The Inclusion Delusion: Why Most Leaders Overestimate Their Inclusive Leadership Skills

There’s a sobering truth about inclusive leadership that many of us would rather not face: most of us have an inaccurate perception of how we are perceived as inclusive leaders. This phenomenon, known as “The Inclusion Delusion,” reveals that only about a third of us have a correct understanding of how inclusive we truly are.

It’s a humbling realisation, isn’t it? As leaders committed to creating inclusive environments, we’d like to believe we’re doing brilliantly at fostering belonging and equity. Yet research consistently shows that our self-perception and reality often don’t align.

The Paradox of Self-Awareness

What makes this delusion particularly fascinating is its paradoxical nature. The less knowledgeable we are about inclusion, the more we overestimate our inclusive leadership abilities. Conversely, the more knowledgeable we are, the more we underestimate our abilities. This is a classic illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect – a cognitive bias where people with limited competence in a given domain overestimate their abilities.

I’ve witnessed this countless times during leadership workshops. I recall delivering training for senior leaders at a German wholesaler organisation. Towards the end of the workshop, participants were asked to assess themselves on how inclusive they thought they were. One participant particularly caught my attention because of her non-inclusive behaviours throughout the day. Interestingly, during the self-assessment exercise, she rated herself at the highest level. She genuinely believed she was already at the top of her game.

This common misalignment between perception and reality makes the need for feedback even more acute when it comes to inclusive leadership. How could we address a lack of inclusivity if we don’t know it exists?

The Blind Spot Challenge

Our unconscious biases and blind spots create a significant challenge. Italian actress Monica Bellucci once shared in an interview how important it is for her to hear what others think of her, because there’s an aspect of our personalities that only others can see, not ourselves. She’s absolutely spot on.

As inclusive leaders, we must recognise that we have blind spots – areas where our impact differs from our intent. We might believe we’re creating psychological safety, but our team members might feel hesitant to speak up. We might think we’re being equitable in our recognition, but certain voices might consistently go unheard.

These blind spots aren’t failures of character; they’re human limitations that we all share. The key is acknowledging them and actively seeking ways to illuminate them.

The Growth Mindset Foundation

Addressing the inclusion delusion requires cultivating what Stanford Professor Dr Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset – believing that our abilities and our team’s abilities can be developed through dedication, effort, and learning. This mindset is crucial because it helps us navigate the fundamental human paradox at the heart of feedback: our need to be accepted as we are, and our need to grow.

We want to know that there’s nothing wrong with us, that there’s nothing we need to change. We love when our perfection is validated because it gives us self-confidence and strengthens our sense of identity. At the same time, we also feel the need to grow, to learn new things, to develop ourselves.

Development means change, and change means letting go of an old self regarding certain aspects of our behaviours and embracing a new self. That’s not easy, but it’s essential for our growth as inclusive leaders.

Creating a Feedback Culture

An inclusive culture is fundamentally a feedback culture. We cannot improve what we cannot see, and we cannot see our blind spots without help from others. This means we must actively seek feedback about our inclusive leadership practices, even when it feels uncomfortable.

The challenge is that many of us don’t regularly ask our team members for feedback about our leadership. It might sound counterintuitive, but the best way to get feedback about ourselves is neither to focus on ourselves nor to focus on the past. The best way is to focus on the other person and on the future.

During one-to-ones, we can ask questions like: “Do you feel you belong here?” “Do you feel included?” “Do you feel you’re treated fairly? Why or why not?” “What do you need to feel more supported and included?”

These conversations will only be useful when we’ve established a minimum trust level with our direct reports. If trust is present, having this conversation and acting on it will be a trust booster.

Practical Steps Forward

We can gain greater self-awareness by seeking feedback from our line manager, peers, or from a group of trusted colleagues. Think of it as our “Inclusion Advisory Board” – people who can provide us with insight into how we’re being perceived. If we’re in an organisation that offers 360-degree assessments, we should try to access them as they can be powerful tools for self-discovery.

Another valuable exercise is asking our team to discuss our inclusive leadership without our presence, identifying our strengths and opportunity areas, and reporting back to us anonymously via a spokesperson. This might feel uncomfortable – it’s not an easy exercise for most leaders – but teams often love going through it, experiencing it as a team-building exercise.

Leaders are usually surprised by the feedback they receive. We tend to take our strengths for granted, and our opportunity areas tend to be blind spots.

Moving Forward with Humility

The inclusion delusion teaches us that humility is not just a virtue but a necessity for inclusive leadership. We must be willing to acknowledge that we don’t know what we don’t know, and that our perception of our inclusive leadership abilities might be flawed.

This doesn’t mean we should lose confidence in our leadership abilities. Instead, it means we should approach inclusive leadership with curiosity, openness, and a commitment to continuous learning. We should be willing to ask difficult questions, seek uncomfortable feedback, and make changes based on what we learn.

Remember, being transparent about our learning journey as inclusive leaders and asking for help is itself an act of inclusive leadership. It nurtures psychological safety within our teams and models the growth mindset we want to cultivate.

The journey towards truly inclusive leadership begins with acknowledging that we might not be as inclusive as we think we are. It’s only from this place of honest self-reflection that we can begin to bridge the gap between our intentions and our impact.

Thanks for reading – Let’s keep shining the inclusion light together! ✨

***

This article is adapted from my upcoming book, Practising Inclusive Leadership.

✨ Curious about my Inclusive Leadership Online Programme or my Train-the-Trainer Retreat in Cyprus? Click HERE to register your interest, get the full details, and enjoy early-bird access.