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AALTO University
School of Science
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
Olli Kiikkilä
Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership
and Differences in Awareness and Attitudes
Master’s Thesis
Espoo, 19/7/2021
Supervisor: University Lecturer Jari Ylitalo (D.Sc)
Instructor: Master of Social Science Susanna Bairoh
I
AALTO UNIVERSITY School of Science Master’s Program in Industrial Engineering and Management
ABSTRACT OF THE MASTER’S THESIS
Author: Olli Kiikkilä
Title: Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership and Differences in Awareness and Attitudes
Pages: 70 + 6 Date: 19 July 2021 Language: English
Major: SCI3094 Organization Design and Leadership
In the globalizing world, diversity is becoming an ever more relevant opportunity and issue for companies. To
tackle trouble arising from diversity and benefit from its potential advantages, organizations turn to inclusion, a
practice of empowering, involving and celebrating diverse talent. Leadership plays a decisive role in fostering
inclusion and an inclusive work climate. Nevertheless, the existing literature lacks empirical insight into the
effectual elements of inclusive leadership. Similarly, the differences in people’s awareness and attitudes towards
D&I are traditionally overlooked. This study aims to fill this research gap with a description of inclusive leadership
and differences in awareness and attitudes.
The research takes an inductive approach to describe inclusive leadership while acknowledging the
phenomenological nature of the research topic. Altogether 21 people were interviewed, consisting of supervisors
and their employees in two Finnish ICT consultancy companies. Grounded theory was employed in the analysis
to identify converging narratives in the interviews, while abductive research was also applied in reflecting the
interpretations against existing literature.
Building on interviewees’ experiences of leadership, perception of relevant organizational elements and barriers
for inclusion, the study proposes a set of inclusive leadership characteristics fostering inclusion in individual
relationships as well as in the work group. The study further suggests six mediators of inclusive leadership upon
which the articulated characteristics rely: psychological safety, shared identity, an atmosphere of uniqueness,
humane respect, feeling of being an insider and relationality. The study suggests that the mediators serve as the
underlying dynamics in facilitating individuals’ sense of inclusion in their experience of the leadership
Furthermore, the study lays out the specters of awareness and attitudes that emerged from the interviews. Their
potential implications are discussed, and the role of critical self-reflection and self-awareness and proactive
attitude is underlined.
This study contributes to the current body of research with a comprehensive description of inclusive leadership
connecting dispersed elements and propositions from existing literature. Furthermore, the study provides novel
insight into the diversity of awareness and attitudes towards D&I, whose potentially decisive role in inclusive
leadership is also hypothesized.
Supervisor: University Lecturer Jari Ylitalo (D.Sc)
Instructor: MSSc Susanna Bairoh
Keywords: Inclusive leadership, leadership, organizational inclusion, diversity, diversity management
II
AALTO-YLIOPISTO Perustieteiden korkeakoulu Master’s Program in Industrial Engineering and Management
DIPLOMITYÖN TIIVISTELMÄ
Tekijä: Olli Kiikkilä
Työn nimi: Inklusiivisen johtajuuden piirteet sekä erot tietoisuudessa ja asenteissa
Sivumäärä: 70 + 6 Päivämäärä: 19.07.2021 Kieli: englanti
Pääaine: SCI3094 Organization Design and Leadership
Kansainvälistyvässä maailmassa työvoiman monimuotoisuudesta on tullut entistä ajankohtaisempi mahdollisuus
jo haaste yrityksille. Taklatakseen monimuotoisuudesta aiheutuvia ongelmia sekä hyödyntääkseen sen avaamia
hyötyjä, organisaatiot kääntyvät inkluusion puoleen – työntekijöidensä kokonaisvaltaiseen osallistamiseen sekä
erilaisuuden rohkaisemiseen. Johtajuus on merkittävässä roolissa inkluusion ja inklusiivisen ilmapiirin
luomisessa. Tästä huolimatta kirjallisuus ei tarjoa riittävästi empiirisesti tutkimustietoa inklusiivisen johtajuuden
perusosista. Lisäksi ihmisten tietoisuus ja asenteellisuus D&I-teemoja kohtaan on tähän asti jätetty huomiotta
tutkimuksessa. Tämä tutkimus vastaa näihin kysymyksiin kuvauksellaan inklusiivisen johtajuuden piirteistä sekä
eroista tietoisuudessa ja asenteissa.
Tutkimus lähestyy inklusiivista johtajuutta induktiivisesti ja tunnustaa samalla ilmiön fenomenologisen luonteen.
Yhteensä 21 henkilöä – esihenkilöitä ja heidän alaisiaan – haastateltiin tutkimusta varten kahdesta suomalaisesta
IT-konsultointiyrityksestä. Analyysissä tunnistettiin yhteneväisyyksiä haastateltavien kuvauksissa omista
johtajakokemuksistaan ja löydöksiä verrattiin olemassa olevaan kirjallisuuteen.
Haastateltavien johtajuuskokemusten sekä kuvaamiensa organisaatiokulttuurin piirteiden ja esteiden pohjalta
tutkimus esittää joukon inklusiivisen johtajuuden piirteitä, jotka viljelevät inkluusion tunnetta yksittäisissä
suhteissa sekä työryhmien toiminnassa. Tutkimus esittää myös kuusi inklusiivisen johtajuuden
perusdynamiikkaa, joihin edellä esitetyt piirteet pohjautuvat: psykologinen turvallisuus, jaettu me-kuva,
ainutlaatuisuuden ilmapiiri, inhimillinen kunnioitus, sisäpiiriläisyys sekä vuorovaikutteisuus. Edellä kuvatut
perusdynamiikat välittävät oleellisesti inkluusion tunnetta yksilöissä inklusiivisen johtajuuden piirteiden tuloksena.
Tutkimus pohjustaa myös ymmärrystä ihmisten D&I-tietoisuuden ja -asennoituneisuuden kirjosta haastatteluiden
erojen pohjalta. Tutkimus puntaroi löydösten seurauksia ja alleviivaa erityisesti kriittisen itsereflektion ja -
tietoisuuden sekä proaktiiviset asennoitumisen roolia.
Tutkimus edistää olemassa olevaa kirjallisuutta laaja-alaisella katsauksella inklusiivisen johtajuuden piirteistä
sekä yhdistää hajanaisen tutkimuskentän löydöksiä ja teorioita. Tutkimus tarjoaa myös täysin uutta tietoa D&I-
tietoisuuden ja -asenteiden monimuotoisuudesta, ja hypotetisoi näiden ratkaisevaa roolia inklusiivisessa
johtamisessa.
Valvoja: Yliopistonlehtori Jari Ylitalo (TkT)
Työn ohjaaja: VTM Susanna Bairoh
Avainsanat: Inklusiivinen johtaminen, johtaminen, organisaatioinkluusio, diversiteetti, diversiteettijohtaminen
III
Preface
Although I would have never expected a global pandemic to give my last student years a twist,
I was still even more surprised that I would learn so much new in the past six months while
working on my Master’s thesis. It has been a truly eye-opening journey of self-reflection and
exploration while delving into the diversity, equality and inclusion topics. Altogether, it’s quite
something to graduate after the long and eventful years in Otaniemi but graduating with a
thesis on a topic of actual humane value is something even more.
I am most grateful to my thesis instructor Susanna Bairoh and supervisor Jari Ylitalo, for the
active and insightful guidance throughout the research process. Furthermore, I’m thankful to
Tekniikan Akateemiset TEK for providing me with such an important and impactful research
topic.
Recently, my friend Johannes joked that it’s almost as hard to get out of the Aalto university
as it is to get in. Not because the university would be too overwhelming but rather because
the Aalto community provides so many exciting and attractive opportunities and ambitious
projects. I definitely relate with the joke, and the past seven years would not have been as fun
as they have if I hadn’t signed up for the infinite number of volunteer projects. Although there
are lots of people I’d like to thank for the incredible ride, here are a few highlights:
- Sara, for making the thesis process during a pandemic manageable and supporting
me in my ups and downs
- Prodeko, ProH’17 and ProH’18, for giving me the opportunities to find my own path
along with the priceless experiences and memorable moments
- Jäynä and Vapaateekkarit, for the friends, memories and over-the-top projects time
after time
- Pöh(i)nä, thank you for the music
- Perhe Kiikkilä, for the unconditional support behind the scenes
Although graduation feels like an end of an unforgettable chapter, I know it’s also a beginning
of a new one.
LTN,
Olli Kiikkilä
Espoo, 19th July 2021
IV
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Relevance of research ................................................................................................ 1
1.2 Research objective and questions .............................................................................. 2
1.3 Thesis structure ........................................................................................................... 2
2 Literature Review .............................................................................................................. 4
2.1 Diversity ....................................................................................................................... 4
2.2 Organizational Equality ............................................................................................... 6
2.2.1 Organizational Equality and Diversity ................................................................ 7
2.2.2 Social sources of inequality ............................................................................... 8
2.2.3 Structural sources of inequality ....................................................................... 10
2.3 Inclusion .................................................................................................................... 12
2.3.1 Dimensions of inclusion ................................................................................... 13
2.3.2 Organization-level inclusion ............................................................................. 16
2.3.3 Group-level inclusion ....................................................................................... 17
2.3.4 Individual-level inclusion .................................................................................. 18
2.3.5 Synthesis of organizational inclusion .............................................................. 19
2.4 Leadership and Inclusion .......................................................................................... 20
2.4.1 Relational Leadership ...................................................................................... 20
2.4.2 Inclusive Leadership ........................................................................................ 22
2.4.3 Inclusive leadership levels ............................................................................... 23
2.4.4 Synthesis of inclusive leadership..................................................................... 25
3 Methods ........................................................................................................................... 26
3.1 Ontology and epistemology ...................................................................................... 26
3.2 Research design ....................................................................................................... 28
3.3 Data collection ........................................................................................................... 29
3.4 Data analysis ............................................................................................................. 32
4 Findings ........................................................................................................................... 34
4.1 Psychological safety .................................................................................................. 36
4.2 Humane Respect....................................................................................................... 39
4.3 Shared Identity .......................................................................................................... 40
4.4 Atmosphere of Uniqueness ....................................................................................... 42
4.5 Relationality ............................................................................................................... 44
4.6 Feeling of being an insider ........................................................................................ 45
4.7 Attitudes and Awareness .......................................................................................... 46
V
5 Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 50
5.1 Theoretical implications............................................................................................. 50
5.2 Practical implications ................................................................................................. 55
5.3 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 56
5.4 Future research ......................................................................................................... 58
6 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 60
References .............................................................................................................................. 61
Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 1
Appendix 1: Inclusive Leadership Maturity Model ................................................................. 1
Appendix 2: Table of Interviewees ......................................................................................... 2
Appendix 3: Research Interview Consent ............................................................................. 3
Appendix 4: Original quotes (in the order of appearance) .................................................... 4
VI
List of Figures
Figure 1: Dimensions of inclusion (Shore et al., 2011) ........................................................... 14
Figure 2: Dimensions, Elements and Levels of Organizational Inclusion............................... 19
Figure 3: Chain of Formulation and Interpretation (modified from Laine, 2010) .................... 27
Figure 4: The Characteristics and Mediators of Inclusive Leadership .................................... 35
List of Tables
Table 1: Grounding in interviews ............................................................................................. 36
Table 2: The specter of D&I awareness .................................................................................. 47
Table 3: The specter of D&I attitudes (with fictive descriptive example quotes) .................... 47
Table 4: Connections to existing literature .............................................................................. 51
Abbreviations
D&I Diversity and Inclusion
ICT Information and Communication Technology
LMX Leader–Member Exchange
AL Authentic Leadership
ODT Optimal Distinctiveness Theory
RLT Relational Leadership Theory
1
1 Introduction This chapter introduces the research topic, argues its relevance and background, and
articulates the research objectives, research questions and the selected methods. Last, the
structure of the thesis is presented.
1.1 Relevance of research
Thanks to globalization, the workforce available for organizations is much larger and more
diverse today. Although the advantages of diversity are debated, diversity has become a
relevant topic for organizations (Ferdman et al., 2010). Most importantly, the benefits of
diversity seem to come with a cost: “diversity appears to be a double-edged sword, increasing
the opportunity for creativity as well as the likelihood that group members will be dissatisfied
and fail to identify with the group” (Milliken and Martins, 1996, p. 403). Therefore, the
importance of organizational inclusion is highlighted: “Diversity is the mix. Inclusion is making
the mix work” (Tapia, 2009, p. 12). While diversity refers to the manifoldness in the company
personnel, inclusion comprises individuals’ experience of belonging to the organization and
being wholeheartedly their true selves. Although the two concepts are distinct, they are
popularly referred to together with D&I, diversity and inclusion, in organizations.
Prior studies show that organizational inclusion improves employee retention (Nishii and
Mayer, 2009) and improves team performance (Mitchell et al., 2015; Chung et al., 2020),
among other benefits. However, organizational inclusion is not self-evident or effortless and
latent inequalities in organizational practices and systemic structures are found to manifest in
women’s career advancement (Trauth et al., 2009), among many other ways.
According to research, leadership plays an integral role in facilitating inclusion through
individual leadership relations (Cottrill et al., 2014; Randel et al., 2018) and shaping an
inclusive work climate (Wasserman et al., 2008). Sabharwal (2014) found that organizational
policies and structural transformation alone are insufficient for increasing diversity-to-
performance and, instead, inclusive leadership is required. Notably, inclusive leadership
spans beyond managing trouble arising from diversity to empowering individuals to their full
potential (Sabharwal, 2014). As for organizational inclusion, inclusive leadership is not self-
evident, and Lee et al. (2010) synthesize that many managers do not sufficiently support their
female employees’ career advancement. However, research shows that inclusive leadership
has the potential to facilitate heterogeneous groups to perform more effectively (Homan and
2
Greer, 2013), reduce employee turnover (Nishii and Mayer, 2009), and endorse innovation
and creativity (Carmeli et al., 2010; Javed et al., 2019). Furthermore, I argue that inclusive
leadership per se is a humane, “good” practice contributing to employees’ wellbeing (Brimhall
et al., 2014). In contrast, exclusion is found to have potentially harmful effects on psychological
and physical health (Jones et al., 2013). Thus, inclusive leadership is both a business case as
well as a fundamental ethical concern.
Organizational inclusion and inclusive leadership are largely theorized topics in the current
body of literature. Particularly, the plethora of inclusive leadership conceptualizations calls for
more empirical investigation and qualitative examination of the effectual leadership
characteristics. Furthermore, organizational D&I efforts are also shown to raise resistance
among employees (Thomas and Plaut, 2007; Lee et al., 2010). Therefore, I argue that
awareness and attitudes pose a central role in inclusive leadership. However, they are ignored
in the current body of research.
1.2 Research objective and questions
This research pursues to shed light on the above-articulated research gap: describe how
leaders succeed in creating a sense of inclusion and how individuals differ in their awareness
and attitudes towards D&I. The research objective is synthesized into two research questions:
1. How do leaders facilitate inclusion?
2. How do awareness and attitudes towards D&I manifest?
This study aims to contribute to the growing field of organizational inclusion literature with a
profound look into the characteristics of inclusive leadership and increase understanding of
the differences in awareness and attitudes towards D&I. The research is conducted as a study
of supervisors and their teams in two Finnish ICT consultancy companies – both with different
maturity in inclusive organizational practices.
1.3 Thesis structure
The thesis begins with a review of the existing literature around topics related to inclusion and
inclusive leadership in Chapter 2: first, diversity is defined, and diversity management is
discussed in Section 2.1; second, organizational equality is introduced, and awareness and
attitudes are examined in Section 2.2, third, inclusion is defined and covered in Section 2.3,
3
and, last, leadership and inclusive leadership literature is synthesized and reflected against
the preceding sections in Section 2.4.
Following the literature review, the methods used in this study are exhibited, and their validity
is assessed in Chapter 3. Next, the findings and the emergent theories are presented in
Chapter 4 and their connections and differences to the prior research, limitations of the study
and ideas for future research are discussed in Chapter 5. Last, the thesis is concluded with a
synthesis of the key implications and contributions in Chapter 6.
4
2 Literature Review In this chapter, the existing literature around inclusive leadership is reviewed. First, diversity
and diversity management are introduced. Second, organizational equality and awareness
and attitudes are discussed. Third, inclusion is defined, and its dynamics are synthesized.
Last, the modern leadership literature is summarized, and inclusive leadership is framed and
conceptualized.
