inclusive leadership research

• Author Rights
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

• JOLE 2023 Special Issue
• Editorial Staff
• 20th Anniversary Issue
• The Evolution of Inclusive Leadership Studies: A literature review

Herb Thompson and Gina Matkin 10.12806/V19/I3/R2

Introduction

The current state of diversity affairs, both in the US and globally, urges for a renewed emphasis on diversity scholarship, diversity principles, and leadership practices that better facilitate inclusion. Organizations, communities, and certainly educational institutions are all shuffling to better understand how to manage this most pressing 21 st century dilemma, namely, diversity (Angelides et al., 2010; Lewis, 2016; Shore et al., 2018; Terenzini et al., 2001). Diversity, along with its surrounding constructs, (i.e. culture, multiculturism, intercultural relations) seems the likely emphasis for scholarship in this domain of issues in equity. With many campuses currently experiencing a boom in enrollment by diverse populations, still this increase has not been met with adequate practices and the necessary climate to match it (Pedersen & Pope, 2010; Solorzano & Yasso, 2000). Along with the demographic changes there has also come an increase in the level of inequities experienced by minoritized student populations (Harper, 2012). The work of critical theorists (Yosso, 2005; Parker & Villalpando, 2007; Theoharis, 2007) provides us with a more clear picture into the urgency for this work and the gaps that remain in the literature.

The emergent opportunity presented by the increasingly diverse student population in the US is well represented in census date (census.gov, 2020). The surge of diversity in higher education taken with the impacts of systemic educational inequities begs the question of how leadership might facilitate better inclusion on campuses in order to meet the present equity needs. Fortunately, research in the fields of social psychology, management, multicultural, human resources, leadership, management psych, and educational leadership have all contributed significantly to our understanding of leadership styles that might benefit educational organizations in this arena (Posselt et al., 2012). In the past 30 years, there has been a steadily growing number of articles published on the topic of inclusion and inclusive climates (Mor Barak, & Cherin, 1998; Pelled et al., 1999; Hornsey & Jetten, 2004; Shore et al., 2011; Randel et al., 2018). A search through a scholarly article search engine (Ebscohost), using only the topic of inclusive leadership found only 3 articles before 1990, 25 total between 1990 and 1999, 133 from 200-2009, and a total of 421 from 2010-2019. The articles on the broader topics of inclusion represent a swelling interest in the challenges faced by culturally diverse campuses nationally (see Table 1). With growing diversity in the public sector and in the educational context, there seems to a be noticeable lag in responsiveness on the part of leaders to adjust to this dynamic (Oseguera & Astin, 2004).

Publication Search Results

Differing fields have undertaken this issue of disparity resulting in new inquiries directed toward the types of leadership that might help facilitate greater inclusion contextually. These explorations have led to a current trend that emphasizes the process of inclusive leadership and its resulting climates (Rankin, 2005). Portela (2011) provides a striking motive for inclusion research stating, “[h]ere, the central function of education is to allow for the free expression and collective consideration of ideas…schools are central institutions for making democracy deliberative” (p.19). In other words, the civic challenges that college campuses are experiencing might well be the very function they must serve to better prepare citizens for civic engagement and positive change. The deliberative function of democracy hinges on the ability of its citizenry to navigate differences with a common good in mind (Portela, 2011, p. 14). It is understandable that many perceive these “differences” as an obstacle to inclusion as they can be challenging to negotiate and potentially problematic where civic discourse and engagement are concerned. It has been suggested that in order to overcome this obstacle it is necessary to develop a more complex understanding of differences, how we experience them, and how to adapt to others (Bennet, 2004; Hammer, 2008). This is asserted as a way to better navigate toward meaningful inclusion in any context, certainly in the civic arena as well. The literature demonstrates the expansive benefits of inclusion, both for the individual as well as the society an individual belongs to (Brewer, 1991; Mor Barak & Cheri, 1998; Nishii, 2013; Spreitzer, 1995). It appears that diversity has expanded in many different organizations but there often remains a severe lack of inclusion in those same environments for factulty/staff in addition to student bodies. When examining the importance of inclusion research, it is necessary to also examine the absence of these practices which results in an opposing outcome of inclusion; namely exclusion. Jones et al. (2016) provide a clear connection between exclusion and resulting psychological and physical health; these authors detail how both overt and subtle discrimination operate to negatively impact the physical and psychological health of those targeted (p.1604). In simple terms, the stakes are very high when diversity is an organizational component and when inclusion is a stated goal.

Theoretical Conceptual Framework

This literature review explores the relevant inclusion scholarship in order to provide a more comprehensive review of inclusive leadership from its theoretical foundations to the current state of this construct academic literature. The study will aim to examine inclusive leadership from a variety of disciplines in order to better assess its potential usefulness. A special emphasis will be placed upon inclusive leadership in the educational context. This was done for several reasons, educational research, 1) has shown the longest history of publication related to this issue, 2) has provided the highest publication count in the area (inclusive leadership), and 4) has a context that shows a direct need for inclusive leadership practice (Mayrowetz & Weinstein,  1999; Strike 1999; Riehl, 2000).

