No short cuts - why it's worth taking the time to build inclusive leadership culture

The drive for greater diversity in tech has been gathering momentum for some time, with many firms realising that the 'tech bro' image and culture is actively working against both their short-term commercial interests and their long-term potential for growth.

The trouble is that many technology leaders tend to be wired to seek shortcuts and work arounds - a minimum viable product. When building an inclusive workplace, this approach won't work.

Diverse workforces don't just happen. Tech companies can go out of their way to recruit employees from differing genders, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds; but if they don't value, support and respect these employees and the contributions they make, they will fail in their goal of building a diverse workplace. This need to ensure that all voices within a group or an organisation are heard underpins the increasingly practiced and much discussed model of Inclusive Leadership.

Jemma Barton, partner at collaboration consultancy Rise Beyond, sets out some of the qualities that inclusive leaders will possess:

"Inclusive leaders are very self-aware. They've done a lot of reflection and have a strong understanding of the impact of their decisions. They understand why they have certain biases and how they affect decision-making and accountability. They empower others and foster collaboration to enable those they lead to contribute the full extent of their knowledge and expertise."

Inclusive Leadership is diversity in action, and if practiced properly, should lead to employees feeling heard, trusted and valued. Without it, organisations will struggle to retain employees - diverse or not.

"It's becoming a real differentiator in organisational success," Barton says. "Organisations that aren't encouraging inclusivity are increasingly being viewed as having highly toxic cultures."

We know that tech boards aspire to greater diversity, and that organisations such as SAP and Microsoft have led the way in areas like neurodiverse recruitment. However, much of the available data suggests that the transition to a more diverse and inclusive workplace is happening more slowly in the tech sector than it is in many others.

Despite the tech sector's continued pace of growth, by the end of 2021, women made up just 24 per cent of technical roles within large tech employers, and 32 per cent of employees overall. This compares unfavourably with other industries. The proportion of tech workers from BAME backgrounds is 15 per cent: a slightly higher proportion than is the case across the wider UK workforce.

The pace of progress to more diverse tech workforces - particularly where women are concerned - remains slow. What should concern tech employers even more is that this limited progress might well go into reverse when more recent data is considered. Technology employers are suffering more than some other sectors from The Great Resignation. LinkedIn data suggested an attrition rate of approximately 13 per cent on average, but this figure comes from pre-pandemic data. More recent studies suggest that in certain areas of technology, such as internet and enterprise software, that percentage could be higher.

High attrition rates are strongly indicative of cultural problems within organisations, and some tech workplaces can be genuinely toxic.

Even when organisational culture is more positive, a barrier to more inclusive leadership is that those at the top can be inclined to view unconscious bias work as a box to tick, possibly as an ongoing defence against potential litigation.

A digital product owner working in the public sector shares an anecdote that illustrates how some individuals and organisations focus on statistics rather than people:

"We had several sub organisations merge, one of which is still very male dominated. During a meeting someone said, 'Oh, thank goodness, we've all been merged because that makes our diversity stats look a lot better.'"

We can't become inclusive leaders until we build awareness around our own biases

There is also the issue of ongoing resistance from individuals who have prospered within more traditional closed leadership structures. Jemma Barton explains:

"We all carry bias. Bring a group of leaders into a room and ask them about that and they become awkward and uncomfortable. But we can't become inclusive leaders until we build awareness around our own biases. People reject that because it's really uncomfortable."

Examining culture has to be undertaken with care. Ensuring you create the safety and space to do this well is essential. In many organisations, expectations of what constitutes professional and leadership qualities is part of the challenge that has to be overcome before this type of training can be successful in elevating leadership culture. It's important to understand that Inclusive leadership has a strong business case as well as a moral case.

"Bashing white middle class men is going to alienate them from the process", explains Barton. "Inclusive leadership means being able to invite difference and explore it, which means we have to do some work on ourselves. For example, the old perception of what makes a leader successful is their knowledge, their rightness, their identity, their skill. But an inclusive leadership culture requires senior leaders to let go of some of these things and focus on building relationships, inviting challenge to gain a diversity of perspectives and work more successfully with the complexity they face. This is a lot for leaders to let go of. This is why we look at collaboration, building trust, sharing vulnerability, creating connection. This happens over time and is why a sheep dip approach won't work.

"You can't expect somebody to come in as their whole selves and share different and challenging perspectives if they don't trust you - and you don't trust people you don't know. This old idea that you leave your personal life at the door is a big barrier to us having these conversations. A lot of the work I do with leaders is almost deprogramming that expectation and from being the right and knowing hero leader in an ivory tower, to someone I know well enough to explore differences and make sense of the challenges to get stronger outcomes."

None of this is easy, or quick. It can take months or even years for an organisation to get to the stage where leaders can invite difference in and work more inclusively. As this happens, according to Barton, it creates an uplift in organisational culture. The rewards are significant - improved morale and job satisfaction, which ultimately leads to lower employee turnover, access to a bigger and more diverse talent pool, and the advantages that brings for business outcomes.

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