2.1 Diversity
Prior literature presents a variety of definitions for diversity: the demographic, skill, belief,
behavioral and status differences within group members (McGrath et al., 1995, p. 23), the
aggregate differences within a social unit (Harrison and Sin, 2006, p. 196) or differences in
world views, cultural behavior, and identity (Larkey, 1996). Milliken and Martins (1996) further
specify that diversity composes of both observable – such as race, gender, age and ethnicity
– and non-observable characteristics – such as cognitive, cultural, and technical differences
between people (Kochan et al., 2003). In a business context, diversity is best defined by “the
varied perspectives and approaches to work that members of different identity groups bring”
(Thomas and Ely, 1996, p. 80).
Relevantly for this study, diversity can be regarded as the base for organizational inequality
and exclusion. Hays-Thomas (2004, p. 12) defines diversity as the different attributes
influencing how individuals are accepted, their performance and advancement in the
organization. Similarly, Mor Barak (2014, p. 136) formulates that workplace diversity refers to
distinctive employee demographics that perceivably share a commonality of a cultural or
national context that influences their job opportunities, treatment, and promotion regardless of
their objective job qualifications. These definitions imply diversity as the potential source for
structural attitudes that subsequently generate inequalities. Notably, discrimination and
inequality basing on observable characteristics can be enforced with appropriate legislation
(Roberson, 2006), whereas non-observable cannot. Essentially, an individual might choose
not to disclose their non-observable characteristics to others – sexuality, for instance – as
means of avoiding discrimination (Mor Barak, 1999; Bairoh, 2007), whereas observable
characteristics cannot be hidden. Since the concept of diversity fundamentally describes
multeity, its complexity is not compressed to one universal definition (Ferdman et al., 2010),
but instead, diversity is best defined contextually.
5
Research shows both negative and positive effects of diversity, and some findings even
conflict with each other (Milliken and Martins, 1996; Kochan et al., 2003; Ferdman et al., 2010).
Mixed results imply that benefits of diversity come with a cost: “diversity appears to be a
double-edged sword, increasing the opportunity for creativity as well as the likelihood that
group members will be dissatisfied and fail to identify with the group” (Milliken and Martins,
1996, p. 403). Thus, diversity per se does not produce favorable organizational results (Mannix
and Neale, 2005). Furthermore, people of diverse backgrounds interpret things differently
depending on their history, personal experiences, culture, education, etc. Milliken and Martins
(1996) suggest that trouble arises from these differing perspectives, beliefs and assumptions
that seemingly correlate with observable characteristics. As a result, conflicts arise
increasingly in diverse teams and lead to lower team performance and cohesion (Milliken and
Martins, 1996; Shore et al., 2018). However, according to Mor Barak (1999), Fernandez (1991)
suggests that issues arising from diversity are, in fact, not due to the heterogeneity but rather
organizations’ inability to accommodate the diverse talent. Consequently, the role of
organizational inclusion will be introduced in Section 2.2.3.
Diversity Management
In their research, Kochan et al. (2003) identified rather few direct outcomes of diversity – both
negative, positive, and neutral – and, instead, high team performance seemed to depend
mainly on the contextual processes and the environment. Consequently, capitalizing on
diversity and addressing the inherent issues call for diversity management. Prasad and Mills
(1997) define diversity management as “systematic and planned commitment on the part of
organizations to recruit and retain employees from diverse demographic backgrounds” (p. 4).
Sabharwal (2014) adds that “[t]here is recent consensus that diversity management needs to
move from a passive (valuing diversity) to an active (diversity management) approach” (p.
200). Dietz and Petersen (2006) further hypothesize that, at the organizational level (macro-
level), diversity management moderates diversity-to-performance while, at the individual level
(micro-level), stereotypes and bias should be managed.
Bairoh (2007) distinguishes three approaches to diversity management: the practitioner, the
mainstream, and the critical approach. The practitioner view focuses on practical
implementation and business realities and, therefore, regards diversity management as
acknowledging differences but focusing on the most important ones. The mainstream
approach views diversity as demographic differences and differences in identities. Last, the
critical approach highlights that some differences are more relevant than others, for instance,
due to historical oppression. Literature proposes differing outcomes for each approach and
6
notes that diversity management is also contextually subject to the organization culture
(Bairoh, 2007).
Practices and ideologies of both diversity management and organizational inclusion (Section
2.2.3) are closely connected. However, Sabharwal (2014) found that diversity management is
not enough to improve performance at work and, therefore, inclusive practices are needed
(see also, Pless and Maak, 2004).
2.2 Organizational Equality
Research shows that representatives of minorities may become excluded from organizational
information networks and opportunities for their background (Ibarra, 1993). For example,
Pelled et al. (1999) found that racial and gender differences from the dominant employee
profile are associated with poorer inclusion in decision-making processes and information
networks. In line with these findings, Acker (2006) defines inequality in organizations as
“systematic disparities between participants in power and control over goals, resources, and
outcomes” (p. 443). Such disparity is more concretely manifested in promotions, career
advancement opportunities, reward systems, and wages, among others (Acker, 2006). In
addition, Wasserman (2014) suggests that organizational inequality also appears in more
mundane “microinequities”, e.g. underestimating and overlooking people based on race or
gender.
To broaden understanding of organizational inequalities, Acker (2006) introduces the concept
of inequality regimes: “loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions, and meanings that
result in and maintain class, gender, and racial inequalities within particular organizations.” (p.
443). Such systemic entrenched structures inherently facilitate inequality in organizations and
complicate overcoming exclusion. Research shows that even organizations with goals for
establishing equality develop inequality regimes (Scott, 2000). Thus, organizational inequality
can be considered an unavoidable challenge for organizations requiring proactive attention
and action. Consequently, organizations that opt-out from egalitarian organizational
development most likely fails to recognize the prevailing inequality regimes. Related to the
contextual nature of inequality regimes, the effects of such organizational systems are
dynamic, evolve over time and manifest in diverse forms as organizations are also subject to
cultural and political societal changes (Acker, 2006).
7
2.2.1 Organizational Equality and Diversity
Prior literature suggests a range of social constructs that are used for grounding organizational
inequality. Acker (2006) underlines class, gender, and race as the most distinctive, thoroughly
embedded, and common bases of inequality in organizations. Class refers to differences in
control and access to resources for survival, gender refers to differences in social beliefs and
identities related to men, women and other sexes, and race refers to social perceptions of
differences in physical attributes and cultural background and historical oppression (Acker,
2006). These three bases of inequality are further accompanied by infinite other attributes
such as sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and migration (Acker, 2006; Healy et al., 2018). Thus,
bases of inequality are determinants for distinguishing employee demographics that facilitate
stereotypes and are, thereby, used as justification for unequal treatment. Essentially any
attribute of diversity – observable or non-observable – may form a basis of discrimination and,
therefore, the bases of inequality are similarly diverse. Out of the infinite range of dimensions
of diversity, gender inequality is one of the most widely researched areas of inequality and
used as an exemplary case in this chapter.
Intersectionality & Individuality
Inequality is hardly based on only one attribute and instead, rather depends on multiple
attributes and the context simultaneously. For example, Pelled et al. (1999) found that being
different in a traditionally dominant demographic was harder than in a minority group. Building
on this notion, Acker (2006) introduces the concept of intersectionality that describes the
aggregate effects of the combination of personal characteristics – such as class, race, and
gender together – have on how people are treated. Intersectionality conceptualizes how
people synthesize the influence of manifold social affiliations (Wasserman, 2014). Therefore,
studying the bases of inequality is complicated due to the vast dimensionality and the infinite
combinations they pose. For the same reason, many of these combinations are also
understudied for the time being (Healy et al., 2018). Wasserman (2014) further adds that the
same attribute of an individual’s identity may be perceived differently – dominant or
marginalized – depending on the context and time.
The unique combination of socio-ethnic attributes and characteristics essentially create a
sense of individuality. Building on personal background, education, experiences and infinite
other factors, individuals have different interests and ambitions that affect their career choices
and development, which, in turn, play a role in the representation of different demographics
across organizational levels. For instance, research finds that women have stronger
preferences in work environments that facilitate working with and helping people in their work
8
(Kossek et al., 2017), consequently affecting their career choices. According to Kossek et al.
(2017), Hakim (2000) suggests that women might be more inclined to prioritize a balance
between work and family than men who put their career first and, thereby, opt-out from some
career opportunities. However, Su et al. (2009) suggest that differences in interest towards
leadership positions between men and women have reduced over the years and are close to
irrelevant today. Therefore, Kossek et al. (2017) argue that both individualistic choices and
structural, social, and environmental inequalities affect women’s career equality. Thus, even
though generalizations for different employee demographics can be drawn, it should be noted
that sources of inequality are complexly affected by myriad factors and, therefore, are to some
extent unique case-by-case.
In conclusion, individual interests and preferences also play a role in the representation of
different demographics across organizational levels. However, antecedents of
underrepresentation should be critically investigated to affirm whether individual decisions are
motivated by personal preferences or, in fact, the social pressure of the “right choice” arising
from the organizational climate. Understandably, individuality adds complexity to identifying
and observing organizational inequality. Therefore, studying organizational inequality requires
careful observation, continuous internal research and examination of the unbalanced
representation of different employee demographics.
2.2.2 Social sources of inequality
The variety of personal attributes – such as class, gender and race discussed earlier – are the
ground for socially embedded perceptions that facilitate and produce inequality through
biases, stereotypes, expectations, social roles, etc. Thus, culturally embodied conceptions
serve as the social sources of inequality. For example, women are culturally expected to
undertake the motherly nursing role in the family domain, which likely generates a work-family
conflict in allocating time between career and family (Ahuja, 2002; Trauth et al., 2009). The
pressure from both domains may be incompatible and poses trade-offs between career
advancement and family (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985; Niemistö et al., 2021).
Stereotypes & Unconscious Biases
Unconscious biases have a notable effect on people’s perceptions of others. Stereotypes
unknowingly affect our decision-making without necessarily having any justifiable reasoning
or rationale grounding them. Dietz and Petersen (2006) consider stereotypes and prejudices
as the most proximal sources of discrimination in organizations. Unconscious biases create
inequalities by shaping how we perceive and interact with people: research shows that gender
9
biases are linked to women’s exclusion from organizational career advancement opportunities
(Heilman, 2012). Furthermore, research suggests that stereotypes affect how women are
assessed and how their fittingness to traditionally male-typed positions is perceived compared
to their male peers (Heilman, 2012). Heilman (2012) synthesizes that such deeply embedded
biases create prescriptive norms of what different demographics should be like and what their
appropriate behavior is like – rather than what they are really like. Overall, stereotypes are
effectively present in everyday life: Acker (2006) argues that people make actively gender-,
race- and class-based presumptions of others with whom they work. Furthermore, research
confirms that culturally embedded gender stereotypes affect the interest of female youth in IT
as an education or a career path (Clayton et al., 2009). Consequently, stereotypes are not
only limited to singular organizations and are also culturally embedded.
Awareness
Since inequality is subjectively experienced, there is a disparity in perceiving inequality. For
example, McIntosh (2019) claims that the dominant demographics – such as men and whites
– are less likely to recognize their privilege. As a result, there are differences in the awareness
of inequality within and across organizations (Acker, 2006). Identifying organizational
inequality is even more challenging since members of minorities themselves may not attribute
their negative treatment to discrimination either (for example, Stangor et al., 2003).
Furthermore, depending on awareness, the understanding of the concept itself – such as
equality – varies between people. For instance, in the context of diversity and inclusion (D&I),
the meanings of the terms render blurred as they are loosely misused in organizational
communication due to the lack of comprehensive understanding (Women in Tech, 2019).
Interestingly, Acker (2006) notes that the lack of awareness may also be an intended
managerial decision, and managers may choose to hide areas of organizational inequality
purposively. Nevertheless, growing awareness is the key for driving egalitarian organizational
change, which can be improved with training and involving people in discussion and problem-
solving around discrimination (Scarborough et al., 2019).
Attitudes
Better awareness is associated with positive attitudes towards driving organizational equality.
Scarborough et al. (2019) argue that increasing awareness of discrimination has a positive
effect on both diversity policy support and the organizational climate for minorities. Studies
show that people who recognize that discrimination is disadvantageous for certain
demographics and beneficial for others are more likely to promote equality (Scarborough et
al., 2019). In their study, DuBow and Ashcraft (2016) report two recurring narratives in
10
attitudes towards gender equality: limited understanding of what gendered inequality means
and lack of awareness of how such inequality is manifested in everyday organizational life. As
a result, employees are reported to show resistance towards organizational gender equality
goals since their employees do not consider gender a significant factor in their work (Lee et
al., 2010). To address and eliminate organizational inequality, inequalities must first be
identified and, thus, an adequate degree of employee awareness is essential in facilitating
supportive attitudes. Thus, organizations should invest in training and open discussions to
increase employee awareness: Scarborough et al. (2019) argue that educating employees
about discrimination and how it produces social inequalities contributes to awareness of
organizational equality.
2.2.3 Structural sources of inequality
Structural inequality manifests in varying ways via organizational practices and processes. I
distinguish structural sources of inequality from social ones in that they are organizations’
designs and practices – as opposed to social sources that emerge organically from social
interaction involuntarily. Notably, all organizations operate contextually in their surrounding
culture and, thus, the structural sources of inequality are recursively subject to social sources
of inequality. For example, Kossek et al. (2016) suggest that cultural norms indirectly shape
how HR practices, such as performance reviews, are put into place: masculine norms are
shown to frame leadership norms in tech and, consequently, impede women from rising to
such position (DuBow and Ashcraft, 2016). Furthermore, all organizations bear a degree of
inequality stemming from organizational hierarchy (Acker, 2006): supervisors have more
power over their subordinates. Therefore, identifying structural inequalities are similarly
relevant for all organizations.
Organizational practices
Practices cover essentially “the ways of doing things” – the organizational and group norms
and processes – and therefore, play a key role in shaping the organizational culture. Practices
that structurally favor some and discriminate others are an integral reason for producing
inequalities. For example, lack of supportive networks, appropriate mentor programs,
promotion opportunities and training are reported to create “glass ceilings”, an effect
preventing women from advancing to management positions (Trauth et al., 2009). Facilitating
diversity and organizational equality calls for rethinking and creating new supportive
organizational practices such as mentoring, work-family programs, training, succession
planning and accessible work arrangements (Sabharwal, 2014). As another example, Ahuja
(2002) argues that long working hours in the ICT business conflict with pressures from the
11
family domain. Similarly, Trauth et al. (2009) suggest that balancing between work and family
complicates adjusting to working rhythms in IT. In extension, some informal networks that are
central for career advancement base on traditionally masculine activities such as golf (Ahuja,
2002). Thus, organizational practices may produce inequalities in various ways and, therefore,
should be of organizational interest.
Designing appropriate organizational practices is not straightforward either and prior literature
suggests that mechanisms designed to tackle inequality might uphold and reproduce
inequality: support structures designed for a particular employee demographic might be
interpreted to imply inability or lack of competence. Sabharwal (2014) notes that people
engaging in work-family balance programs or alternative work arrangements experience
counter-intuitive backlashes from being perceived as receiving special treatment in the
organization. Therefore, career advancement programs designed to support women’s career
advancement conflict with women’s interest in living up to the image of a model employee and,
consequently, make them opt-out of such opportunities out of the fear of reinforcing
undesirable stereotypes (Lee et al., 2010). Furthermore, Glass (2004) found that exploiting
work-family policies affected women’s wage progression consistently negatively. Since poorly
designed practices can be perceived to accommodate only a certain employee demographic,
they will not successfully address organizational inequality despite their initial goals
(Sabharwal, 2014).
Managers and organizational equality
Managers are in a central role in driving organizational equality both as gatekeepers and
messengers of organizational policy as well as mentors and role models. Unfortunately,
according to Lee et al. (2010), research shows that many male managers fail in supporting
their female subordinates’ career ambitions. Furthermore, even though organizations might
have explicit egalitarian policies, managers are not always aware of such objectives, and HR
might not know of the managerial unawareness either (Lee et al., 2010). Furthermore,
managers might not be self-motivated to drive equality and diversity policies and, therefore,
managers must be persuaded to support such organizational policies and train them to turn
the policies into practice (Lee et al., 2010). Leadership is discussed more in the context of
organizational inclusion in Section 2.4.1.
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2.3 Inclusion
“Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.”
(Myers, 2017)
As the popularly quoted saying by Verna Myers (2017) goes, inclusion goes beyond
organizational diversity. Tapia (2009) states aptly: “Diversity is the mix. Inclusion is making
the mix work” (p. 12). Supporting the claim, Nishii and Rich (2014) argue that organizations
may not, in fact, benefit from diversity if they do not exercise inclusive decision-making and,
instead, reject and downplay employee input (Milliken et al., 2003; Tangirala and Ramanujam,
2008). People who feel excluded or outsiders are unlikely to voice up and contribute with their
unique perspectives (Ferdman et al., 2010). Similarly, the current body of literature suggests
that to manage issues and advantages of diversity, organizations must create an environment
of inclusion for all individuals (e.g., Mor Barak, 1999; Shore et al., 2011). Ferdman et al. (2010)
theorize that diversity, in fact, merely facilitates the benefits of inclusion, for example, by
creating “positive environments for constructive conflict and debate” (Mannix and Neale, 2005,
p. 33) – diversity being the moderator and inclusion the predictor.