In adding to this evolving dialogue, our aim is to better prepare other educational leadership scholars who will continue this work into the future. We utilized a modified version of the literature review strategy suggested by Waitoller and Artiles (2013). This adjusted process is summarized in Table 2.

Review Process (adjusted from Waitoller & Artiles, 2013)

In adopting an inductive method of review, it became a necessity to organize and funnel the focus of inquiry more directly. In order to help for a cogent theme to emerge, we applied four research questions to position the article content within the scope of this study (assess the development of inclusion research). The questions were derived from Pierce and Newstrom’s framework for leadership (2011, figure 1).

• RQ1: What does this publication suggest to us about the role of leader in the outcome of inclusion ?
• RQ2: What does this publication suggest to us about the role of follower in the outcome of inclusion ?
• RQ3: What does this publication suggest to us about the role that context plays in the outcome of inclusion ?
• RQ4: What does this publication suggest to us about the process leaders engage in toward the outcome of inclusion ?

Figure 1.   Leadership Framework (Pierce & Newstrom, 2011)

Using the 5 components in the framework, 1) leader, 2) follower, 3) process, 4) outcome, and 5) context, we are better situated to conclude with an analysis of both the foundation and current state of inclusive leadership. We review the findings by decades as they each provided a very clear and distinct theme from within the literature.

The first step of this process was to dentify a relevant pool of publications. Articles were selected using the two academic publication search engines (Ebsco Host, Ebsco Education Source). This was followed by a more targeted search of the top journals for leadership (e.g, Leadership, Journal of Leadership Studies, Journal of Management Studies, etc). Search terms of “inclusive leadership” and “inclusion” were utilized to generate the data. An additional dive into the the top educational administration journals (e.g., Education Administration Quarterly, Educational Researcher, Review of Educational Research, etc). From this initial process, 102 publications were identified and added and sifted in the next step.

The second step was to provide priority publication for each research decade that would then be analyzed more in depth. The amount of publications to sift through increased by decade with thr 1990s total going from twelve, the 2000s from thirty-three, and the final research decade (2010-2019) had fifty-seven to review.  The third step involved taking the sequentially separated publications and stratifying them to identify the ten exemplar publications. The pool of publications for each decade were narrowed down to ten priority articles based on the following criteria, 1) relevance to the development of Inclusive Leadership, 2) relevance to practice or process of Inclusive Leadership. The list was limited to the ten most relevant for each decade in order to allow the researchers to review the significant studies from each decade in greater detail. The fourth step to the review was to take the thirty priority publications and assess them for the following elements; 1) publication type, 2) field of srtudy, 3) relevance to research questions, and 4) leadership framework emphasis. The final step was to identify the graduated themes for each research decade in order to better represent the foundation and formation of Inclusive Leadership as a concept.

Research Decade #1 (1990-1999): Nascent

Some interesting observations can be made with a cursory view into the makeup of the articles that span this Research Decade (RD). There is not much mention of inclusive leadership as a focus during this RD nor was there any clear evidence of its emphasis in educational research. The ten exemplary articles reviewed from this period were from the fields of education, social psychology, management, and social work. Much of the research in this time frame centered on transformational leadership (Qi et al., 2019) which also reflects the dominant leadership focus of those years. This RD is difficult to examine given the relatively limited number of available articles and the sparse references to inclusion as a construct. It would not form more fully as a cogent term until the second RD. Deeper analysis of the articles in isolation allowed for further confirmation of the themes that emerge as RDs were group and probed deeper.

It seems that social psychology can be attributed with laying the foundation of what would later become Inclusive Leaderhsip more formally. In the early 1990s social psychologists were becoming more and more focused on the internal definition of the person at the expense of sufficient emphasis on the importance of social identity (Brewer, 1991). Brewer is credited as the first to provide a sufficient model to explain why some behaviors of identity are not isolated to individualistic tendencies. It was the stance of this researcher to examine how a person moves their identity to who they are as me or “I” to a selected identity shared with a group or “we” (1991, p. 476). The potential relevance to educational leadership should be noted here as schools provide the primary context of socialization for the youth of America. The classroom is arguably the most important context for diversity acclimation as no other institution is more responsible for student identity and shared identity learning (Rankin, 2005; Cabrera, 2012). Brewer’s work in the optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT) built upon Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and uniqueness theory (Snyder & Fromkin, 1980) to provide the necessary rivulet of research that will grow over the decades to follow. As Brewer (1991) puts it, “[s]ocial identity can be viewed as a compromise between assimilation and differentiation from others” (p.477). This theory-building article examines how a person’s need for acceptance can be oppositional to that person’s active need to be valued as unique from others. This connection can be made very clearly to the educational leadership context as it is here that teachers/leaders assist students trying to both 1) belong to the group, and 2) simultaneously strive to stand out from their peers (Brewer, 1991).

