Learn Inclusive Leadership Basics

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Explain the relationship between equality and performance.
  
• Define inclusive leadership.
  

Connecting Equality and Performance

At Salesforce, our equality approach is and has always been rooted in compliance with applicable laws and regulations. A performance-driven culture is one in which leaders set clear and measurable targets for all employees and are responsible for prioritizing work, delivering results, tackling underperformance, and rewarding top performers. The focus of a performance-driven culture is to promote efficiency without sacrificing accountability or trust. As a leader, you must keep in mind that even a results-driven work environment is composed of people. People who have different beliefs, perspectives, experiences, cultural needs, and communication styles.

There are many ways in which your sense of belonging—how you feel seen, heard, and respected in the workplace—can impact your performance. If you face a workplace in which you don’t feel valued, where a commitment to equality is not at the heart of everything you do, you feel less motivated to engage. That’s why it’s vitally important to create inclusive and welcoming work environments to empower employees to perform their best work.

As a leader you’re accountable not just for driving results, but for ensuring your team operates within a welcoming environment. This is accomplished through inclusive leadership. Whether you’re currently a leader, an aspiring leader, or looking to see how you can champion inclusive leadership practices, this badge explores what inclusive leadership means and how it can boost performance.

Defining Inclusive Leadership

The job of inclusive leaders is to create an environment where everyone can do their best work—regardless of who they are or where they come from. As a successful, inclusive leader, you understand and elevate your team members’ unique strengths. You advocate for your employees and foster an environment where everyone feels welcome and valued.

Inclusive leaders are active allies who lead with a value of equality and build a culture of belonging for all employees—not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because inclusive environments help team members perform at higher levels.

If you center equality in your pursuit of results and productivity understand that equality and performance go hand in hand. Lead your team through the how of day-to-day operations and protocols while demonstrating why equality is important. For example:

• Mitigate bias in performance management and evaluation.
  
• Identify and address equality concerns before they affect performance.
  
• Promote psychological safety.
  
• Practice cultural awareness/humilty in a global market.
  
• Speak up for someone who was interrupted in a meeting.
  
• Remain globally minded whean leading an international team (for example, by accommodating time zones, mitigating geography bias, and so forth).
  

Each‌ small act of inclusion creates a ripple effect that can, over time, transform the culture of your team and the company.

Everyone has a role to play in creating a more inclusive workplace. In the next unit, look at the business impact of intentionally engaging in inclusive leadership.