In addition, inclusion contributes to job satisfaction and engagement, employee retention, trust
and well-being (Shore et al., 2011; Brimhall et al., 2014). Chung et al. (2020) found recently
that inclusion is empirically shown to contribute to work performance, helping and creativity.
Thus, in addition to being a fundamental psychological need (see also, Brewer, 1991),
organizational inclusion makes a strong business case (Bendick et al., 2010; Royal Academy
of Engineering, 2017; McKinsey & Company, 2020).
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)
Even though many papers discuss Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) as one singular concept, the
two are essentially distinct organizational topics requiring their own kind of attention. On the
one hand, building on the definitions of diversity (Section 2.1), organizational diversity is
defined via the representation of varying identities in the organization. On the other hand,
Nishii and Rich (2014) note that “by definition, inclusion involves the elimination of
marginalization and exclusion” (p. 331). In line with this thinking, Winters (2014) draws a
distinction between the two by defining “diversity as a noun describing a state and inclusion
as a verb or action noun” (p. 206) and underlines the proactive aspect of inclusion.
Furthermore, Roberson (2006) suggests that diversity is focused on organizational
demographics, whereas inclusion on eliminating the barriers preventing employees from fully
13
participating in the organization. Despite the distinction between diversity and inclusion, the
two concepts are nonetheless inter-linked: together, they are expected to improve team
performance and creativity (Ferdman et al., 2010).
Individuality & Psychology
Whereas the concepts of segregation and integration consider groups of people, an essential
aspect of exclusion–inclusion is that they are focused on individuals, individuality, and
subjective experiences (for example, Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Roberson, 2006; Shore et
al., 2011). Inclusion is essentially a psychologically experienced phenomenon: “the degree to
which individuals feel a part of critical organizational processes” (Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998,
p. 48). According to the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT; Brewer, 1991), people have a
psychological need to belong to a group as well as actualize their unique identity – i.e., be
involved as they are. From this perspective, psychological safety is a relevant factor in
facilitating feelings of inclusion: psychological safety is defined as the perception of being able
to be one’s genuine self without fear of harmful consequences (Kahn, 1990). In contrast to
inclusion, exclusion is shown to have potentially harmful effects on psychological and physical
health, regardless of whether practiced openly or ambiguously (Jones et al., 2013).
2.3.1 Dimensions of inclusion
Being a complex psychological phenomenon, inclusion has been defined via a range of
different constructs in prior literature. In their seminal work, Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998)
conceptualize inclusion as an individual’s experiences of “involvement in work groups,
participation in the decision-making process, and access to information and resources” (p.
52). Their approach to inclusion is notably focused on individuals’ experiences and
perceptions of organizational practices and structures. In contrast, (Shore et al., 2011)
conceptualize two core dimensions to inclusion, belongingness and uniqueness, building on
the Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT; Brewer, 1991). Belongingness builds on the need
for interpersonal relations (Baumeister and Leary, 1995) and uniqueness on the need for
upholding one’s identity (Snyder and Fromkin, 1980; Randel et al., 2018). Inclusion allows
every individual to be their authentic selves and collaborate with others without having to
surrender their own identities (Ferdman et al., 2010). Significantly, research adds that the
personal significance between the two dimensions might also vary by context (Correll and
Park, 2005).
14
Figure 1: Dimensions of inclusion (Shore et al., 2011)
As conceptualized by Shore et al. (2011), the dimensions of inclusion are widely recognized
in academia and convincingly empirically validated by Chung et al. (2020) in their recent
research. As opposed to the functional approach by Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998), Shore et
al. (2011) build their definition on the psychological experience of inclusion in both social
interactions and organizational structures. Therefore, I suggest that the sense of inclusion
emerges from both structural and social elements. Furthermore, I suggest that dimensions
presented in the traditional inclusion literature – such as involvement in decision-making,
access to organizational resources and organizational commitment – are crucial
organizational structures facilitating these feelings, but, in its essence, inclusion emerges from
the feelings of belongingness and uniqueness instead. Basing on Shore et al. (2011), Randel
et al. (2018) synthesize that practicing organizational inclusion, therefore, entails accepting
every individual as they are and involving them equally in organizational processes
(belongingness) as well as making everybody’s voice heard and recognizing their unique input
(uniqueness) (see also, Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Hope Pelled et al., 1999). Thus, I define
organizational inclusion as the practice of facilitating a sense of inclusion – i.e., feelings of
belongingness and uniqueness – through various organizational activities, structures,
processes, and efforts. The distinction between inclusion as a psychological phenomenon and
as an organizational practice is vital for building theory – the practice of inclusion being the
focus of this study.
15
Organizational equality and inclusion
Inclusion is also tightly connected to organizational equality: an organization cannot be
inclusive if its employees have unequal access to the organization’s resources and information
unjust possibilities to participate in decision-making (e.g., Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Nishii
and Rich, 2014; Sabharwal, 2014; Dennissen et al., 2019) or are otherwise overtly or covertly
discriminated socially or structurally. Underlining the relation between the two, Shore et al.
(2018) propose two complementary perspectives to driving inclusion: 1) eliminating inequality
in decision-making and 2) presuming that discrimination is systemically ingrained and
manifested and should therefore be addressed. Notably, inclusion does not limit to
organizational equality or fairness but instead goes beyond to cover themes such as
encouraging expressing opinions (Sabharwal, 2014), enabling effectual contribution to critical
organizational processes (Miller, 1998; Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Roberson, 2006), and
establishing organization-wide experience of social belongingness (Shore et al., 2011; Nishii
and Rich, 2014). Furthermore, according to Wasserman et al. (2008), Holvino, Ferdman, and
Merrill-Sands (2004) articulate that inclusion entails both equality and justice as well as
actively involving all people and integrating diversity to the integrity of the everyday
organizational life. In other words, organizational equality ensures that everybody can
participate in organizational activities, whereas inclusion actively involves and encourages
everybody to participate. Basing on these definitions, I propose that organizational equality is
the ground for exercising inclusion.
Levels of inclusion
Church et al. (2014) suggest that D&I should be incorporated into everything an organization
does. Thus, inclusion must be exercised holistically at all levels of the organization: individuals
(micro), groups (meso), and organizational processes (macro) (Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998;
Booysen, 2014). At the micro-level, exercising inclusion requires the individuals’ ability to
recognize and take the perspective of others without losing one’s own views (Wasserman,
2014), e.g., empathy and emotional intelligence, to facilitate a pluralistic co-evolving
organization culture (Mor Barak, 2000). At the meso-level, individuals should feel included in
the relevant group processes, decision-making and access to resources (e.g., Mor-Barak and
Cherin, 1998). Finally, at the macro-level, organizational practices and structures should drive
organizational equality, inclusive organization climate (Nishii and Rich, 2014) and inclusive
organizational practices and systems (Winters, 2014). Thus, establishing and fostering
inclusion is a manifold and holistic organizational activity – requiring an appropriate
organizational climate and practices, effort and commitment from individuals, and, particularly,
skillful leadership, among others.
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2.3.2 Organization-level inclusion
Numerous organizational elements contribute to organizational inclusion spanning from
practices to organization culture. Inequalities in organizational practices are discussed in
Section 2.2.2. Next, the relevant topics are reviewed in the scope of this study.
Diversity strategy
In their seminal work, Ely and Thomas (2001) introduce the “integration-and-learning”
approach to diversity where cultural diversity is considered as a valuable asset and a learning
opportunity for the organization that should be utilized as insight for rethinking even the
organizational primary functions. This approach to diversity appreciates differing viewpoints
and values diversity, thereby fostering uniqueness and facilitating cross-cultural learning in
the organization (Ely and Thomas, 2001). Importantly, Ely and Thomas (2001) further
underline that integration-and-learning was the only approach that managed to preserve
advantages of diversity as opposed to “access-and-legitimacy”, that eventually reproduced
organizational inequalities, and “discrimination-and-fairness”, that takes a homogenous
approach that ignores diversity and uniqueness. Additionally, Mor Barak and Daya (2014)
state that inclusive organizations adjust their values and norms to welcome new employees
instead of forcing diversity to reconcile with the existing dominant culture. Thus, organizations
pursuing inclusion should take on the integration-and-learning strategy to drive and embed an
inclusive mindset both culturally and structurally.
D&I commitment
Prior research further argues that commitment from top management and senior leadership is
essential for driving inclusion (Roberson, 2006; Sabharwal, 2014). Organizations require
committed leadership for facilitating inclusion at all organizational levels (Miller, 1998; Pless
and Maak, 2004; Shore et al., 2011). Furthermore, organizational commitment includes
designing organizational policies for equity (Bendick et al., 2010). However, without committed
leadership, policies alone do not necessarily convert to an inclusive environment (Sabharwal,
2014).
Organizational climate
Whereas organizational culture focuses on the organizationally embedded values,
assumptions and values, organizational climate aims to describe the organizational reality
17
through static dimensions that are rooted in the organizational values (Denison, 1996).
Furthermore, organization culture takes a social constructionist perspective and a sociological
and anthropological approach, while climate depicts an ahistorical snapshot of the current
dynamics from a psychological viewpoint (Denison, 1996). According to Boekhorst (2015), L.
R. James et al. (1990) suggest that culture is framed by the system and climate by the
personal, individualistic frame. Therefore, the individualistic frame is taken to discuss the
sense of organizational inclusion.
Nishii and Rich (2014) synthesize that inclusive climate constitutes of three elemental
dimensions: (1) organizational practices reinforcing employees’ image of favorable behavior,
(2) interaction with others that shape collective understanding of the environment and (3)
norms and policies that moderate behavior. Building on these dimensions, organizational
practices and norms may delegitimize organizational inequalities by removing linkage
between favorable socio-cultural status and privileged access to organizational resources and,
as a result, eliminating status differences between demographics (Ridgeway and Correll,
2006). From an individuals’ point of view, an inclusive climate holds expectations, practices
and norms celebrating diversity and allows holding multiple identities (the uniqueness
dimension) as well as endorses participating in organizational decision-making and sharing
unique viewpoints (the belongingness dimension) (Nishii, 2013). Thus, norms and practices
facilitating feelings of uniqueness and belongingness in everyday organizational life foster an
inclusive climate (Boekhorst, 2015). It is also worth noticing that group-level and individual-
level inclusion are also subject to organizational norms and practices.
2.3.3 Group-level inclusion
Even though inclusion is experienced subjectively and individually, Jansen et al. (2014) found
that the group has the agency in facilitating feelings of inclusion as opposed to individuals and
is, therefore, central in facilitating the sense of inclusion. Stereotypes and biases creating
group norms and beliefs are described in Section 2.2.1.
Group practices
Key work group activities for inclusion compose of the widely supported dimensions proposed
by Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998): involving group members, allowing participation in decision-
making (see also, Sabharwal, 2014) – for example, regarding the ways of working or
timetables – and provide access to critical information and resources (Nishii and Rich, 2014;
Sabharwal, 2014) – for example, through formal and informal discussions. The inequalities in
these processes are discussed in more detail in Section 2.2.2.
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Social insider circle
Social interaction with the work environment mediates the feeling of belongingness and
uniqueness. Pelled et al. (1999) propose that inclusion is “the degree to which an employee
is accepted and treated as an insider by others in a work system” (p. 1014). Social circles are
important as Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998) also pinpoint informal discussions as one source
for critical information in organizations. To facilitate the feeling of being an insider, work groups
should accept diverse individuals (Shore et al., 2011), allow their members to express various
identities (Nishii, 2013) and encourage their diverse opinions in decision-making (Sabharwal,
2014; Winters, 2014). In general, inclusive work groups are committed to integrating diversity
and new cultural identities to expand their expertise and skillset (e.g., Ely & Thomas, 2001).
2.3.4 Individual-level inclusion
Inclusion at the micro-level consists of the individual’s relations with other employees in which
employees’ cultural competence, relational eloquence and, fundamentally, awareness and
attitudes are in crucial roles.
Cultural competence and relational eloquence
Hammer (2009) defines cultural competencies essentially as the ability to recognize both
cultural differences and similarities in values, beliefs, and practices. Developing cultural
competence requires awareness of microinequities (Rowe, 1990) and recognize both
conscious and unconscious biases in own thinking and behavior (Winters, 2014) – e.g., critical
self-awareness and reflection (see also, Ferdman and Roberts, 2014).
Complementing cultural competence, relational eloquence is the skill of participating in others’
sense- and meaning-making processes and take others’ perspectives without losing one’s
own (Wasserman, 2005). This ability is equally essential with cultural competence as collective
meaning-making with people from very different backgrounds requires attentiveness to all the
possible interpretations of the shared reality (Wasserman et al., 2008) – e.g., critical relational
awareness.
Awareness and attitudes
Awareness and attitudes (see also Section 2.2.1) are important in both cultural competence
and relational eloquence. Mor Barak (2000) argues that employees’ biased perceptions and
behaviors are the core obstacles in putting inclusive organizational policies into action.
19
Synthetizing Ferdman and Roberts (2014) and Wasserman (2004), Gallegos (2014) suggests
that inclusive individuals reflect on their own identities, recognize identities of others and
communicate despite the differences in the contextual organization environment. Similarly,
Wasserman (2014) suggests that such skills call for the ability to engage in dialogic interaction
and critically reflect own viewpoints and the underlying biases and assumptions. Thus,
inclusive people develop their self-awareness and have a critical attitude towards their own
behavior and learning.
2.3.5 Synthesis of organizational inclusion
Building on the dimensions of inclusion (Shore et al., 2011), organizational levels of inclusion
(e.g., Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Booysen, 2014), aspects of organizational equality
discussed in Section 2.2 and all other literature covered hitherto (see particularly, Wasserman
et al., 2008; Winters, 2014), I propose the following conceptual synthesis of the dimensions,
elements and levels of organizational inclusion (Figure 2): an individual experiences inclusion
through the feelings of belongingness and uniqueness (dimensions) that arise from the
structural and social constructs of the organization (elements) in interaction with other
individuals (micro), the surrounding group (meso) and the organization as a whole (macro)
(levels). On an important note, the structural and social elements are recursively inter-linked
since structural inequality reproduces social inequality and vice versa.
Figure 2: Dimensions, Elements and Levels of Organizational Inclusion
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2.4 Leadership and Inclusion
There is no unified or standardized definition of leadership, and the research field is
widespread (Alvesson, 2019): leadership is defined in various ways and discussed through
various constructs in the current body of literature (Yukl, 1989). Essentially, the ontological
and epistemological approaches to leadership are debated: what is leadership, and how can
we study it. In this chapter, a brief framed introduction to the relevant leadership literature is
synthesized and, later, discussed in more detail from the organizational inclusion perspective.
From the traditional, entity-based perspective, leadership is ontologically bound to logical
entities such as leaders and followers that pursue shared goals (Drath et al., 2008).
Consequently, leadership is seen more as a predicate by a subject, i.e., actions by an agent.
Despite the straightforward approach, the setting further poses a question of framing: what
exactly is regarded as leadership. As a result, a broad variety of elements have been studied
in prior research, such as leaders’ traits, influence and behaviors, among many (Yukl, 1989).
In contrast, the social constructionist approach (Fairhurst and Grant, 2010) challenges this
traditional, objective epistemological view and the largely outcome-focused, functionalist
approach to leadership (Gioia and Pitre, 1990). Social constructionism posits that social
realities – and thereby leadership – are subjective and construed in reciprocal, intersubjective
interaction of negotiating and contesting meanings (Fairhurst and Grant, 2010). In other words,
leadership is a reality that is intersubjectively created, shaped, and maintained through
interaction (Fairhurst and Grant, 2010) as opposed to the functional view of leadership being
experienced through one objective shared reality, putting relations over the agents to the focal
point. In its broad field, social constructionist theories have taken their own paths to, for
example, leadership-as-practice (Raelin, 2011) and relational leadership (Uhl-Bien, 2006).
2.4.1 Relational Leadership
Since inclusion is produced in interaction, relationality is a significant aspect of inclusion, and
inclusive leadership is fundamentally a relational activity. Relational leadership theory posits
that leadership is fundamentally a social process. There are two avenues to this theory (Uhl-
Bien, 2006): 1) from the entity-based perspective, realities are interpreted in interaction
through participants’ personal perceptions, attributes, and behaviors, whereas 2) from the
relation-based perspective, individuals’ realities along with the social surrounding are created
and shaped in interaction (Uhl-Bien, 2006). In other words, the ontological difference between
the two is that the entity-based perspective posits that leadership lies in the characteristics
and behaviors that shape the leadership relation, whereas the relational perspective
21
recognizes that leadership emerges from the interactional process of co-creating realities
reciprocally and contextually (Uhl-Bien, 2006).