In the introduction to the framework of ODT, Brewer (1991) explains how personal needs for uniqueness and for belongingness interact exclusively in social settings. The primary claim of ODT is that the identity individuals form socially can be understood as “a reconciliation of opposing needs for assimilation and differentiation from others” (Brewer, 1991, p.475). The most significant contribution of this seminal work is the development of the optimal distinctiveness model. Depicted in figure 1 is the proposed interaction of needs of assimilation and differentiation. An innovative addition to the canon of social psychology, this opposing process model provides a firm foundation that will assist in explaining the part leadership plays in establishing an inclusive environment. ODT will go on to inform much of the assumptions that build into inclusive leadership studies that follow in RD2 and RD3.

Figure 2.  Optimal Distinctiveness Model (Brewer, 1991, p.477)

It was in this same period that other fields began to address the relevance of inclusion as a viable phenomenon to study. One of the first to empirically test dimensions and scales of inclusion, Mor-Barak and Cherin (1998) attempted to provide a continuum spanning from inclusion to exclusion in the workplace. Their studies provided a significant step forward in the comprehension of organizational acceptance. It was becoming clear that a “bridge” concept was missing in the existing framework of diversity and the desirable outcomes diversity might offer. The inclusion-exclusion continuum was presented as a means for explaining why people might move into a more involved organizational stance. Their emphasis on employee contribution will prove to be a hallmark of later inclusion studies and is advanced here as a predictor of successful organizational diversity (Shore, et al., 2011, p.1269). The work of these researchers and a few others provide a fitting summary of the work done in this particular research decade. We term this RD the Nascent section as this decade defines a period where formal inclusive research began. The graduated theme of this decade was titled, “Benefits of Inclusion for followers”.

Research Decade #2 (2000-2009): Formative

At the turn of the century academic attention pivots squarely to the topic of diversity and its place in societal priority. In this RD from 2000-2009, a concerted effort is applied to defining the problems triggered by diversity and the attempts to facilitate it effectively. Researchers appear in a hurry to identify processes of inclusion and simultaneously form strategies that will most efficiently facilitate it. This target and energy shift would evidence a phase transition in the evolution of this young theoretical field. The term “inclusion” will not be a central one for some time and was not widely recognized as a construct of interest in education until the third RD. Of the ten exemplar articles reviewed from this decade, half emphasized the process component of the leadership model (Pierce & Newstrom, 2011). This shift in focus should not be overlooked as it represents a significant change in the approach, research questions, and results that built in this decade. In educational circles this highlights the focus on institutional systems that either help or hinder inclusion (Cunningham, 2015). It is evident that there was a growing urgency to understand the phenomenon of inclusion as a process and thereby extend the conclusions of the 1990s. In RD1, merit of inclusion was established as an experience of followers and an outcome of social groups, but in RD2 we now see that there is an emphasis on the systems in place that induce either inclusion or exclusion. The results reveal this significant shift in content emphasis and the increased breadth in field type. In applying the research questions to the priority articles a focus on processes of leadership inclusion was descovered and resulted in the graduated theme of “Actions of Inclusion.”

Early in this decade of research, there is a less obvious connection that could be drawn to the field of communication and multicultural studies. The work of Bennett (2004) and Hammer (2008) will be important to note as they both contribute significantly to the broad effort shared by later inclusion researchers. The work of these two researchers (and others who would follow the tradition of their work) resulted in a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity, or DMIS (Bennett, 2004), and a well-respected instrument to measure this more complex perspective called the Intercultural Development Inventory (Hammer, 2008). Together, these two steps in intercultural communication studies provide a very promising bridge to the gap of inclusion research between leadership and education research.

Concurrent to the work being done by Bennett and Hammer, others were also working to articulate the experience of minorities and to identify the reach of diversity studies. The work of Brewer (1991) was revisited by authors Hornsey and Jetten (2004) in their review of the opposing needs articulated through ODT. This work provided some suggestions on how individuals might satisfy the needs of both inclusion and uniqueness. While little scientific basis was explicitly provided for their rationale, the strategies they provided allowed for greater attention and scrutiny to be applied to the “formative actions of inclusion.”  Within the review these authors present eight strategies that are aimed to facilitate group balance in the same equilibrium introduced in RD1 by Brewer (1991). They provide four strategies to meet the need for belongingness and four to meet needs for uniqueness (provided in Table 3). No evidence of empirical tests for these strategies were found by this team in the literature. The clear pivot to the process of inclusion seems a natural outcome of the previous RD and reveals the sensible next step researchers took to understand how inclusion happens. These articles serve to mature the study of inclusion in leadership literature by emphasizing the role that leaders play in facilitating engagement while simultaneously exposing the need for educational research to speak to the area of inclusive leadership on campuses (Rayner, 2009).

