible
Properly onboard and train your staff
While allowing autonomy, there must be set SOPs to streamline adaptation and accommodate evolving working conditions
Boost cohesion by encouraging collaboration through team projects and regular meetings
Incentivize your team
Utilize qualified human resources and management support for more helpful resources
Delegative leadership and autonomy for your staff aren't the only ways to incentivize and encourage your teams. While practicing this leadership style, You must still maintain a team spirit to ensure productivity and satisfaction.
Create a team spirit by making the common goal clear. You can do this through frequent team collaborations and consistent communication.
Can Delegative Leaders be Inclusive?
Delegative leaders can be inclusive - as the two styles are independent of one another. In fact, a good delegative leaders take full advantage of the diversity, talent and skills they have within their organization. While their delegative practice may not be focused on inclusivity, the very essence of delegative leadership is inclusive.
While unique, delegative and inclusive leadership styles can be complementary. You can pair a delegative and inclusive leadership style in the workplace without one affecting the other. For instance, delegative leaders can still implement the task assigning and full autonomy way of working while still promoting an inclusive and equal environment.
Can Inclusive Leaders be Delegators?
Inclusive leaders can be delegators. Ultimately, inclusive leaders hire and work with a diverse team with varying experiences, skills, and talent. With a trusted and reliable diverse team, inclusive leaders can easily delegate tasks and projects without any worry.
Similarly, inclusive leaders with a focus in implementing DEI can still run the workplace in a delegative/laissez-faire style. Further, delegative and inclusive leadership seem to share the same eventual gaol. Both approaches allow leaders to involve every member of the team without bias while allowing them to contribute to the fullest.