Leader-member exchange (LMX; Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995) is a predominant, entity-based
relational leadership theory particularly focused on studying and describing the relational
aspect of leadership. According to LMX theory, leaders and members engage in a dyadic
relationship in which influence increments over the evolving relationship and, as a result, the
so-called leadership occurs (Uhl-Bien, 2006). The straightforward theory takes a subject-
object stance to relationality and characterizes the entity qualities and attributes of the
relationship from the subject’s perspective. From the organizational inclusion perspective,
leaders impact how employees see themselves: members who feel validated by their leader
are more confident and motivated (Nishii and Mayer, 2009). Building on LMX theory, Nishii
and Mayer (2009) hypothesize that by valuing each member of the work group, leaders
communicate appreciation, and employees are more likely to accept each other as valued
peers. Through senses of appreciation and being accepted, employees feel that they can be
their unique selves and still belong to the group (e.g., Shore et al., 2011). Thus, leaders
effectively mediate inclusion in their interaction with employees (Brimhall et al., 2017).
However, Uhl-Bien (2006) argues that the entity-based LMX theory is outdated and, instead,
a congruent theory, Relational Leadership Theory (RLT), employing both the entity-based and
the relational perspective and acknowledging the dynamic contextual, relational side should
be applied. In RLT, Uhl-Bien (2006) defines relational leadership as “a social influence process
through which emergent coordination (i.e., evolving social order) and change (i.e., new values,
attitudes, approaches, behaviours, ideologies, etc.) are constructed and produced.” (p. 668)
Similarly, Leadership-as-Practice (L-a-P) is a relational leadership theory positing that
leadership emerges particularly from the leader's practices and their relational, moral and
emotionally experienced attributes rather than the traits and characteristics of the leader
(Raelin, 2011). Thus, leadership is also a shared process between the “leader” and the
members, and practices are essentially manifestations of the shared reality through which
leadership is conveyed. Taken the traditional approach to inclusion by Mor-Barak and Cherin
(1998), inclusion is mediated by inclusive practices and, consequently, inclusive leadership
may be examined from the L-a-P perspective where practices are the origin of the socially
collaboratively construed leadership (Raelin, 2011). From this perspective, inclusive
leadership may manifest in inclusive decision-making, meeting, or rewarding practices, for
example.
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2.4.2 Inclusive Leadership
Some researchers suggest that inclusive leadership is an expansion to diversity management
(see Section 2.1) that focuses on working out the trouble arising from a diverse workforce
(Booysen, 2014; Nkomo, 2014; O’Donovan, 2017). Nonetheless, inclusion spans beyond
diversity management (Sabharwal, 2014) by embracing diversity and including everybody in
organizational activities (Pless & Maak, 2004; Sabharwal, 2014), inviting and appreciating
contribute from diverse people (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006) and empowering them to
contribute to their full potential (Roberson, 2006; Sabharwal, 2014; Winters, 2014).
Since inclusion requires continuous attention and changes in organizational culture and
everyday practices, leadership plays a key role in creating a sense of inclusion (Cottrill et al.,
2014) and shaping an inclusive organizational climate (Wasserman et al., 2008; Nishii, 2013).
Similarly, Chung et al. (2020) found that inclusive leadership and organizational climate are in
a notable role in facilitating inclusion in work groups which are essentially the immediate work
environments for individuals (Jansen et al., 2014). Sabharwal (2014) further denotes that
organizational policies and structures facilitating diversity are insufficient for increasing
organizational performance and, instead, inclusive leadership endorsing inclusive climate is
required.
Inclusive leadership is also reported to enhance innovation activities (Javed et al., 2019) and
engagement in creative work via psychological safety (Carmeli et al., 2010), increases team
performance by reducing perceptions of professional status differences in professionally
diverse work groups (Mitchell et al., 2015), and reduces employee turnover (Nishii and Mayer,
2009).
Inclusive leadership skills
Inclusive leadership calls for a wide variety of skills and behavior spanning beyond assimilation
strategies to empowerment, participation as well as tackling exclusion and marginalization
(Booysen, 2014). According to Booysen (2014), Mor Barak (2011) and Ferdman (2010) argue
that inclusive leadership requires relational skills, collaboration, transformative cultural
leadership, as well as engaging all employee demographics (see also, Wasserman et al.,
2008). Literature further discusses openness, availability, and accessibility as important
inclusive leader behaviors towards others (Carmeli et al., 2010; Javed et al., 2019) and
communicating to employees that their opinions are truly valued and invited (Nembhard &
Edmondson, 2006). Such leader behaviors are argued to facilitate psychological safety
(Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Carmeli et al., 2010; Javed et al., 2019). Wasserman et
al. (2008) add that fostering inclusive culture further requires leadership flexibility, self-
23
awareness, mindfulness and even the ability to be vulnerable. They also denote that the
transformative leadership required for creating an inclusive climate raises almost unavoidable
resistance with which leaders must be comfortable. Altogether, Booysen (2014) argues that
inclusive leadership development should build on a balanced mix of competencies (e.g.,
relational skills), knowledge (e.g., awareness) and mindset (e.g., attitude and authenticity).
Authentic Leadership (AL)
Winters (2014, p. 222) argues that “[t]hose with the power to drive inclusion must want to do
it. No amount of coaching, coaxing, or coercion can convince the die-hard recalcitrant.”
Consequently, organizational policies and management strategies are unlikely to enforce
inclusion alone if leaders do not authentically embrace the importance of inclusion and,
therefore, the role of Authentic Leadership (AL; Avolio and Gardner, 2005) is introduced. In
their research, Cottrill et al. (2014) found evidence that authentic leaders contribute saliently
to employees’ perceptions of inclusion by endorsing them to be their selves consistently with
the AL theory (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). Furthermore, AL underlines self-awareness and
relational transparency (i.e., openness and sincerity) as essential leadership skills (Walumbwa
et al., 2008), which resonate with inclusive leadership development and the need for self-
reflection as suggested by Booysen (2014) and Winters (2014). Whereas leadership is often
discussed from the perspective of interpersonal interaction, authentic leadership is focused
on leaders’ internal qualities (Cottrill et al., 2014). Notably, AL is also criticized for its gloomy
ideology and arguable lack of business applicability and realism (Alvesson, 2019).
2.4.3 Inclusive leadership levels
Building on the previous chapter on organizational inclusion, inclusive leadership is essentially
about facilitating feelings of belongingness and uniqueness (Shore et al., 2011). Furthermore,
as presented in the synthesis in Section 2.3.5, inclusive leadership should operate and cover
all aspects of different organizational levels – micro, meso and macro – horizontally and
vertically (Booysen, 2014). On the one hand, leaders are vital in interpreting and putting
organizational policies and goals into practice at the grassroots level (Winters, 2014). On the
other hand, leaders have a significant position in the work group (e.g., Randell et al., 2018)
and individual relations (e.g., Cottrill et al., 2014). Thus, inclusive leaders must operate on
multiple organizational levels along the dimensions of inclusion – i.e., engage in aspects
synthesized in Figure 2 – while also practicing active self-reflection and development to
facilitate personal inclusive growth (Wasserman et al., 2008). Due to the need for holistic
24
organizational support, Randel et al. (2016, p. 229) add that “without clear signals that the
organization itself is inclusive and fair, leaders are not able to inspire greater helping by
compensating for these negative perceptions among racioethnic minorities.” – neither
leadership nor organizational actions alone create the sense of inclusion, and both are needed
(see also, Sabharwal, 2014).
Leadership at the individual level
At the individual level, inclusive leadership is essentially exercising inclusion in one’s own
behavior: according to Booysen (2014), Hannum et al. (2010) suggest that inclusive leaders
must be unbiased, respect everybody’s perceptions and drive fairness and equality.
Therefore, the ability to understand where others are coming from (cultural competence) and
relationally co-building a shared reality (relational eloquence) are in a key role in inclusive
leadership (Wasserman et al., 2008) as well as the awareness and attitudes to facilitate these
capabilities (see Section 2.2.2). Furthermore, exercising inclusion calls for continuous learning
of diversity and exploring differences between people (Wasserman et al., 2008). People who
are more culturally conscious and learning-oriented might behave more inclusively and,
thereby, act as better leaders (Church et al., 2014). The above-suggested skills build
essentially on understanding individuality and, therefore, some also emphasize the role of
emotional intelligence in leadership (for example, Goleman et al., 2001).
In pursuing unbiased and inclusive behavior, leaders must be aware of how exclusion and
inequality manifest. Therefore, leaders should be able to recognize and address
microinequities (Rowe, 1990) and microaggressions (Sue, 2010) that manifest in day-to-day
interactions and behavior through devaluing or insulting a person for their demographic
purposively or accidentally (Sue et al., 2007). Last, in addition to exercising inclusion of others
directly, leaders act as role models and, thereby, endorse inclusive behavior in others (Randel
et al., 2018), thereby fostering an inclusive organizational climate (Boekhorst, 2015).
Leadership at the group level
Building on the dimensions of inclusion – i.e., belongingness and uniqueness – Randel et al.
(2018) suggest five leadership practices for thriving inclusion. They argue that belongingness
is fostered by (1) supporting team members, (2) driving experiences of fairness and equality,
and (3) offering possibilities for participating in relevant decision-making. Supporting includes
helping employees in their ambitions (Randel et al., 2018) and facilitating their psychological
safety (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006). Through equality and fairness, each member is
communicated that they are a valued part of the community (Sabharwal, 2014; Shore et al.,
25
2011). In addition, leaders should actively reflect on their decision-making and the unexpected
inequality they might create (Randel et al., 2018). Last, shared decision-making by consulting
group members facilitates the feeling of belongingness (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006;
Nishii, 2013; Roberson, 2006) through having everyone’s voice heard. Nembhard and
Edmondson (2006) suggest that both acts of inviting to contribute and showing appreciation
are essential for communicating that individuals are genuinely valued. Regarding the sense of
uniqueness, Randel et al. (2018) promote (1) encouraging diversity in contributions to the
team and (2) supporting team members in bringing up their diverse, unique skillset and views
in the team. Both encouraging practices communicate valuing uniqueness in teams (e.g.,
Shore et al., 2011; Winters, 2014).
Since leaders act simultaneously as facilitators, moderators, as well as coaches and mentors,
they are essentially responsible for creating an integrative and encouraging working climate
for diverse individuals (Pless and Maak, 2004). Therefore, according to Booysen (2014),
Hannum et al. (2010) suggest that leaders should also be conscious of changes in group
dynamics to facilitate an inclusive climate.
Leadership at the organizational level
Since leaders are in an integral position in shaping organizational culture, they should review
and question organizational norms to eliminate their harmful effects on inclusion (Wasserman
et al., 2008). Wasserman et al. (2008) theorize that a key leadership challenge is identifying
when to intervene in organizational realities that produce organizational inequalities.
Furthermore, changing norms requires setting new effective rules, which creates confusion
among employees of what is appropriate behavior and, therefore, leaders should exercise
explicit rational argumentation (Wasserman et al., 2008). Leaders should facilitate more
extensive open discussion to grow awareness of the different ways people think (Wasserman
et al., 2008) and recognize larger patterns in organizational practices – such as hiring,
promotion and resignation – and, significantly, equality and inclusion issues in them (Gallegos,
2014).
2.4.4 Synthesis of inclusive leadership
From a leadership theory perspective, the social constructionist theory and relational
leadership are central in understanding inclusive leadership: similar to a climate of inclusion,
leadership is essentially construed socially and contextually through interaction and relation.
Furthermore, since this study aims to answer how leaders facilitate inclusion and provide an
26
understanding of the characteristics of inclusive leadership, leadership is approached from a
functional, efforts-to-outcome focused perspective while covering both the entity, practice, and
relational aspects of leadership. The L-a-P perspective was left out of the scope of this study,
and, essentially, the entity-based relational leadership theory is employed in characterizing
inclusive leadership. Sense of belongingness and uniqueness, i.e., inclusion, is experienced
through a favorable organizational climate as well as leaders’ characteristics, skills, behaviors,
and actions – both of which are further reciprocally interconnected. Thus, in this study, the
term ‘inclusive leadership’ refers to all means of facilitating the sense of inclusion at the
different organizational levels through the dimensions and elements of organizational
inclusion.
3 Methods In this chapter, the research methods selected for conducting this study are described and
grounded. First, the ontology and epistemology of the research topic and the researcher’s pre-
understanding is discussed. Second, the selected research design is introduced, and, last,
methods employed in the data collection and analysis are described.
3.1 Ontology and epistemology
The selected research methods pose notable ontological and epistemological questions since
the two central research topics – inclusion and leadership – can only be examined by
interpreting the interviewees’ subjective narratives. Phenomenology is a research approach
that focuses on examining human experiences (Laine, 2010). In phenomenology, experiences
are regarded as the relation between an agent and their reality and context (Laine, 2010). In
the context of inclusion, experiences are always bound to a subjective observer and their
interaction with their reality instead of them existing objectively “out there” (Gioia and Pitre,
1990). According to phenomenology, the diversity of different subjective experiences are
studied via meanings (Laine, 2010): meanings reflect humans reasoning of their experiences.
Furthermore, meanings have a communal dimension, a connection to socially, culturally, or
contextually-bound intersubjective understanding (Laine, 2010). Therefore, meanings can be
exchanged, and people can understand each other – although to only some extent. Thus, the
aim of phenomenological research is to explore subjective, unique experiences and discover
27
the shared meanings of the experiences (Laine, 2010). Thus, in this research context, the
interviewees’ perceptions of leadership and inclusion are bound to their unique, subjective
experience of what they effectually consider as leadership and being included and, essentially,
how they interpret the experiences through their personal and shared meanings. In other
words, what their personal and communally shared meaning of inclusion and leadership is.
Hermeneutics and researcher bias
I, as a researcher, am essentially subject to my own personal background, experiences,
understanding from prior literature and, consequently, meanings of leadership and inclusion
through which I interpret others articulation of their subjective experiences. The theory of
hermeneutics focuses precisely on this paradox in phenomenological research (Laine, 2010):
interviewees express their meanings in socially, culturally or contextually fitting ways which
the researcher then interprets through their own pre-understanding. Building on the
hermeneutic theory (Laine, 2010), the tricksome chain of formulation and interpretation
between the research subject and the researcher (Figure 3) poses several points of possible
error: 1) the researcher interprets prior literature of inclusion, 2) the researcher aims to
formulate the interview questions in an understandable and communicative way that
resonates with the interviewees’ experience of the topic, 3) interviewee interprets the
questions and its aim, 4) interview verbalizes their unique experiences to the best of their
ability and last, 5) the researcher interprets the answer to the question.
Figure 3: Chain of Formulation and Interpretation (modified from Laine, 2010)
By recognizing that perfect objectivity is likely never achieved, the researcher comes more
aware of their own subjectivity and is more apt in entertaining and evaluating alternative
interpretations of the interview data – importantly for hermeneutics (Laine, 2010). The data
collection and analysis are unavoidably subject to my own bias and interpretation of both the
existing literature and interview data. Furthermore, being a white heterosexual male in Finland,
I belong to dominant demography and enjoy many privileges in the sense that I have no
experience of discrimination, and I’m unlikely to recognize all systemic inequality that has not
affected me. Therefore, identifying and critically reflecting on my personal viewpoints and
denoting that I am unlikely to relate with all the experiences of people from very different
backgrounds is essential in building an understanding of inclusion and interpreting others’
28
experiences. Delving into the D&I topics has been a remarkable learning and reflection
process for me and continues to be in terms of both recognizing my own biases and
understanding others better. To minimize my personal bias and broaden my perspective, I
conducted three additional interviews with specialists from inclusion consultancy before the
actual data collection. These interviews helped me reflect on my own pre-understanding from
my own experiences and existing literature against the organizational realities that the
specialists had explored and their interpretations.
3.2 Research design
The research is an inductive qualitative study. Inclusion is essentially a psychologically
experienced subjective, abstract phenomenon and, therefore, qualitative methods were
selected to capture the rich, complex and diverse experiences and perceptions of the research
subjects (Alvesson, 2003; Gioia et al., 2013). In addition to employing qualitative data in the
research, a qualitative approach was selected in a broader sense (Eisenhardt and Graebner,
2007) to describe the behavioral qualities and social constructs of inclusive leadership and
reflecting the findings against the current body of literature. Since construct validity (i.e.,
internal validity; Eisenhardt, 1989) in exploring individuals’ personal experiences of abstractly
comprehended ‘inclusion’ with only a limited number of interviews is arguably low, the
research focuses rather on discovering the subjective elements and qualities behind the sense
of inclusion inductively (see Section 3.1 for ontological and epistemological reflection).