Inclusion Strategies compiled from Hornsey & Jetten (2004, pp251-258)

Research Decade #3 (2010-2019): Contemporary

Researchers Shore, et al. (2011) can be credited for providing the first cogent framework of inclusion in the literature we reviewed. This team of authors focused on managerial practices that lead to inclusion and built from the work of Brewer (1991) to do so (p. 1263). The authors used this theory-building article to present a framework for inclusion (Fig 2). The authors show how they postulate four possible outcomes when considering overall group inclusion. 1) Exclusion for those whose belongingness and uniqueness needs are not met, 2) Assimilation for those who feel they belong but are not valued for uniqueness, 3) Differentiation for those who are valued for uniqueness but do not feel they belong, and 4) Inclusion for those who have both needs met. In subsequent work, Shore et al. (2018) advanced an organizational framework. The article provides an effective review of the literature before setting out to better frame the experience of inclusion as it is aided and developed by leadership. They go beyond their previous work to introduce a new model that represents an inclusive organization. As a review and theory building article, this work also provides a more in-depth analysis of leadership styles in comparison to the inclusive leader designation. It does not, however, address the intercultural competency of leaders nor the climate that might facilitate inclusion.

Figure 3.   Inclusion Framework (Shore et al., 2011)

Zheng et al. (2017) introduce several concepts that aid in announcing the benefits of inclusion. They used the concept of member contribution as a means to determine levels of perceived inclusion. Labeling assertive contribution behaviors as “taking charge”, they sought to explain how inclusion can benefit an organization. Deep level similarity, or meaning connection, is seen as a direct influence on employee willingness to take charge at work and contribute voluntarily (Zheng et al., 2017). Leaders are encouraged to facilitate this experience of deep similarity with followers to help them to identify with the group, its goal, and its work. The education stream of research touched on shared values (Strike, 1999) but not as cogently as is seen in articles within the leadership field. Weiss et al. (2018) exemplified this in their article detailing the impact of leadership behavior on follower communication and voice. The implication of this in an educational setting cannot be overstated. Teacher and administrators are together the biggest influence on the inclusive or exclusive nature experienced on campus (Luedke, 2017). Other articles from this decade serve to spread the focus of research beyond previous categories (Lewis, 2016) and to enhance the understanding of how leaders, followers, processes, outcomes, and context all interact to either inhibit or encourage inclusion (Dorczak, 2011;Weiss et al., 2018; Ovseiko et al., 2019). These studies show promise for additional research that will undoubtedly follow this contemporary section of inclusion evolution. The graduated theme of this decade is titled, “Leadership in the Process of Inclusion”.

From our analysis we were able to identify several factors of interest to the existing literature and to future research in this area. First, we were able to identify the fields that contributed significantly to the evolution of Inclusive Leadership over the span of each decade (see figure 1). From this analysis we can better see which disciplines were central at differing stages of this theory’s development.

Figure 4.  Priority Publication Fields Compared by Research Decade

Secondly we discovered the types of articles utilized to evolve this construct over the span of these thirty years (see figure 5). This provided a sense of what the priority publications emphasized and allows for future research to provide literature to supplement the existing findings.

Figure 5.  Priority Publication Fields Compared by Research Decade

Third, we provide an analysis of emphasis these priority publications exhibited over each decade reviewed (see figures 6-8). This information is helpful to any researcher that may attempt to identify gaps in the evolution of the theory as well as those seeking to add to the current understanding of Inclusive Leadership with model specific and targeted research. Our final finding is evident in the graduated themes that emerged upon deeper investigation of the research decades spanning 1990-2019. These themes provide possibly the most helpful insight to both researchers and practictioners alike in that they allow for a sweeping glance of what we found to be the instrumental aspects of Inclusive Leadership study over its relatively short life span.

Figure 6.  Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD1

Figure 7.   Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD2

Figure 8. Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD3

In reviewing the literature on Inclusive Leadership spanning 30 years in a very important period of the American timeline, it is evident that inclusion has climbed into the popular consciousness. At this stage of the evolution in this discipline, caution should be heeded as it appears there are connections that need to be made between various fields, all working diligently to answer the pressing questions of inclusion. The fields of social work, social psychology, leadership, diversity, management, human resources, special education, educational leadership, administrative science, and communication have all contributed in varying degrees to this query yet there does not seem to be a strong enough collaboration between shared scholarship. A systematic review of inclusion research seeks to catalogue the development of concepts in the various areas in order to extrapolate shared themes as well as complementary concepts. Lewis (2016) examines how power “happens” epistemologically and asserts that there is a clear need to better understand how leadership impacts the overlap of inclusion and activism. The author states, “the concept of action-oriented leader for inclusive education emerged from this evolution of managerial to distributed to transformative styles of leadership” (Lewis, 2016, p. 336). The importance of leadership is undeniable, and it is interesting to note that it took until the late RD3 before most disciplines began to assign significance to it by way of published articles.

