Welcome, attendees of the session, How to become an inclusive leader, by Dr. Meagan Pollock. On this page, you will find all of the resources shared (and more!) during the session.
Are you an inclusive leader?
Slides
Interested in my slides? You can download a PDF handout here.
Action Plan
- Review our tools below
- Select at least 3 that you'd like to try
- Make a plan for how and when you will do so
- Enlist a colleague to help
Suggested Strategy
Not sure where to start? Here’s our recommendation. Try one thing at time!
Watch my TEDx Talk and facilitate a discussion on it using our guide.
Learn more about the Inclusive Leadership Development Model and then complete the Inclusive Leadership Reflection Tool with a Strengths-based Growth Continuum. Discuss what you learned with others.Â
We recommend starting meetings with ground rules, group norms, shared agreements, guidelines, or as we call it a session pledge, to help facilitate a more equitable and inclusive environment.
Stewardship cultivates an enriching atmosphere, the opposite of gatekeeping behaviors. Everyone can practice stewardship and facilitate belonging for those around them. Learn about stewardship and gatekeeping, and practice using the prompts as a mindset and choice framework.
Explore how cognitive biases (flawed patterns of responses to judgement and decision problems) affect how we work. At this time, I only have a handout you can download below — more information coming soon.
Nudging is the process of influencing behavior through small changes in information or adaptations to an environment. We recommend the following our Unbiasing Nudges to unbias how we operate. At this time, I only have a handout you can download below — more information coming soon.
Inclusive Leadership
Inclusive leadership is imperative for creating cultures, teams, and organizations that drive equitable outcomes for historically marginalized and minoritized people. The inclusive leadership development model is a four-part, iterative, reflective, and reflexive framework for developing into an inclusive leader.
Try Our Tools
We create tools to help you build the skills of inclusive leadership. It takes practice, intention, reflection, and scaffolding to help us along the way. Below you will find some of our current tools, and we encourage you to join our mailing list to be notified of more practical resources you can use.
Establish group norms or shared agreements
Every group naturally develops normative behaviors, expectations, and unwritten ways of operating. To intentionally engineer inclusion, you can set or establish norms that scaffold equitable and inclusive practices. We’ve created a simple four-S alliteration to help you get started. Save the image, download the pdf, or use our pledge as a starting place to create your own.
How to practice stewardship
Stewardship cultivates an enriching atmosphere, the opposite of gatekeeping behaviors. Everyone can practice stewardship and facilitate belonging for those around them. In this post, I describe stewardship and gatekeeping, and provide a set of prompts to equip us with a mindset and choice framework.
Unbiasing Nudges
Nudging is the process of influencing behavior through small changes in information or adaptations to an environment. We recommend the following nudges to unbias how we operate.
Cognitive Biases
In the early 1970s, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the term ‘cognitive bias’ to describe people’s systematic but flawed patterns of responses to judgment and decision problems. There are hundreds, but we recommend focusing on the top eight.
Positionality Exercise
The way we see and understand the world influences how we interact with others, make decisions, and interpret others’ actions. To be equitable and inclusive leaders, educators, or humans, we must understand how our identities bias our perceptions. In this post, we provide a free downloadable 26-page PDF with definitions and explanations of several social identities (race, gender, socioeconomic status, ability status, and sexuality) and a scaffolded exercise to help you examine your positionality.
Related Posts​
- Round Robin Brainstorming
- Constructivist Listening
- What is the difference between kindness and empathy?​
- Active Listening: Shifting from Kindness to Empathy
- What’s better than the Golden Rule? The Platinum Rule!
- Are you brave enough to listen like Wonder Woman?
- De-Hibernate and Build Networks for Resiliency
“I never thought about how they might feel.” How do you contribute to inclusive environments?
In this post, I share a reflection by a friend of mine and offer prompts for you to consider how we can all contribute to inclusive environments.
