Inclusive leadership is founded on self-awareness and self-evaluation. It requires building a foundation where values of non-discrimination, openness, and addressing biases are ingrained in every decision. It also requires the foresight to spot biases in oneself and in the team.
Explicit biases are easy to spot as these are cultural in nature or propagated by the country where the employer operates or emerging from the hierarchy & power structure in the organization.
The challenging and often interesting narratives are around implicit biases that are so ingrained in the culture that not many people question the assumptions behind the decisions or thinking.
Another theme that always leaves a reviewer inspired is the ‘breaking stereotype’ narratives. Care should be given to not making such revelation a caricature or some clichéd examples that you have seen in Hollywood movies.
The most believable narratives are ones where the applicant understood the challenges of a community or about those who are at a different economic status or on issues promoted by those in the opposite political spectrum.
The narrative can be captured through one polarizing public event, personal interaction, or through a conflict in which you were initially on the other side of the argument.
Most attention should be paid on the transitioning event - the moment when you recognized the bias or fallacy in decision making.
If the ‘realization’ moment is weak, all your narrative will fall apart.
3 Darden Inclusive Leadership Essay Narratives Worth Exploring
1. Unconscious Bias -> Stereotyping
2. Team Diversity
3. Interpreting a foreign culture