It should be noted that we are in a time of expanding interest in diversity and inclusion on campuses and with that comes a strong push for research related to these concepts (Raynor, 2009). Lewis (2016) further explains that despite the efforts of society to reduce discrimination and its negative effects, “segregation practices have increased in the United States” (p. 330-331). The author states that, “[i]nclusion is about more than equal distribution of resources; it is about equal access and the full participation of historically marginalized groups” (p. 336). While incredibly helpful as a directional statement for research, this highlights the greatest current issue in the present evolution of inclusion research: how? How do educators and educational administrators facilitate inclusive leadership practices in this present and critical moment. The work of Hammer (2008) provides the most promising response to this gap in the present inclusion development. It is clear that a system is needed to both explain and expand leaders’ ability to identify and appreciate group members’ differences. Lewis (2016) added, “[a]lthough leadership roles of the early 2000s remained focused on building relationships and sharing power, reform efforts highlighted schools, not systems, as the unit of analysis” (p. 332). It seems many researchers have resorted to a stance of conclusion that “leaders must…” but instead of providing specifics on what they should do, there is an emphasis on what they should accomplish. This is a gap that is easy to miss if there is not adequate attention applied to all elements of the leadership framework provided by Pierce and Newstrom (2011). The gap of action versus outcome is problematic for this reason; raised expectations without raised explanation of internal and external processes will inevitably lead to failure and disappointment (Harris III & Bensimon, 2007). It is the opinion of these authors, therefore, that leadership pre-dispositions should be analyzed in more depth as a priority in this field. The research of Bennett (2004) and Hammer (2008) provides a helpful foundation from which to begin.  The DMIS and IDI provide a developmental focus that might provide both leaders and followers with the necessary awareness and tools to better negotiate the needs of belongingness and uniqueness in a the classroom. We know that this context can serve to meet these needs but because of the work of the researchers studied, we know it can also restrict their fulfillment. Future research should seek to forge a strong connection between the work of multicultural/intercultural studies and inclusion research.

The final area of discussion on this review relates to future efforts to examine the evolution of this construct. It is clear that the field would benefit from a meta-analysis of Inclusive Leadership to better situated it in relation to historical happenings over this time and to more accurately assess what aspects of Inclusive Leadership are yet to be studied. There are many benefits to this approach and no shortage of indicators from this present study. As an example, we note in the third research decade that the “consequences” component of the leadership framework (Pierce & Newstrom, 2001)  accounted alone for half the priority publications for that span in its development. Consider also that the component of “follower” does not occur at all, which should be considered in a meta-analysis of this evolving leadership area. Does the emphasis on consequences reveal a trend toward institutional measurement of diversity climate? Were the political swings of this decade a potential reason for an absence of follower focus within publications at that time?  A meta-analysis of the literature borrowing from the adapted system we present here would allow for more general connections and insights to be gleaned.

As was mentioned in the introduction, the national discourse highlights the significant civic challenges we face in our societal development and identity formation. The increased recognition of new and important dynamics of difference has helped to position inclusion as a critical component in the ongoing process of valuing and integrating these differences in all contexts. The college campus might be the ideal environment to both investigate and refine the process of inclusion as it provides the most sensible avenue to prepare individuals for positive/effective civic discourse and engagement. It remains true that there are real challenges to this effort of inclusion. When differences are denied it can produce citizenry who are wary of others that are not like them, resulting in some of the red lining practices that we know have wrought drastic social consequences. When differences are viewed and modeled as polarizing forces it can be expected that they will trend toward creating civic conflict rather than productive understanding. When society minimizes differences we tend to mute the numerous benefits they actually bring to the educational and civic context. This review has also highlighted the function that inclusion can serve in all contexts. It also demonstrates that colleges can model and encourage this important dynamic. In the preamble to the US constitution our national goals are clearly stated. We are all striving to form a more perfect union; civic engagement, we know, is established as the social function reserved to promote and ensure that ultimate output. Inclusion, it seems, best provides us the sensible process to facilitate a more perfect union. This is especially true because there are so many voices that need to be considered and represented in the vast tapestry of our national landscape. When this happens, we have every reason to expect positive change. We can expect that individuals will experience personal acceptance and positive personal distinction. We can expect that nationally we will learn how to accept differences as we experience them and adapt to them in countless healthy and meaningful ways.

Authors’ Note: The following articles are priority publications included in the review but not included in the Reference section as they were not specifically mentioned in this article.