In the current body of literature, inclusive leadership practices are largely conceptualized and
essentially lack empirical examination: it is unclear how the idea of organizational inclusion
translates into practices and behaviors, how does inclusivity show in leader characteristics,
qualities and the leader-member relation, and how inclusive leadership is essentially
exercised. Therefore, an inductive research approach was selected to explore the phenomena
and allow undiscovered elements and theory to emerge from the data. Since the sense of
inclusion and the perception of leadership are both strongly bound to subjective realities (see
also Section 3.1), individual experiences were selected as the unit of analysis.
Taken that prior literature was employed in formulating the research approach and gaining an
understanding of inclusion, the research employs some elements of abductive research as
well. Prior literature was mainly used in formulating the interview guide. However, new
elements were allowed to arise from the data inductively in the analysis phase, irrespective of
prior literature. Existing theories were again reflected against the study findings in the analysis
phase to assess construct validity and broaden interpretation. Furthermore, as suggested by
29
Eisenhardt (1989), data collection overlapped with data analysis and studying the interview
data was started already in parallel while the data collection was still ongoing. The interview
approach was then refined accordingly as my understanding of the research topic evolved in
the process.
Sample company descriptions
The research sample composed of two companies. A two-company setting was selected to
investigate the key elements of inclusive leadership in one organization with little effort and
another with a lot of effort towards organizational inclusion and, ultimately, examine the
individuals’ D&I awareness and attitudes in the differing organizations. Thus, the two-
organization-setting provided a broader perspective to inclusive leadership while also
underlining distinctive elements of organizational culture.
Both selected companies are internationally operating Finland-based ICT consultancy
companies with over 500 personnel. Both companies have diverse personnel in terms of
gender and nationality but are mainly dominated by Finnish males, similar to the Finnish ICT
industry. Importantly, their profiles differed in efforts and ambitions towards D&I in the following
way:
• Company A: The company has recognized the importance of inclusion already a few
years back and has embedded it in their strategy and internal goals, conducted internal
research on their state of inclusion, followed key inclusion metrics periodically, and
trained managers on D&I.
• Company B: The company has identified the relevance of organizational inclusion,
launched a goal to improve diversity, and incorporated D&I topics in annual employee
training. However, HR has not yet taken organization-wide action to properly
communicate and implement the D&I agenda at the grass-root level and into everyday
organizational life.
3.3 Data collection
Since inclusion builds on personal experiences and perceptions, employees are the principal
source of information for observing and assessing inclusive climate (Nishii and Rich, 2014).
Thus, to explore the subjective experiences, interviews were selected as the primary data
source. The research sample consisted of supervisors, employees, and HR representatives
from the companies' Finnish organizations. Altogether 21 people were interviewed: from both
companies, three supervisors and two to three of their employees were selected. The sample
30
composition is presented in Appendix 2. As underlined by Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007),
the number of interviews aimed to provide a feasibly broad scale of perspectives on the
research phenomenon from the relevant informants and, thereby, minimize research bias.
Moreover, an HR representative from both companies – 2 people in total – were interviewed
to gain more insight into the state and role of inclusion in the organizational environment.
Additional, three more informal interviews were conducted with experts in D&I consultancy to
increase my understanding of the research topic before the actual data collection phase.
Ethicality and legality were considered in data collection by requesting a written consent for
the research terms and interviewee rights from all participants. The research consent
document (presented in Appendix 3) was delivered to the participants before the interviews.
The interview data was also anonymized and handled confidentially while following the privacy
policies of the research employer, Tekniikan Akateemiset TEK.
The research sample was selected purposively so that both the managers and the employees
represented the organization as diversely as possible in terms of both their observable and
(known disclosed) non-observable characteristics. The selections were made in collaboration
with the respective companies, and similar to the ICT industry, the sample was somewhat
male-dominated: 14 men and 7 women, of which altogether 5 were born abroad. Due to the
ICT consultancy work setting, the teams differed in how closely the supervisor was involved
in the daily activities of their employees: most supervisors were not involved in the same client
projects with their employees and, thus, were not actively present in the work group context.
Furthermore, one of the teams consisted of employees who had their own subordinate teams
and, in that sense, differed from the other employees. No other criteria were used in selecting
the interviewees since the research aimed to explore the diversity of experiences of inclusion.
As promoted by Gioia et al. (2013), a semi-structured interview approach was selected to suit
the study setting. Semi-structured interviews are advantageous in obtaining comparable
responses around a structured interview guide while discovering and elaborating on elements
outside the initial structure with more detailed questions (Qu and Dumay, 2011). In other
words, the semi-structured interviews follow a thematic approach while focusing more on the
research topics than the interview guide itself (Qu and Dumay, 2011). Furthermore, the
interviews relied on open-ended questions to facilitate interviewees’ unguided perspectives
and open course of discussion (Qu and Dumay, 2011). Understanding from existing literature
was essentially employed in formulating the interview questions, and the aim of each interview
section was clarified separately to guide the interview in meeting the research questions and
steering the elaborating questions. Furthermore, the interview guides were structured in a
bottom-up fashion: first, giving a lot of room for interpretation with more open-ended questions
31
and then, posing more framed questions with more direct questions to improve the description
of the phenomena and comparability of the interviews (Qu and Dumay, 2011). However, a lot
of room was left for differing interpretations to examine the individualistic perceptions and
produce inductive results outside existing theories. To improve the research approach and
facilitate new emergent themes, the interview guides were adjusted, reformulated and
expanded according to observations from data analysis that was done concurrently with the
data collection (Eisenhardt, 1989).
The most apparent issue in the interviews is the centrality of language in narrating experiences
of inclusion. The term ‘inclusion’ has no rooted Finnish translation, and the word is further
rendered somewhat blurred in vague organizational communication and loose definition
(Women in Tech, 2019). Thus, ‘inclusion’ and ‘diversity’ are understood in varying ways, and,
for example, some interviewees perceived diversity as solely a gender matter and inclusion
being about hiring women. Consequently, the interviewees give unavoidably differing
descriptions of what they perceived as ‘inclusion’. Therefore, the interviews focused primarily
on exploring the interviewee’s meanings through a range of perspectives and identifying
reoccurring elements in their interpretation of inclusion. In other words, the interview guides
were purposively designed to approach the experiences of inclusion from different angles. The
interview guides built on concepts from prior literature and the researcher’s choice and
included themes such as sense of belongingness, involvement, feeling like an insider/outsider,
uniqueness, cohesion, work satisfaction, equality, appreciation, acceptance, and self-
actualization. Covering a range of perspectives was important since using certain words in
questions seemed to eventually resonate more with the interviewees’ phenomenological
meanings, whereas others not so much.
Honesty, openness, and self-reflection were also encouraged in the interviews. The
interviewees were urged to embrace their own perspectives and personal experiences of
inclusion instead of merely reading out the formal organizational policies and guidelines.
Notably, the open-ended questions steered the interviews to elaborate on the concrete
everyday experiences and examples of inclusion and inclusive leadership. The interviews
were conducted through video calls with Microsoft Teams and lasted from 45 to 60 minutes.
To reflect the interviewees’ authentic voices and avoid drawing preliminary interpretations of
the interviews (Gioia et al., 2013), the interviews were recorded with the interviewees’
permission and transcribed verbatim.
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3.4 Data analysis
The interview transcriptions were first studied as such to get an overview of the most apparent
overarching topics during the process of anonymizing and removing strong identifiers in the
content. Second, the transcriptions were analyzed by applying the grounded theory
methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), meaning that the emerging theory derives and
evolves with the observations in the research data (Corbin and Strauss, 1998). Grounded
theory approach was selected for its benefits in facilitating the exploration of new theories and
developing new concepts from qualitative data (Corbin and Strauss, 1998) as well as its
popularity in qualitative research (Strauss and Corbin, 1997). Grounded theory is also fitting
in supporting the abductive elements of the research setting.
Open-coding (Corbin and Strauss, 1998) was applied to the transcriptions in an iterative
process of modifying and expanding: once a new identifiable theme arose in the interview, the
existing code set was either modified or expanded to cover all apparent themes. As a result,
an exhaustive code set was obtained. Furthermore, the inductive approach was selected over
selective coding to allow new unconsidered topics and phenomenon to emerge from the
research material inductively. After the coding process, the conclusive code set was
consolidated by eliminating irrelevant codes and merging related codes while mirroring the
observations against the research questions.
Last, the codes were categorized to higher-level themes, i.e., a version of Gioia methodology
(Gioia et al., 2013) was applied: first, first-order themes were labeled in the transcription data
with open coding, second, the labels were categorized by their relations with axial coding
(Corbin and Strauss, 1998) and, finally, aggregate dimensions were identified by grouping the
second-order themes to their fundamental antecedents. Furthermore, prior literature was
consulted in constructing the relations and assessing the validity and generalizability of the
preliminary findings. Respective to Eisenhardt (1989), the emergent model was iteratively
refined until only marginal incremental improvements were obtained. The selected methods
aimed to increase the rigor of this qualitative research (e.g., Gioia et al., 2013).
Assessing awareness and attitudes
The elements describing awareness and attitudes towards D&I topics were identified similarly
by analyzing the emergent themes in the interviews. All interviews were coded by their
features demonstrating either awareness or attitude. In the coding process, awareness was
defined as the understanding of the underlying dynamics and phenomena of diversity and
inclusion, whereas attitudes reflected interviewees’ motivation towards D&I and their idea of
its relevance. The decisive codes were then clustered into categories, each representing a
33
degree of maturity in awareness or attitudes. The aim was not to assess the effects of
awareness and attitudes on inclusive leadership but rather to introduce the specters of D&I
awareness and attitudes and break down their relevant characteristics.
Furthermore, the interviewees were asked to assess the D&I maturity of their organization,
supervisor (for employees)/self (for supervisors) and team (for supervisors)/self (for
employees) with the Inclusive Leadership Maturity Model by Inklusiiv (Appendix 1).
Regardless of the name, the model is a useful tool for self-reflection on understanding and
attitudes towards D&I topics on a framed scale. However, taken that the interviewees
interpreted inclusion and the presented model very differently, the framed reflection produces
only indicative insight into differences between the perceptions of the supervisors and
employees, rather than evaluating the supervisors’ inclusivity definitively.
On an important note, the maturity model (Appendix 1) was only used as means for self-
reflection in the interviews and not in analyzing the data, grouping the codes or creating the
conclusive model which emerged purely from the interview data itself.
34
4 Findings In this chapter, the research findings are presented, and the key emergent themes are
discussed in detail. First, the Characteristics and Mediators of Inclusive Leadership are
introduced. Second, the Mediators and Characteristics related to them are discussed one by
one. Last, the specters of D&I awareness and attitudes are presented and discussed building
on observations in the interview data.
The research findings compose of both explicit and implicit leadership attributes. On the one
hand, the explicit findings arose from the interviewees’ perceptions and experiences of
relevant leadership characteristics. On the other hand, the implicit findings emerged from the
interviewees’ description of critical organizational and cultural elements facilitating the sense
of inclusion. The interviewees also reported barriers to inclusion, which similarly aligned with
the descriptive themes. Recurring elements and themes across all these areas of the sense
of inclusion – leadership experiences, cultural and organizational elements, and barriers of
inclusion – were identified in the analysis process. The emergent findings constitute the
Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership. These characteristics further converge to aggregate
themes, the Mediators of Inclusive Leadership. The Characteristics and the underlying
Mediators of Inclusive Leadership are illustrated in Figure 4. The Characteristics of Inclusive
Leadership describe both the qualities of the leadership relation as well as favorable elements
of inclusive climate that leaders should foster. Furthermore, the Mediators of Inclusive
Leadership represent the fundamental underlying dynamics mediating the sense of inclusion
in individuals’ leadership experience. I believe that the presented mediators are not MESE
(mutually exclusive and simultaneously exhaustive), but rather, they are interrelated and
overlap in some of their aspects. The proposed model aims to present the first iteration of the
fundamental mediators of the sense of inclusion.
35
It was evident in the interviews that the sense of inclusion circles around individuality and that
people prefer different mixes of the characteristics. For example, it was apparent that the
interviewees fell into two roughly but distinctively different categories: people who perceived
their company as “just a job” – a place solely for professional and career development – and
people who valued the work community and culture above else. However, even with this rough
twofold categorization, people differed clearly in their leadership preferences. Thus, the
Characteristics and Mediators of Inclusive Leadership are not aspects that all interviewees
would necessarily share or highlighted as central factors in their experiences. Instead,
individuals have their own unique preferences and balancing. The Characteristics of Inclusive
Leadership and their grounding in the interviews is illustrated in Table 1. In addition, the
original Finnish quotes from the following sections are presented in Appendix 4.
Figure 4: The Characteristics and Mediators of Inclusive Leadership
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Table 1: Grounding in interviews
4.1 Psychological safety
The most apparent implicitly emerging theme from the interviews was psychological safety
and the elements contributing to the feeling. Sense of psychological safety was constructed
in leadership relations through openness, trust, approachability, encouragement and support.
Similarly, the interviewees’ described aspects of openness, trust, and acceptance as
contributing elements in the organization culture.
Characteristic of Inclusive Leadership Grounding in interviews
Openness A1, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10, A11 B5, B6, B9, B10
Trust A2, A4, A5, A6, A9, A8, A10, A11 B4, B5, B6, B9
Acceptance A11, A5, A6, A8 B9, B10
Approachability, support, and encouragement A4, A5, A6, A9, A8 B4, B5, B6, B8, B9, B10
Feeling of community A10, A5, A6, A2, A5, A6 B7, B8, B9, B10
Shared ambitions, professional identity, or values A10, A11, A4, A5, A6, A7, A9, A8 B4, B5, B7, B8, B9, B10
Understanding individuality A11, A4, A5, A6, A7, A9, A2 B2, B4, B6, B8, B9, B10
Commitment to D&I A11, A5, A6, A7, A8, A1
Proactiveness A11, A4, A5, A6, A8 B8, B4, B5, B6, B9, B10
Showing authentic interest A10, A11, A4, A5, A6, A7, A9, A8 B4, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10
Sense of relevance A4, A5, A6, A8 B4, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10
Equality A10, A11, A4, A5, A6, A8 B4, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10
Insider information A10, A11, A6, A6, A1, A2 B4, B7, B8, B9, B10
Being involved A11, A4, A5, A6, A9, A1, A2 B5, B7, B9
Informal interaction A10, A11, A5 B4, B5, B7, B8, B9, B10
Collegial relationships A10, A11, A5 B8, B9
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Openness
Openness was best described in the quality of relationships with others through confidence to
share feelings, show negative emotions, be vulnerable, exchange feedback and discuss
professional ambitions. Ability to demonstrate openness in sharing emotions and showing
vulnerability were also mentioned as positive leadership characteristics. In contrast, a prior
negative personal experience of the leader or distrust in their competence to handle discrete
matters seemed to hinder openness. Furthermore, the feeling of not being able to share
experiences that others would not probably relate with or a belief that pushing D&I discussion
or pointing out exclusive behavior would shadow their career advancement seemed to relate
to openness negatively.
“[…] for example, when I’m describing what’s going on in my life et cetera I
feel that he likes to, for example when I say blah blah blah my girlfriend, he
prefers let’s say what’s her name. I feel like he cares what is the person.
Not just whatever. I don’t care what’s going on. I feel that he does this from
his side as well. He says the name of his wife, and this makes it much
more personal. It feels that I can actually trust this person. I wouldn’t have
any problem to share something in a different level with my supervisor […]”
– A6
“[…] we have reserved time for checking on how we’re doing. Even outside
projects, although our internal daily meetings surely involve work topics but
also sharing how we’re doing, for example, if something has happened at
home and so on. It’s like discussing with friends. And it feels liberating… to
open up at work about this stuff. That way others are aware of how you’re
feeling and it’s easier to work when you don’t have to hide behind
‘everything’s okay’.” – A5
In its essence, openness translates to individuals’ experience of safety and freedom of
expressing themselves freely in the community – not holding back.
Trust
Trust emerged in experiences of leaders providing their employees with autonomy and
avoiding authoritarian, “micro-management” behaviors. Interviewees further reported giving
38
and getting responsibility as well as others building confidence in their expertise as important
cultural elements for inclusion.
“[…] I also have a feeling that I have been trusted in and I’ve given a large
pair of shoes to fill and when I’ve reacted with ‘I can’t’ they’ve said, ‘Surely
you can, just pull the shoes on and you’ll see’. And it’s like that, I have
never had to convince the supervisors of my capabilities or competence
but, more like, they’ve had more faith in me than I have. And that’s a bid
thing.” – A10
In summary, trust is reflected in the individual’s experience of being believed in despite their
personal uncertainty or a risk of failing.