• Astin, A. W., & Oseguera, L. (2004). The declining” equity” of American higher education. The Review of Higher Education , 27(3), 321-341.
• Baker, J. M., & Zigmond, N. (1995). The meaning and practice of inclusion for students with learning disabilities: Themes and implications from the five cases. The Journal of Special Education , 29 (2), 163-180.
• Barnett, C., & Monda-Amaya, L. E. (1998). Principals’ knowledge of and attitudes toward inclusion. Remedial and Special Education , 19 (3), 181-192.
• Bennett, C. I. (2002). Enhancing ethnic diversity at a Big Ten University through Project TEAM: A case study in teacher education.  Educational Researcher ,  31 (2), 21–29.
• Berry, R. A. (2006). Inclusion, power, and community: Teachers and students interpret the language of community in an inclusion classroom. American Educational Research Journal , 43(3), 489-529.
• Bilimoria, D., Joy, S., & Liang, X. (2008). Breaking barriers and creating inclusiveness: Lessons of organizational transformation to advance women faculty in academic science and engineering. Human Resource Management , 423-441.
• Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who Is This “We”? Levels of collective idenity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 83-93.
• Brewer, M. B., Weber, J. G., & Carini, B. (1995). Person memory in intergroup contexts: Categorization verses individuation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 29-40.
• Fleming, J., & Love, M. (2003). A systemic change model for leadership, inclusion, and mentoring (SLIM). Early Childhood Education Journal , 31(1), 53-57.
• Hollander, E. P. (2009). Inclusive leadership. Taylor & Francis.
• Jaquez, F. (2016). THE Global Leadership TRIFECTA. (Cover story).  TD: Talent Development ,  70 (9), 44–48.
• Khalifa, M. A., Gooden, M. A., & Davis, J. E. (2016). Culturally responsive school leadership: A synthesis of the literature.  Review of Educational Research ,  86 (4), 1272–1311.
• Kumar, R., Zusho, A., & Bondie, R. (2018). Weaving cultural relevance and achievement motivation into inclusive classroom cultures. Educational Psychologist, 53 (2), 78–96.
• Leonardelli, G. J., Pickett, C. L., & Brewer, M. B. (2010). Optimal Distinctiveness Theory: A framework for social identity, social cognition, and intergroup relations. In J. M. Olson, & M. P. Zanna, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (pp. 63-113). Academic Press.
• Liou, Y.-H., & Daly, A. J. (2019). The Lead Igniter: A longitudinal examination of influence and energy through networks, efficacy, and climate.  Educational Administration Quarterly ,  55 (3), 363–403.
• Nembhard, I. M., & Edomonson, A. C. (2006). Making it safe: The effects of leader inclusiveness and professional status on psychological safety and improvement efforts in health care teams. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 941-966.
• Randel, A. E., Dean, M. A., Karen, H. E., Chung, B., & Shore, L. (2016). Leader inclusiveness, psychological diversity climate, and helping behaviors. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 31 (1), 216-234.
• Ryan, J. (2006). Inclusive Leadership. Education Review//Reseñas Educativas .
• Ryan, J. (2006). Inclusive leadership and social justice for schools. Leadership and Policy in Schools , 5 (1), 3-17.
• Shambaugh, R. (2017). All Voices on Deck: How inclusive leadership can help define your leadership style.  Leader to Leader ,  2017 (85), 12-17.
• Sonnenschein, W. (1999). The Diversity Toolkit. NTC/Contemporary Publishing.
• Stamper, C. L., & Masterson, S. S. (2002). Insider or outsider? How employee perceptions of insider status affect their work behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 875-894.
• Tienda, M. (2013). Diversity ≠ Inclusion: Promoting Integration in Higher Education.  Educational Researcher ,  42 (9), 467–475.
• Wenner, J. A., & Campbell, T. (2017). The theoretical and empirical basis of teacher leadership: A review of the literature. Review of Educational Research , 87(1), 134-171.

Angelides, P., Antoniou, E., & Charalambous, C. (2010). Making sense of inclusion for leadership and schooling: A case study from Cyprus. International Journal of Leadership in Education , 319-334.

Bennett, M. (2004). Becoming interculturally competent. In J. Wurzel (Ed.), Toward Multiculturalism: AReader in Multicultural Education (2nd ed., pp. 62-77). Intercultural Resource Corporation.

Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 475-482.

Cabrera, N. L. (2012). Working through whiteness: White, male college students challenging racism.  The Review of Higher Education ,  35 (3), 375-401.

Cunningham, G. B. (2015). LGBT inclusive athletic departments as agents of social change.  Journal of Intercollegiate Sport ,  8 (1), 43-56.

Dorczak, R. (2011). School organisational culture and inclusive educational leadership. Contemporary Management Quarterly / Wspólczesne Zarzadzanie, 2 , 45–55.

Hammer, M.R. (2008). The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI): An Approach for assessing and building intercultural competence. In M.A. Moodian (Ed.), Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence: Understanding and Utilizing Cultural Diversity to Build Successful Organizations . Sage Publishing.

Harper, S. R. (2012). Race without racism: How higher education researchers minimize racist institutional norms.  The Review of Higher Education ,  36 (1), 9-29.

Harris III, F., & Bensimon, E. M. (2007). The equity scorecard: A collaborative approach to assess and respond to racial/ethnic disparities in student outcomes.  New Directions for Student Services ,  2007 (120), 77-84.

Hornsey, M. J., & Jetten, J. (2004). The individual within the group: Balancing the need to belong with the need to be different. Personality and Social Psychology Review , 248-264.

Jones, K. P., Peddie, C. I., Gilrane, V. L., King, E. B., & Gray, A. L. (2016). Not so subtle: A meta-analytic investigation of the correlates of subtle and overt discrimination. Journal of Management , 1588-1613.

Lewis, K. (2016). Social justice leadership and inclusion: a genealogy.  Journal of Educational Administration and History , 48(4), 324-341.

Luedke, C. L. (2017). Person first, student second: Staff and administrators of color supporting students of color authentically in higher education. Journal of College Student Development , 58(1), 37-52.

Mayrowetz, D., & Weinstein, C. S. (1999). Sources of leadership for inclusive education: Creating schools for all children. Educational Administration Quarterly , 35 (3), 423-449.

Mor Barak, M. E., & Cherin, D. A. (1998). A tool to expand organizational understanding of workforce diversity. Administration in Social Work , 47-64.

Nishii, L. H. (2013). The benefits of climate for inclusion for gender-diverse groups. Academy of Management Journal, 56(6), 1754-1774.

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The benefits of inclusive leadership

Featured topics.

Find out the benefits of inclusive leadership for your organization’s culture, talent, growth, and evolution.

Calls for societal change have sparked unprecedented demand to create more diverse and inclusive organizations — not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s also the smart thing to do.

Research has shown time and again that diverse and inclusive organizations outperform their peers. Just one example: according to the 2018 CEPC whitepaper, Diversity & Inclusion in Corporate Social Engagement , diverse and inclusive organizations are 70% more likely than their peers to capture new markets.

Yet, despite spending more than $8bn a year on diversity programs, very few organizations have achieved their goal of becoming truly inclusive and diverse. So where are they going wrong?

There are various elements that go into building diversity and inclusion. And it’s important that organizations get all these elements right, whether they are developing talent acquisition processes that attract diverse perspectives, experiences and contributions or reducing biases and barriers to employee development. But there is one key element that all others depend on: inclusive leadership.

The problem for organizations is that skilled inclusive leaders are rare. In fact, our research shows that only 5% of leaders globally can be defined as inclusive. The good news is that inclusive leadership can be assessed, coached and developed.

What is an inclusive leader?

Through fieldwork and analysis of over 3 million leadership assessments, Korn Ferry has identified the five disciplines and five traits that define an inclusive leader. To learn about these disciplines and traits in detail, you can download our whitepaper or explore the model below.

The top takeway is that inclusive leaders are leaders who interact with the diversity around them, build interpersonal trust, take the views of others into account, and are adaptive. These abilities increase their effectiveness and the impact they have on:

• Individuals
• Organization as a whole

In the following sections, we’ll explore each of these areas in more detail and look at some of the specific benefits inclusive leaders bring to your business.

Individual benefits of inclusive leadership: unlocking potential

Inclusive leaders help organizations attract the best talent from talent pools that haven’t yet fully been tapped. This is crucial, not simply because it spells more high-quality talent for your business, but bringing in perspectives and experiences from traditionally underrepresented talent groups provides insight into the perspectives and experiences of underrepresented customer groups as well. This can also help shed light on problems that more homogenous teams have been stuck on and unable to resolve.

But attracting diverse talent is only the start. The biggest advantage of inclusive leadership is that inclusive leaders know how to unleash individual potential and create an environment where all talent can thrive and grow.

A 2019 Korn Ferry Institute survey of talent management, HR, and diversity and inclusion experts identified some of the key ways inclusive leaders can unlock individual potential. Among those surveyed, there was almost universal agreement that inclusive leaders:

• Enable individuals to feel free to bring their authentic selves to work
• Provide individuals with a sense of empowerment to take risks
• Reassure individuals that there is equity and fairness and that they will be challenged with job stretch opportunities

Research shows that leaders who are seen as fair and respectful, encourage collaboration, and value different ideas and opinions are 2.5 times more likely to have effective employees on their teams. In other words, the ability to unlock individual potential benefits everyone that is led by an inclusive leader, but it benefits underrepresented talent even more. Why?

Individuals from traditionally underrepresented groups face additional biases and barriers to their professional development. If they do not feel included in an organization, they are unlikely to reach their full potential. Inclusive leaders help underrepresented people understand that they have the power to take ownership of their own careers and equip them with the specific insights, strategies, and tools they need to drive their development forward.

They do this through mentoring, sponsorship and coaching, and they are advocates for individuals who they think are being treated unfairly. They also help individuals develop greater self-agency, encouraging them to speak up, be heard, and optimize their contributions.

Team benefits of inclusive leadership: unlocking collective intelligence

A study by the Canadian researcher N. J. Adler has revealed that, while diverse teams do indeed outperform and out-innovate homogenous teams, they can also at times be significantly less effective.

Image Source: Nancy J. Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 4th ed. (Cincinnati, OH: Thomson South-Western, 2002).