Acceptance
Acceptance of individuality and diversity emerged from experiences of being able to be one’s
true self and recognizably different. However, sharing a culturally embedded image of a
‘model’ employee or ‘model’ attributes and other issues with creating room for uniqueness
conflicted with the sense of acceptance. For example, the challenge of being an introvert and
not fitting to the ‘model’ employee image arose in the interviews.
“I feel that I am [a Company A employee] for working here and being the
person I am. [laughs] I can’t describe it any better, maybe being [a
Company A employee] includes being a unique person in a way, with your
own interests and skills and so on.” – A5
Approachability, support, and encouragement
Interviewees also indicated leaders’ approachability as a favorable characteristic.
Approachability arose from a collegial and friendly take on the leader-member relation and,
importantly, contributes to openness, as discussed above. Furthermore, support and
encouragement through appraisal, mentoring and consulting were brought up, which, in turn,
also contribute partially to the experience of trust.
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4.2 Humane Respect
Communicating humane respect and appreciation towards individuals and making them feel
valued and genuinely integral members of the community contributed to the sense of inclusion.
The leader’s ability to demonstrate such respect manifested in proactiveness, availability, and
sincere interest in the leader-member relation. Similarly, appreciation and a sense of influence
in the organization culture emerged in the interview data.
Proactiveness
Leaders demonstrated respect towards their employees by showing proactivity in getting to
know the employees, understanding their ambitions, taking action in and advocating their
initiatives, and enabling their work. In contrast, reactive leadership was perceived as distant
and negative.
“What comes to professional growth and development, proactivity is
something that I’ve liked to see – that supervisors bring up whether I’d be
interested in this and that or that they noticed that some training is coming
and maybe I’d like to participate in it and so on.” – A8
Essentially, the leader’s proactivity in the leader–employee relation creates a feeling of being
genuinely worth the leader’s attention, efforts, and interest, thereby facilitating employees’
feeling of being valued.
Showing authentic interest
Leader’s authentic interest came across in the ability to listen responsively, demonstrate
genuine caring and support in finding individuals’ own path. The same elements were also
underlined as elements of inclusive organization culture: caring, helping and responsiveness.
Similar to proactiveness, demonstrating availability communicated genuine concern in the
employees’ matters via being worth of the leader’s time and interest. Availability was further
best exhibited with prompt responses to and managing to arrange time for the employees’
concerns.
“With [my supervisor], I’ve never had the feeling that we’re talking about
how much money I’m bringing to the company or how we could make
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money more efficiently. Instead, the focus has always been on me as a
person and how I am doing and what I’m aiming for and so on.” – A5
These characteristics communicate respect by demonstrating interest in individuals’ ambitions
and sharing their concerns.
Sense of relevance
Sense of relevance is composed of appreciation from others and a sense of influence. On the
one hand, appreciation arose in collegial trust and respect in each other’s expertise as well as
utilization of that expertise for the team’s favor. In addition, appreciation communicates respect
towards the skillset and the value that the individual brings to the group. On the other hand, a
sense of influence was experienced through being able to voice up in the organization and the
team, comment on organizational topics and affect personal projects and ways of working.
“[…] and also, that they listen and that they value what the other person is
saying, appreciates the other as an expert. And it’s part of the listening that
what you’re saying is important. You know what you’re talking about.” – B6
The related two sensations communicate humane respect in that every individual’s opinion
and expertise are worth hearing and incorporating into the organizational processes.
4.3 Shared Identity
Some idea of “us” was often evident in the interviews even though the framing and context
differed. Feeling of community and shared ambitions, values or professional identity
contributed to the experience of belonging to a group entity and being a part of something
and, thereby, the sense of inclusion. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, interviewees
differed in their preferences and interests in inclusion. Therefore, the shared identity also
depended on what they looked for from a company. The leader’s role in facilitating an
experience of shared identity focused on areas such as setting and communicating group
goals and supporting teaming and cohesion.
In the process of forming an idea of “me” and “us”, the meaning-making process of individuals’
positioning in relation to others contributed to the sense of belonging: one interviewee
underlined that they felt like an outsider in their team until their mentor helped them see how
41
their uniqueness was a strength in the team, how they should position in relation to others and
how being different should not be a matter of trying to fit in.
“[…] for a long time, I felt that I hadn’t found my place in [our competence]
community and I felt that I came along much better with the people from
[business competence], I felt that I found more soulmates there. But with
the help of my mentor, I realized my strengths [in my competence] and
why it’s good that I don’t have the same profile with my [direct colleagues].”
– A10
Feeling of community
Perception of a community contributed to the experience of belonging and creating a group
identity, for example, through a small team size, the current work group, the local office, or a
communal organization culture.
“[…] you had to get to know somebody entirely different, people from here
and there. Which is, in my opinion, really fun and, on the other hand,
creates the feeling that ‘okay, we’re something, a unit. We’re a group.’” –
B7
Identity issues emerged when employees felt disconnected from the organization due to large
team size, organization structure or size, or feeling otherwise distant from colleagues or other
teams. Some interviewees even identified more to their client team rather than their employing
organization, which is believably a relevant phenomenon in the consulting business.
“Well, actually, it isn’t highlighted too much, [the company B], in our
organization, and then probably the reason why somebody doesn’t feel like
belonging is that the supervisors are the sole connection. It might be that
you’re working in a project with nobody else from [company B] […], and the
supervisor is the sole connection, and the supervisors have an awful
number of subordinates. They don’t personally know their team, which has
received a lot of feedback from people for not feeling like belonging and
why they don’t feel like belonging when they don’t know their friends.” – B9
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Shared ambitions, professional identity, or values
In addition to the contextual framing of the identity group – the idea of “us” – common aspects
in personal identity with others contributed to belongingness and forming a shared identity.
Bonding elements might be, for example a shared professional identity or competence (for
example, developer), ambitions (for example, project goals) or a value-base (for example,
strong organization values).
“We hire people that already share our values and that way the people are
already of certain sort […], I’ve begun to understand how important those
values really are and that they’re not only signs on the wall but rather
something that everybody embraces when they come working at us.” –
A11
4.4 Atmosphere of Uniqueness
The atmosphere of uniqueness emerged in some of the interviews from positive experiences
of leaders’ ability to accommodate and understand individuality, show commitment and
understanding in D&I and facilitate employees’ feeling of uniqueness. The same elements
were also reflected in the inclusive cultural elements. In addition to the below-presented
dimensions, the interviewees identified barriers in the organization’s ability to facilitate
diversity: recognizing that not all kinds of people would fit in, lack of diversity in the company
damaging inclusion, and homogeneity creating pressure in the organization.
“And unfortunately, when you notice that ‘there’s an inspiring leader and
they work differently from others’, it takes only a while before they leave.
They leave for companies that permit being different and are open to
change. We’ve joked about everybody at [company B] having the same
pinstripe suit.” – B9
Understanding individuality
Understanding of individuality was reflected in experiences of acknowledging individuals’
differing needs – such as multilingualism at the workplace and providing work-life balance
mechanism for different stages of life – and regarding different viewpoints even when the
leader disagreed with them. In contrast, feeling like an outsider for not being understood on a
43
very personal topic or perceiving that the organization is incapable of supporting some stages
of life that others do not relate with were some of the significant barriers to inclusion.
“[…] and when a need arises or somebody announces that they disagree
with the discussion or that a group that they identify with has different
needs from other groups and the others don’t see that same need or
they’re laughing that ‘oh well, it can’t be that important’. Those moments
remind me that there are issues […] And whether I feel like belonging or
not belonging, it changes from daily, monthly and from discussion to
another.” – A7
Understanding individual needs and where different people come from is essential in creating
a supportive atmosphere for accommodating differences.
Commitment to D&I
A strong message of diversity and equality was perceived as an important cultural element
that communicates commitment to accommodating individuality and acknowledging minorities
in the community. Although there were some positive experiences of demonstrating a
commitment to D&I, this aspect was highlighted even more in the negative experiences:
discussing D&I is avoided, apparent inequalities are grounded with poor arguments, leaders
are not proactive around D&I, and the organization is unable to translate D&I vision into
practice.
“I’d guess that perhaps partly because we have a D&I-team, the
supervisors might, in a way, outsource their activeness to the team – either
purposively or because it’s easier not to think about D&I. But having a very
active attitude, I don’t see much” – A8
“Another thing that on the onboard sessions they had some inclusion
diversity meeting just to dedicate. Totally dedicated for it and just to show
that the culture of the company is pretty much about it. That should not
have any judgment or any discrimination. […] Everyone is here to work,
and we respect and we like each other.” – A6
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Commitment to D&I contributes to an atmosphere of uniqueness in that D&I is taken seriously
and incorporated into the culture and attitudes of the people.
4.5 Relationality
Although the leaders’ role in facilitating the sense of relationality was not explicitly reported in
the interviews, it was apparent that for many, the sensation of inclusion emerged from social
elements in the workplace – interaction, relationships, and friendships with other people.
Above all, informal interaction and relationships with others facilitated a feeling of
belongingness. In contrast, one interviewee noted that having their leader as the only
connection to the organization damaged their experience of belongingness.
Informal interaction
Many interviewees highlighted informal interaction as one of the vital elements in creating a
sense of belongingness in the workplace – particularly to balance out the formal interaction
and work dominated substance discussion. Some further underlined that a purely formal
relationship with their colleagues was disadvantageous. Also, spontaneous interaction and
facetime were added as contributing factors.
“It’s definitely that we include other things outside work, talk about other
than work topics, and that you get to know the people and not only their
work. It’s a big thing.” – A11
Some interviewees also reported getting to know new people as an equally relevant dynamic:
making new acquaintances, demonstrating humane relationality at the workplace, and
expanding personal networks. Having networks inside the organization contributed to the
feeling of being an insider in the community. Similarly, informal company events were found
positive in facilitating networking. Importantly, informal interaction is a mediator of authentic
interest in colleagues, demonstrating that collegial relationships have relational humane value.
Collegial relationships
Many interviews reported that the quality of their relationship with their colleagues contributed
to their sense of belongingness: positive experiences of encounters, friendly colleagues, and
friendly social culture. Particularly, genuine friendships with colleagues amplified a sense of
belonging.
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“Something that distinguishes [company A] from other employers is that I
have fun at work and outside work with the same people.” – A10
I propose that positive collegial relationships also contribute to the experience of psychological
safety and encourage interaction.
4.6 Feeling of being an insider
The perception of being included in the inside circle of the social group seemed to mediate
the sense of belongingness. Perception of equality, access to insider information, and
involvement in processes were highlighted as core factors of an insider feeling. The
importance of feeling like an insider was further contrasted in experiences of feeling like an
outsider particularly.
Equality
Feeling equal to other team members – having the same position, access, and capabilities to
operate in the team – despite any apparent or covert differences was underlined in the
interviewees’ experiences. Out of various factors, low hierarchy and a general sense of
organizational equality were the most apparent contributors to the sense of being an equal
insider. However, some interviewees also reported negative experiences of equality and
recognized inequal structures in the organization. Experiencing or identifying inequality
seemed to mediate the feeling of being an outsider. One prominent theme was the feeling of
being a representative of a diversity ‘quota’. Similarly, the perception of a leader favoring some
team members over others contributed to the feeling of being an outsider.
“The cons I guess that right away that I don’t see many people that look
like me there. Of course, that will come to your mind I’m here just to
represent this class or represent these people. That comes many thoughts
on it. Am I here because I’m good enough for this company or am I here
because they need people like me to represent?” – A6
Insider information
Having access to information that was somehow considered as insider information contributed
to the feeling of being an insider. Importantly, organizational transparency, transparent
46
leadership and networks in the organization facilitated access to such information. In a similar
fashion, insider humour, slang and shared memories had a comparable role in creating the
feeling of being an insider. From the opposite perspective, the experience of being an outsider
arose from a lack of visibility to internal decision-making or processes, such as the career
advancement process, and not knowing the insider slang or humour.
“You could say that once I left the manager position, I became an outsider
again. I see how little of the relevant information and argumentation is
communicated to the grassroots level. I’m pretty much an outsider.” – B9
“[…] it might also have been that the internal humour in the meeting was
something I didn’t understand then. When I sat down in the meeting room,
I was like ‘what’s happening here’, and afterwards I’ve realized that there
was a lot of jokes that I didn’t understand at the time and that I now do, but
at first I was an outsider and didn’t get the humour.” – A10
Being involved
Most interviewees felt that they could participate in organizational decision-making,
processes, and other activities. However, the role of being involved was most apparent in
experiences of not being able to participate. For example, interviewees reported negative
experiences of top-down decision-making, not being able to comment on decision-making and
identifying an inner management circle. One interviewee also perceived themself as an
outsider for working only on customer projects and not internal processes.
“I’m pretty much, if not an outsider, then at least at the outer rims. After
all… I have fairly little feeling that ‘okay I could actually influence these
things’ and, it’s feels more like that they come from above and that some
people somewhere have decided something […]” – B7
4.7 Attitudes and Awareness
The findings from the awareness and attitudes analysis described in Section 3.3 are presented
in Table 2 and Table 3. Most often, the interviewees did not indicate the maturity of exclusively
one level, but instead, elements from across the specter.
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Level Little Understanding Basic understanding Critical understanding Self-aware understanding
Elements Has not considered D&I in their work but has confidence in D&I maturity
Doesn’t recognize diversity or minorities
Recognizes observable and non-observable diversity
Recognizes lack of diversity, unbalanced representation, dominant demography or homogeneity
Aware of organizational D&I goals and efforts
Recognizes existence of inequality
Shows critical thinking towards organization, leadership, and team efforts towards D&I
Recognizes diversity of perception
Recognizes limits in own understanding
Recognizes the diverse ways and pitfalls in that inequality may manifest
Recognizes intersectional diversity
Recognizes own privileges and that can’t relate to everything
Recognizes biases and their effect
Table 2: The specter of D&I awareness
Level Naïve Passive Compliant Proactive
Elements Doesn’t regard D&I as relevant for self or the organization
Thinks that D&I is inherently apparent in own behavior
Doesn’t see much to learn about D&I topics
Considers organizational processes as already objective
Thinks that lack of diversity is an industry issue
Thinks that D&I requires proactive organizational efforts and education
Argues that inclusion should be incorporated into all organizational activities
Considers diversity as a positive thing
Brings up D&I topics and assess their role in my work
Advocates D&I topics in the organization
Educates themself about D&I
Fictive example
quote
“I haven’t considered D&I because it’s not relevant
for our team.”
“I think our processes are objective, and I believe everybody thinks D&I
is important.”
“Inclusion requires work and should show in everything that we
do holistically.”
“I do my bit in improving an inclusive climate and
address issues with inequality.”
Table 3: The specter of D&I attitudes (with fictive descriptive example quotes)
The interviewees interpreted the terms ‘inclusion’, ‘diversity’ and ‘D&I’ varyingly and, thus,
indicated inherently different levels of awareness and attitudes. Little awareness showed in
vague answers, poor concreteness, and contradictions in reasoning. In contrast, critical
awareness showed in everyday examples of D&I and multifaceted reflection of the state of
both inclusion and exclusion.
Homogeneous team composition was the most common reason for leaders not to consider
D&I topics as relevant. Ironically, some employees reported having no role models and not
seeing people like them in the work community as essential contributors to feeling like an
outsider. Another reason for leaders’ passive attitude was the perception that nobody in the
team had trouble in D&I related topics. To some extent, some also considered D&I topics as
a sort of tick-box skill that you either know or don’t know as opposed to being seen as a topic
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for continuous development and learning comparably to other work skills. Similarly, lack of
time, understanding, and support were some reported barriers to contributing to D&I.
Overall, people seemed to have an image of the team’s collective awareness, attitudes, and
inclusivity even though the D&I topics were never necessarily discussed collectively. The
findings showed varying awareness and attitude for both the supervisors and employees
inside the same teams.
“[…] even this interview has opened my eyes to whether these topics are
something that I could proactively bring up. And that many people might
have… that I might have a somewhat gloomy illusion that everything is
fine.” – A2
Some supervisors were also confident in their objectiveness in decision-making, and that
inclusivity is inherently apparent and naturally ingrained in their personality, while they also
admitted never having reflected on D&I topics in their leadership.
“Well, in my work, [the organizational diversity goals] have no impact since,
as I mentioned earlier, I don’t think about these things. If I’m interviewing a
competent person, I’ll hire them – whatever their background is. I’ve never
even thought about these things.” – B3
Similarly, some supervisors confidently ranked themselves as proactive learners or allies on
the Inclusive Leadership Maturity Model (Appendix 1) but failed to articulate how they actually
studied D&I or educated others on the topics. Leaders who failed to articulate their high
ranking also showed a more passive attitude towards self-development around D&I, while
supervisors who recognized their lack of awareness and skill indicated more proactive efforts.
Although outside the scope of this study, this notion implies that the degree of awareness
might correlate with attitude to some extent. Moreover, supervisors who demonstrated critical
awareness were more conscious of how exclusion might manifest in both their behavior and
organizational processes, and, thereby, seemed more capable of addressing the harmful
elements. Investigating the role of awareness and attitudes and their inter-correlation are left
for future research.
Interestingly, differences in the cross-evaluation of leaders’ D&I maturity highlighted the
disparity of perception: leaders ranked themselves higher than their employees ranked the
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supervisors on the Inclusive Leadership Maturity Model (Appendix 1) – regardless of the
supervisors’ awareness and attitudes. The indicative results from the ranking suggest that
either supervisors have a somewhat overconfident image of themselves, or their employees
are more critical or not so aware of D&I topics. On an important note, the self-assessment is
subject to the interpretation of the terminology, its meaning, and essentially social pressure to
demonstrate maturity and compliance in D&I, as discussed in Section 5.3.
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5 Discussion In this chapter, the research findings are reflected against those of prior studies, and the
theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Last, the limitations of the
study are examined, and topics for future research are proposed.
5.1 Theoretical implications
The findings of this study are in line with prior research. Similar to the existing literature, it was
evident in the findings that leaders require both relational leadership skills in direct
relationships with their employees (see also, Cottrill et al., 2014) as well as abilities to facilitate
a climate of inclusion (see also, Wasserman et al., 2008) to indirectly promote their employees’
inclusion. The connections between the proposed Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership and
prior research are presented in Table 4. As can be noted from Table 4, this study essentially
supports many of the behaviors and characteristics of inclusive leadership that Randel et al.
(2018) recently conceptualized in their review of the existing body of literature. In addition, this
study also suggests novel characteristics of inclusive leadership and organizational culture –
namely proactiveness, facilitating informal interaction, and shared ambitions, goals, or values.
Although somewhat present, it seemed that the aspects of the traditional definition of inclusion
by Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998) were not as apparently relevant as other elements in the
interviewees’ experiences. On an important note, these aspects of inclusion were explicitly
addressed in the interview guides and, thus, their occurrence in the results was inherent. As
discussed in Section 2.3.1, the aspects presented by Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998) are rather
processes for fostering inclusion than actually the antecedent psychological dynamics. For the
same reason, this study relied on the definition by Shore et al. (2011), i.e., inclusion through
belongingness and uniqueness. Consequently, any practices, processes, elements, and
relationships facilitating the sense of belongingness and uniqueness contribute to the sense
of inclusion and, therefore, it makes sense that interviewees underlined numerous contributors
to their experience outside the traditional approach to inclusion. Furthermore, the dimensions
by Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998) might be somewhat outdated in the modern organizational
culture. Possibly, collective decision-making and equal access to resources are so well
ingrained in organizations today that their relevance in facilitating inclusion goes unnoticed.
Nevertheless, I suggest that, in fact, the underlying feeling of relevance, influence (e.g.,
empowerment as discussed in literature by Randel et al. (2018)), and autonomy are the
antecedents in the traditional aspects of inclusion that breed a sense of belongingness and,
consequently, inclusion.
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Table 4: Connections to existing literature
Notably, as for the existing literature, the presented leadership characteristics are abundant
in this study. This is likely because individuals have their own unique preferences regarding
leadership styles and personal needs and, thus, all characteristics of inclusive leadership may
not be relevant for everyone and, instead, the appropriate qualities of an inclusive leadership
relationship must be developed individually. Sadly, there is no silver bullet to inclusive
leadership.
The Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership further converged to six more fundamental higher-
level dynamics to the so-called Mediators of Inclusive Leadership (Figure 4): psychological
safety, humane respect, shared identity, an atmosphere of uniqueness, relationality, and
feeling of being an insider. The concept of belongingness (Shore et al., 2011) is most present
in all of the mediators: the mediators communicate being truly and whole-heartedly a valued
Characteristic of Inclusive Leadership Connection to existing literature
Openness Carmeli et al., 2010; Javed et al., 2019; Randel et al., 2018; Avolio and Gardner, 2005 (relational transparency)
Trust Booysen, 2014; Pless and Maak, 2004
Acceptance Shore et al., 2011; Jansen et al., 2014; Randel et al., 2018
Approachability, support, and encouragement Randel et al., 2018; Mor Barak and Cherin, 1998; Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006
Feeling of community Mor Barak, 1999 (connectedness); Randel et al., 2018
Shared ambitions, professional identity, or values (Novel finding)
Understanding individuality Winters, 2014; Wasserman, 2014
Commitment to D&I Randel et al., 2016; Winters, 2014; Roberson, 2006
Proactiveness (Novel finding)
Showing authentic interest Carmeli et al., 2010; Javed et al., 2019
Sense of relevance Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006 (appreciation); Sabharwal, 2014 (valuation); Randel et al., 2018 (empowerment)
Equality Booysen, 2014; Sabharwal, 2014; Shore et al., 2011; Randel et al., 2018
Insider information Mor Barak and Cherin, 1998; Pelled et al., 1999; Huong et al., 2016
Being involved Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Nishii, 2013; Roberson, 2006; Randel et al., 2018 (shared decision-making)
Informal interaction (Novel finding)
Collegial relationships Mitchell et al., 2015
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part of the social system. Moreover, Hope Pelled et al. (1999) also underline being treated like
an insider in their definition of inclusion (see also, Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998). Shore et al.
(2011) underline uniqueness as a fundamental dimension of inclusion, and Hofhuis et al.
(2012) underline appreciating diversity – or ‘diversity climate’ as they call it – as the key to
collective identification with the organization which both are reflected in the atmosphere of
uniqueness mediator. Moreover, the research by Ely and Thomas (2001) resonated with the
findings: having a culturally embedded image of a model employee results in turnover and,
therefore, a diversity climate and a ‘integration-and-learning’ strategy are beneficial for
inclusion. The relevance of psychological safety is similarly underlined by Nembhard and
Edmondson (2006) and Carmeli et al. (2010). Similarly, the relational skills and authenticity
discussed in the existing AL literature (Cottrill et al., 2014) resonate with the humane respect
mediator. Regarding relationality, connectedness is reported to contribute to inclusion (Royal
Academy of Engineering, 2017) and is also incorporated in the definition of inclusion by Mor
Barak (1999). The mediating role of shared identity in inclusive leadership is also supported
by Mitchell et al. (2015) and Randel et al. (2018), who hypothesize work group identification
as a prominent predictor of diversity-to-performance. Overall, perception of similarity is shown
to have a connection with affiliation and attraction (Mannix and Neale, 2005). Shared identity
is fundamentally discussed in social psychology theories, such as social identity theory (Tajfel,
1982), suggesting that people’s identity is derived from being a part of a larger social group
and ODT (Brewer, 1991) underlining individuals’ need to belong and being accepted.
I further hypothesize that the Mediators of Inclusive Leadership describe the latent dynamics
behind the more explicit Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership and, therefore, provide ground
for exploring more relevant characteristics of inclusive leadership building on the same
mediators.
Novel findings
Although somewhat discussed, the proposed relationality and identity aspects of inclusion
seemed more central in the interviewees’ experiences than articulated in the existing literature.
Shared identity – having an idea of “us” – seems fundamental for a sense of belongingness:
what is the group that I relate to, identify to, and belong to. Particularly, what I did not find in
the existing literature, was essentially the variety of avenues for establishing a sense of shared
identity: strong organizational values, shared project ambitions and group goals, for example.
Shared identity also seems like a relevant outcome of trying to make sense of the complex
environment: who am I, who are we and who are them. Meaning-making is a believably related
phenomenon that is also discussed in leadership literature by Drath and Paulus (1994) and in
inclusive leadership literature by Wasserman (2005), who promotes relational eloquence – the
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skill of participating in others’ meaning-making processes – as an important leadership skill.
The essence of relationality seems to be related to the same phenomenon: trying to make
sense of our relation to others in an ongoing sense-making process through interaction.
Overall, a large body of existing literature seems to vicariously posit that inclusion is created
by various external features that trigger individuals’ sense of inclusion when, in fact, it
appeared to me during the research that inclusion was rather co-created in the inter-subjective
relationality. Essentially, relationality is a fundament to belongingness since there is no place
to belong without other people.
Similarly, the role of proactiveness was not apparent in prior literature but arose centrally in
the interviews. I theorize that proactiveness is an overlooked latent dynamic in the prior
inclusive leadership studies that requires closer future examination. Nevertheless, I suggest
that the other characteristics of inclusive leadership depend on proactivity to some extent:
putting the time, effort, and inclusive elements in the individual leader–employee relations. In
turn, awareness and attitudes are in a decisive role in the leader’s proactiveness around D&I.
The role of awareness and attitudes is largely ignored in the current body of literature. The
differences in awareness and attitudes were evident in this study and, thus, I hypothesize that
they also play a somewhat decisive role in inclusive leadership. The specters of awareness
and attitudes share some elements with the Continuum of Factors Inhibiting Male Ally
Participation by DuBow and Ashcraft (2016): apathy, lack of awareness, perceiving D&I issue
as too large, and lack of time and support appeared in the interview findings as well. However,
this study proposes a more fine-grained depiction of the different degrees of awareness and
attitudes.
The findings are fundamentally aligned with the Dunning–Kruger effect (Kruger and Dunning,
1999): people who recognized their flaws and shortcomings in D&I and demonstrated critical
self-assessment showed the highest awareness, whereas people who were confident in their
inclusivity without really having reflected on the topic showed more limited awareness. The
importance of critical and self-aware awareness is also discussed in prior literature: Winters
(2014) and Booysen (2014) highlight self-reflective awareness, Randel et al. (2018) underline
reflection on decision-making, and Wasserman et al. (2008) emphasize self-awareness as an
important leadership skill. Winters (2014) also argues that “inclusion will not be sustained by
leaders who respond to diversity and inclusion initiatives as ‘check the box’ exercises” (p. 222).
Differing levels of awareness and attitudes in teams essentially create a disparity in the
perceptions of the state of inclusion and, potentially, a gloomy illusion of group inclusivity. As
a result, leaders’ sensitivity to changes in group dynamics – as underlined by Booysen (2014)
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– and attentiveness to the different interpretations of the group reality – as emphasized by
Wasserman et al. (2008) – may suffer.
Basing on the study findings and prior literature, I hypothesize that awareness and attitudes
moderate leaders’ ability to accommodate both existing and new kinds of diversity. From this
perspective, organizational inclusion is not entirely a matter of leaders’ characteristics or skills
but also their ability to recognize and avert elements of exclusive leadership.
Last, it was evident in the interviews that the experiences of inclusion and exclusion were not
as bi-polarized as rhetorically discussed in existing literature: most interviewees reported
some elements of both inclusion and exclusion, and their experience of organizational
inclusion was more a matter of pros outweighing cons. This notion implies that, instead of
being an overwhelming experience, exclusion is experienced locally through only some aspect
of the organization. For example, some interviews who perceived being very included in their
work group felt that they were outsiders in larger organizational processes. This suggestion is
further aligned with prior literature in that organizational inclusion is a holistic phenomenon
requiring efforts at all organizational levels and in all processes.
Meeting the research objective
With convincing support from existing literature, this study succeeds in meeting the research
objective and contributes with a detailed empirical characterization of inclusive leadership. In
addition, the proposed Characteristics and Mediators of Inclusive Leadership (Figure 4)
connect some theories and propositions from prior studies to create a more holistic view of
inclusive leadership. Furthermore, the novel specters of awareness (Table 2) and attitudes
(Table 3) present the variety of ways in which individuals’ differing takes on D&I topics
manifest. Although this research did not examine the role of awareness and attitudes in
inclusive leadership, this study contributes to inclusive leadership research with an indicative
scale of the gradual maturities. Thus, this study succeeds in meeting both of the research
questions.
The study further contributes to inclusive leadership theory with a dual approach, combining
elements of entity-based and relational leadership theories. On the one hand, from the
functionalist, entity-based leadership perspective, the proposed Characteristics of Inclusive
Leadership successfully describe the favorable attributes, qualities, and skills of inclusive
leaders. On the other hand, from the relational leadership perspective, the Mediators of
Inclusive Leadership provide a glance at the realities developed in the leader-member
relationships. However, it is worth noting that given the research limitations (Section 5.2), the
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proposed elemental mediators likely vary by context and are not possibly the only mediators
either.
5.2 Practical implications
Building on the study findings and existing literature (synthesized in Figure 4), I propose the
following synthesis of inclusive leadership (grouped by the mediators):
• Openness, trust, approachability, and support in leadership relation while
communicating acceptance to individuals and the group
• Creating a communal feeling of “us” and framing shared goals, ambitions, or values
• Understanding individuality and uniqueness and celebrating diversity, and committing
to inclusion
• Demonstrating proactiveness, authentic interest and availability in the leadership
relation and communicating a sense of relevance for employees through employee
empowerment and appreciation
• Equality and fairness in treatment and sharing information and involving people in
decision-making
• Facilitating informal interaction and authentic relations between colleagues
Although the most straightforward implications for leaders are developing and exercising the
above-presented qualities, understanding the underlying mediators of inclusive leadership is
equally important. The mediators describe the fundamental qualities of the leader–employee
relationship and the surrounding climate of inclusion. Developing both fronts together fosters
a sense of organizational inclusion.
On an interesting notion, the emergent characteristics of inclusive leadership could also be
considered as simply ‘good’ leadership as they not only mediate inclusion but contribute to a
healthy work environment. Thus, it can be suggested that inclusivity per se is good leadership
practice and pursuable regardless of the D&I aspect.
Evidently, inclusive leadership requires relational skills and investment in relationships with
employees. In sharp contrast, the supervisors’ reported that they had only limited time for
leadership and that some of their teams were even tens of people. Two relevant characteristics
of inclusive leadership – availability and authentic interest – contradict with the limited time.
Therefore, inclusive leadership also requires time management and structural organization
support to make time for relational leadership development. In addition, one of the interviewed
D&I experts commented that it is typical for the Finnish organization culture to promote people
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to leadership positions based on their merits in substance work. From the perspective of
inclusive and relational leadership, leaders must be motivated to devote time to and focus on
leadership instead of prioritizing substance work. Thus, organizations should consider
people’s interest in exercising leadership in appointing manager positions.
Furthermore, Acker (2006) suggests that people make presumptions of their colleagues
actively. Thus, if unconscious biases are considered as the unavoidable results of humane
sense-making, the concept of inclusive leadership becomes a question of recognizing and
eliminating exclusive leadership. As presented in the findings, the more aware leaders
demonstrated better self-awareness of how exclusivity manifests in their behavior and seemed
thereby more apt in eliminating harmful behaviors. Thus, I underline the importance of self-
awareness.
In addition, both the leaders and employees often seemed to have an optimistic image of
inclusivity and everybody “fitting in” even though the topics were never discussed within the
team. The indicative similarity with the Dunning–Kruger effect (Kruger and Dunning, 1999)
further suggests that people have an overconfident image of their awareness. Although the
factual inclusivity in the studied teams cannot be commented on, critical self-reflectivity on
whether inclusion is truly exercised and whether there is really room for diversity should
contribute to a more profound understanding of how people feel like being themselves and
belonging to the group. Thus, I underline the importance of critical thinking.
Last, since diversity is not only limited to observable elements, a team might be more diverse
than the leaders perceive. As also suggested by Pelled et al. (1999), being different in a
dominant demographic is hard, and, consequently, supervisors of homogeneous teams
should also have all the more reason to question inclusivity and consider D&I in the team
proactively. Thus, I underline the importance of a proactive attitude as opposed to a reactive
one.
5.3 Limitations
This study is subject to limitations from both the employed methodology and the quality of the
research findings, which are discussed next.
The two-company setting poses a question of credibility due to the framed sampling (Dubois
and Gadde, 2002). The study was limited to the selected, voluntary interviewees in terms of
both representativeness of their company and diversity in general. Some people also refused
to partake in the research. In addition, the data collection was limited by the fixed time frame
57
of the research project. The credibility of research results is further subject to the researcher’s
bias itself, and a key challenge in studying only relatively few companies is avoiding attaining
biases from the interviews (Gioia et al., 2013). Moreover, Gioia et al. (2013) argue that
engaging with the existing literature early on might create confirmation bias in the data
collection and analysis phase by unconsciously looking for connections to the existing
literature. Confirmation bias is effectually present in this study since I familiarized myself with
a lot of literature while designing the research. However, the preliminary work was essential
in grasping understanding over the previously unfamiliar topic. Nevertheless, I made devoted
efforts to pay attention to my biases and avoid premature interpretations in the data collection
and analysis phases, as suggested by Gioia et al. (2013).
Another critical issue with a limited sample is the transferability of the research results (Gioia
et al., 2013). Considering that people from two different companies were studied, the
transferability of the findings is slightly better as opposed to a strictly framed single-case study.
Similarly, connections to existing literature suggest better generalizability (Eisenhardt, 1989).
However, the interviewees were mainly Finnish males and overall, relatively consistent in their
job satisfaction and experience of inclusion which limit the generalizability of the results. To
get a broader perspective of employee experiences, the study should have incorporated more
representatives of marginalized groups and also people with negative experiences of
exclusion. In this study, only one interviewee reported identifying clearly as an outsider and
feeling detached from the organization, implying arguable monotony in the sense of inclusion
across the interview sample. Notably, the sampling was limited to the available and willing
people in the companies, whose experiences could not have been predicted. Furthermore,
people who have experienced exclusion in the studied organizations have likely already
changed company. Thus, the research cannot provide enough understanding of the feelings
of exclusion and their relation to leadership. Altogether, taken the above-described limited
sample dimensions and the framed industry scope, the transferability is admittedly limited and
debatable. Nevertheless, this study focused on individual rather than demographic
experiences of inclusion and, therefore, provides rather inductive insight into the theoretical
elements of inclusive leadership and ideas for future research instead of definitive findings.
Using interviews as means of collecting research data pose further limitations and pitfalls. Yin
(1994) underlines the potential for bias from poor question formulation, response formulation,
skew in recollection, and interviewees responding with what they think is the “correct answer”.
All the suggested biases are relevant in this study due to the ambiguity of inclusion
experiences. The last notion is particularly significant in the context of this study since people
are generally afraid of being labeled as discriminative for showing a lack of knowledge or
58
compliance in D&I topics. The biases were addressed to the best of my abilities in structuring
and formulating the interview guides and creating a safe and open interview atmosphere.
Nevertheless, the biases are likely present in the data to some extent. In addition, a perfect
understanding of the interviewees’ perceptions is never obtained in the limited interview time
since inclusion is an infinitely complex, individualistic psychological experience.
Another relevant research issue is construct validity. Eisenhardt (1989) outlines construct
validity as the distinction of the selected construct from other constructs. Due to the
phenomenological nature of the study, interviewees’ responses are entirely subject to their
interpretation of the presented questions as well as their realities and meaning. Nevertheless,
the interviews were carefully analyzed, and recurring elements were identified to build an
image of inter-related dynamics and to distinguish different constructs. However, as discussed
earlier, construct validity is never achieved in phenomenological research, and, similarly, the
constructs of inclusion are debated in current research. The phenomenological aspects and
hermeneutics of the study are discussed more in Section 3.1.
Regarding the limitations of the findings, the study is framed to describe the inclusive elements
and qualities of leadership relations and organizational climate. Hence, structural
organizational elements – such as organizational hierarchy, processes, and practices – are
outside the scope of this study. Furthermore, the study takes a largely entity-based
perspective to leadership, although acknowledging the ontology of relational leadership
studies. Consequently, the selected research approach is open for debate and, alternatively,
a fundamentally different ontological and epistemological view on both leadership and
inclusion could have been taken – either from a more procedural or a much more relational
perspective.
Furthermore, the results were also affected by the remote work setting due to the ongoing
global Covid-19 pandemic, which most notably contributed to people’s experience of
disconnection with their colleagues. Several people had been employed just before or during
the pandemic and, thereby, had only a little experience of face-to-face work.
5.4 Future research
The existing literature on inclusion includes only little quantitative research, and the existing
theories call for more scientific rigor. Similarly, the proposed Characteristics and Mediators of
Inclusive Leadership and their internal dynamics should be validated and investigated with
quantitative empirical research in future studies.
59
Furthermore, the role of awareness and attitudes is not covered in the current body of literature
and poses a prominent field for future research. As this study provides an overlook of the
specters of awareness and attitudes, their specific effects on inclusive leadership and the
proposed hypothesis of their role in accommodating diversity are interesting topics for further
examination. The wide specters of awareness and attitudes indicate that there are significant
differences in D&I maturity, which may imply that they have a decisive impact on the outcomes
of leadership inclusivity.
Also, it appeared to me during the interviews that inclusion is the result of a continuous
meaning-making process: an individuals’ efforts to make sense of their own identity in relation
to others (Drath and Paulus, 1994). Furthermore, the importance of shared identity and
relationality indicate the central role of the collective idea of “us”. Meaning-making is discussed
in the existing leadership literature (for example, Drath and Paulus, 1994) and only little in
inclusive leadership literature (for example, Wasserman, 2005), but having only a little ground
in this study, the role of meaning-making in inclusive leadership should be investigated in
further studies in more detail.
60
6 Conclusions This final chapter summarizes the key conclusions of the study: main findings and their
implications are highlighted.
This study examines how leaders facilitate inclusion and how differences in awareness and
attitudes towards D&I manifest. The objective was to describe how leaders succeed in creating
a sense of inclusion as well as to explore the differences in people’s awareness and attitudes
towards D&I topics.
The study explored the variety of experiences and perceptions of inclusive leadership through
21 interviews with supervisors and their employees in two Finnish ICT consultancy companies.
Based on the findings and convincing support from existing literature, the study articulates the
Characteristics of Inclusive Leadership (Figure 4, page 35) – each of which requires contextual
evaluation and development respective to the team and individual. The characteristics further
converge to the Mediators of Inclusive Leadership (Figure 4, page 35) that describe the
fundamental underlying dynamics mediating inclusion in leadership: psychological safety,
shared identity, an atmosphere of uniqueness, humane respect, feeling of being an insider
and relationality. Testing and validating the characteristics and mediators of inclusive
leadership is a topic for future research.
Furthermore, the specters of awareness and attitudes describing individuals’ different
perspectives on D&I are presented. Although the effects of awareness and attitudes are
outside the scope of this study, the proposed specters lay the ground for future research on
their role in the practice of organizational inclusion. Furthermore, the specters indicatively
highlight the importance of critical self-reflection and proactiveness in accommodating
diversity and developing inclusive leadership.
61
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1
Appendices
Appendix 1: Inclusive Leadership Maturity Model
(Reprinted with creator’s permission)
2
Appendix 2: Table of Interviewees
Company A
Supervisors A1, A2, A3
Employees A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10, A11
Company B
Supervisor B1, B2, B3
Team B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B9, B10
3
Appendix 3: Research Interview Consent
4
Appendix 4: Original quotes (in the order of appearance)
“[…] for example, when I’m describing what’s going on in my life et cetera I feel that he likes to, for
example when I say blah blah blah my girlfriend, he prefers let’s say what’s her name. I feel like he
cares what is the person. Not just whatever. I don’t care what’s going on. I feel that he does this from
his side as well. He says the name of his wife, and this makes it much more personal. It feels that I can
actually trust this person. I wouldn’t have any problem to share something in a different level with my
supervisor […]” – A6
“[…] meil on erikoitu aika siihen että katotaan miten meillä menee tavallaan. Että ihan projektin
ulkopuolellaki, että meiän sisäiset [päivittäisen tapaamiset] sisältää toki työasioita mutta myös sellasta
että kerrotaan vaan että miten menee ja tosi usein alotetaan jostain, jos on vaikka kotona jotain
tapahtunu tai tällasta, niin jutellaan niin kun kavereiden kesken tavallaan. Ja se tuntuu tosi vapauttavalta
sit et pääsee töissäki tavallaan avautumaan näistä asioista. Ja sitte ku tietää että muutki on kartalla
siitä et missä sä oot tavallaan, et mikä sun mieliala ja tälleen niin jotenki tuntuu paljon helpommalta
tehä töitä, ku ei tarvi piiloutua siihen, että ”joo täs on kaikki ok” ja näin. Et joo, käydään aika usein läpi
just näitä juttuja, tavallaan henkilökohtasiakin asioita ja se tuntuu aina hyvältä.” – A5
“[…] mul on myös ollu semmonen fiilis että muhun on uskottu ja muhun on luotettu, ja sit on annettu ne
isot saappaat et "täytä nää" ja sit ku mä oon sillee et "en mä pysty" nii sit sanotaan et "kyl sä pystyt,
pistät vaan jalkaan, siin se on et sit sä huomaat" et se on kans semmonen, alusta asti on ollu semmonen
et ei oo tarvinu sinänsä todistella sitten nimenomaan supervisoreitten suuntaan et mitä mä osaan tai
mihin mä pystyn vaan ne on ollu ihan silleen et "joojoo, anna mennä vaan" ja sit on enemmänki ite
silleen et "een mä nyt voi tämmöstä tehä" et se on ollu iso juttu.” – A10
"Must tuntuu et mä oon [yrityksen A työntekijä] koska mä oon täällä ja mä oon sellanen mikä mä oon
tavallaan. [naurahtaa] Että en osaa sanoa, että ehkä [yrityksen A työntekijään] kuuluu se että on tietyllä
tavalla sellain ainutlaatunen ihminen, ja jollon omat kiinnostukset ja taidot ja näin.” – A5
“Mut sit mitä tulee semmoseen ammatilliseen kasvuun ja kehittymiseen, niin siinä semmonen
proaktiivisuus on ollu tosi kiva itte nähdä, et, nostetaan myös esihenkilöitten puolelta sitä semmosta et,
voisko sua kiinnostaa tämmönen juttu tai mä huomasin et tämmönen koulutus on tulossa et voisit ehkä
käydä siinä tai näin pois päin.” – A8
“[Lähijohtajan] kanssa ei oo koskaan tullu sellasta tunnetta että nyt puhutaan vähän siitä, et miten on,
kuinka paljon rahaa on tuonu firmalle ja että miten me voidaan tehostaa sitä rahantekoa. Vaan se fokus
ollu aina siinä tavallaan minussa enemmän ihmisenä ja miten mulla menee ja mihin mä tähtään ja näin.”
– A5
5
“[…] sit just et kuuntelee, siis että, sen tekijöitä täs on se että arvostaa mitä toinen sanoo, arvostaa
toista asiantuntijana. Ja se on osa sitä että kuuntelee eli, se mitä sä sanot on tärkeetä. Sä tiedät mistä
sä puhut.” – B6
“[…] mul oli tosi pitkään semmonen et mä en löytäny paikkaani siinä [mun kompetenssin yhteisössä] ja
must tuntu et mul paljon paremmin, jutut menee yhteen sit taas [toisen kompetenssin ihmisten] kanssa,
tuntu et sielt löyty enemmän sellasii sielunkumppaneita. Mut sit sen mentoroinnin avulla tajus ne omat
vahvuudet [omasa kompetenssissa] ja miks on hyvä että mä en oo samanlaisella profiililla kun ne kaikki
[kollegat]” – A10
“[…] sä jouduit iha tutustumaan johonki täysin, eri henkilöihin sielt sun täältä. Mikä on mummielest sit
taas hirveen hauska ja toisaalta se, luo vähän semmost fiilistä et ”joo että, okei, me ollaan joku, yksikkö.
Me ollaa joku porukka” – B7
“No oikeestaan meillä ei oo kauheesti sitä [yritystä B] sillä lailla korostettu meiän organisaatiossa, ja sit
se risu et miksei tunne kuuluvansa porukkaan on ehkä se että meil on nykyään esimiehillä jotka, esimies
on oikeestaan semmonen ainut rajapinta. Voi olla et työskentelet projektissa jossa ei ole ketään muita
[yrityksen B työntekijöitä] […] niin esimies on se ainut rajapinta, ja esimiehillä on nykyään hirveä määrä
ihmisiä. Ne ei tunne henkilökohtasesti alaisiaan, ja siitä ainakin meiän ryhmässä on tullu paljon
palautetta et miks ihmiset ei kuulu, miksei oo yhteenkuuluvuuden tunnetta et kun ei tunne kavereita.” –
B9
“[…] meille palkataan ihmisii jotka omaksuu jo meidän arvot ja sitte sitä kautta se jengi on semmosta
tietynlaista […], mä oon täs oppinu ymmärtään et kuinka tärkeitä arvoja ne tosiaan on, ja se että ne ei
oo vaan jotain plakaatteja seinällä vaan että ihmiset omaksuu jo ne kun ne tulee meille töihin.” – A11
“Ja valitettavasti sit ku huomaa että "hei tossapa on inspiroiva johtaja ja se tekee kaikki eri tavalla ku
muut" nii kyl se sit vähän ajan päästä lähtee. Se lähtee etsiin sitä yritystä missä on lupa olla erilainen ja
ravistaa kaikkia perustuksia. Kylhän [yritystä B] on naurettukin että kaikilla on samanlainen
liituraitapuku.” – B9
“[…] sitten kun, nousee semmonen, joku, tarve tai semmonen alkaa kuulumaa että ”hei, mä oon nyt eri
mieltä tästä” tai, tässä on, johonki ryhmää mihi mä kuulun ni meil on erilaisii tarpeita kuin näil muilla ja
nä muut ei, joko ollenkaa näe sitä tai ne vaik naureskelee sille et ”noo, ei tää nyt voi olla nii tärkee asia”.
Niin, kyllä se sillon muistuttaa siitä että, nä on nyt aika isoja, piikkejä, täällä. […] Siin tällasta et, kuulun
ja en kuulu. Ja vaihtelee silleen, päivästä ja, kuukaudesta ja, keskustelusta toiseen.” – A7
“Mä veikkaan et meillä, ehkä osittain siksi et ku meil on se D&I-ryhmä, niin se voi olla et lähijohtajat sitte
tietyllä tapaa ehkä ulkoistaa sen aktiivisuuden sille porukalle, joko tarkotuksellisesti tai sitte, koska se
on helpompaa miettimättä asiaa sen kummemmin. Mutta se et semmosta tosi aktiivista otetta, nii ei sitä
ainakaan ihan hirveesti nää.” – A8
6
“Another thing that on the onboard sessions they had some inclusion diversity meeting just to dedicate.
Totally dedicated for it and just to show that the culture of the company is pretty much about it. That
should not have any judgment or any discrimination. […] Everyone is here to work and we respect and
we like each other.” – A6
“Kyl se on se että otetaan se muukin kuin työ mukaan, puhutaan muistakin kuin työasioista, että oppii
tutustuun niihin ihmisiin eikä vaan siihen työhön. Kyl se on iso juttu.” – A11
“Se on ollu mulle semmonen mikä erottaa [yrityksen A] kaikist muist työnantajista, on kivaa töissä ja on
kivaa töitten ulkopuolella niitten ihmisten kanssa.” – A10
“The cons I guess that right away that I don’t see many people that look like me there. Of course, that
will come to your mind I’m here just to represent this class or represent these people. That comes many
thoughts on it. Am I here because I’m good enough for this company or am I here because they need
people like me to represent?” – A6
“Vois sanoo että sen jälkeen kun mä lähin pois sieltä päällikköhommista niin tippu outsideriksi, takaisin.
Eli näkee kuinka vähän sitä oleellista tietoa tai niitä perusteluja tulee tänne lattiatasolle asti. Että oon
aika lailla outsider.” – B9
“[…] siin oli ehkä myös semmonen et se sisäinen huumori siin palaveris oli myös semmonen mitä mä
en ymmärtäny sillon ku mä istuin sinne neukkariin sisään et mä oli vähän sillain et "mitä tääl tapahtuu"
ja sittemmin mä oon tajunnu et okei siin oli paljon semmosta läppää mitä mä en siin kohtaa tajunnu, ja
nyt mä tajuun, mutta olin vaan alkuun niin outsider että ei käsittäny.” – A10
“Kyl mä aika siin, sii jossain, jos nyt ei iha ulkopiirissä niin, siellä jossain ulkoreunoilla kuitenkin että,
aika vähäsii jotenki.. tuntee ittelle sellasta että ”joo että okei mä pystysin ihan oikeesti, vaikuttamaan
johonki näihin” että, kyl se tuntuu olevan enemmän se fiilis että, kyl se tulee sielt jostain, jossain tasolla,
jotku ihmiset ovat päättäneet jotain […]” – B7
“[…] tääki haastattelu on avannu silmiä että, et voisko tää olla semmonen asia mitä, vois proaktiivisesti
nostaa esii. Et just se että monella saattaa olla... et mul on jotenki vähä ehkä ruusunen käsitys siitä
että, kaikki on hyvin.” – A2
“No mun työskentelyyni [organisaation diversiteettitavoitteilla] ei oo mitään vaikutusta koska, mainitsin
jo aikasemminkin että, en mä ajattele tämmösiä asioita. Jos on kyvykäs henkilö, työhaastattelussa, niin
palkkaa, oli sitten [naurahtaa] taustat mitä tahansa. En mä oo koskaan ees ajatellu tämmösiä asioita.”
– B3