Why? Because diversity will only lead to better results if it is skillfully managed in an inclusive way. Without inclusion, diverse teams have a high chance of becoming chaotic, leading to lower productivity and engagement, higher turnover, and litigation. It is, after all, much easier to manage a group of people with similar backgrounds and experiences than it is to convince teams made up of diverse individuals to understand their varying thought patterns and behaviors and value them at a deep and personal level.

Even when diverse teams are managed by skilled inclusive leaders, they may be outperformed by homogenous teams in the early stages of working together because disruption and conflict can result when different perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, thinking, and communication styles are brought into a team.

Image Source: Charlotte Sweeney and Fleur Bothwick, Inclusive Leadership: Defining Guide to Developing and Executing an Impactful Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (London: Pearson Education, 2016), 171. Graph is adapted from Katherine W. Phillips, “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” Scientific American 311, no. 4 (October 2014): 42–47; and Bruce W. Tuckman, “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups,” Psychological Bulletin 63, no. 6 (1965): 384–399.

Given time, however, a well-managed diverse team can significantly outperform a well-managed homogenous one. The key is having a leader who is a self-aware advocate for diversity and has the inclusive skills to leverage the differences within the team to achieve better performance. This is one of the most important benefits of inclusive leadership for your organization.

Organizational benefits of inclusive leadership: driving innovation and growth

There have been many different studies into the relationship between diversity and inclusion and company performance, and almost all of them have come to the same conclusion. Put simply: diversity and inclusion is good for business.

When compared with their peers, organizations that are truly diverse and inclusive are:

• 70% more likely to capture new markets, Chief Executive for Corporate Purpose (CECP)
• 75% more likely to see ideas become productized , Center for Talent Innovation (2013)
• 19% more likely to see higher innovation revenue , Boston Consulting Group
• 87% more likely to make better decisions , Korn Ferry Research

Inclusive leaders underpin this competitive advantage. They are the ones bringing organizations closer to their aspirations of being equitable, inclusive, and diverse. They are the ones leading the effort to design systems that unleash the potential of all their talent. They are the ones championing diversity initiatives and affinity groups, advocating for structural changes, acting as role models, and holding other leaders accountable for increasing the pipeline of underrepresented talent. Most important, they aren’t just in it for the short term — they are continuously driving and managing changes that make the organization more inclusive and diverse.

In this way, inclusive leaders are fundamental to company success. The greatest challenge for any business right now is to create growth. And, as the diagram below illustrates, the solution starts with inclusive leaders.

Image Source: Andrés T. Tapia and Alina Polonskaia, The Five Disciplines of Inclusive Leaders White Paper (Korn Ferry, 2020).

Inclusive leaders are critical to success. They unlock individual potential, enhance the collective power of teams, and support your organization’s ability to innovate and grow.

Unsurprisingly, demand for inclusive leadership at all levels of organizations is steadily growing, but finding these leaders is another matter. We recently analyzed 24,000 leadership assessments to find out what proportion of leaders today could be classified as inclusive leaders. The answer? Barely 5%.

The good news is that inclusive leadership attributes can be defined, measured, assess, coached, and developed. So even if your inclusive leader ratio is only 1 in 20 today, tomorrow it could be 2 in 20. Or 5 in 20. Or even 20 in 20.

To find out how you, and other people in your organization can develop your inclusive leadership skills, read our article, “ The Journey to Becoming a More Inclusive Leader ”.

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Inclusive Leadership and Innovative Performance: A Multi-Level Mediation Model of Psychological Safety

Associated data.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Taking both individual and team levels into consideration has been called for years in terms of research on leadership. Inclusive leadership, a trending leadership style emerging from the global needs of managing the increasingly diversified workplace nowadays, has yet been rarely studied at both levels. To answer these calls, we specifically analyzed the relationship between inclusive leadership, team psychological safety, and innovative performance via a multilevel analysis. The results are based on a study of 356 employees from 90 working teams. Individual perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively related to the individual innovative performance through the mediation of individual psychological safety. Team perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively related to the team innovative performance through the mediation of team psychological safety. Moreover, team perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively related to the individual innovative performance through the cross-level mediation of individual psychological safety. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

Introduction

Workforce diversity, catalyzed by economic globalization and technology development, has become a trend in the workplace (Pelled et al., 1999 ). The diversity not only includes demographic factors like gender, age, and living status but also involves underlying levels such as values and social cognition (Harrison et al., 1998 ). Therefore, the diversity of employees in the workplace brings complications for the management, such as serious problems of inequality and discrimination in the workplace (Kelly and Dobbin, 1998 ; Mor Barak et al., 2003 ; Mor Barak, 2007 ; Smith et al., 2012 ). To deal with the challenges brought by workforce diversity, organizational leaders have become increasingly aware of the importance of creating an inclusive environment (Nishii and Rich, 2014 ). Furthermore, inclusive leadership emerges as an ideal leadership style to motivate diversified employees to better realize themselves as well as to treat them fairly (Roberson, 2006 ). Through fair treatment of and providing strong motivation to the employees from diversified backgrounds, inclusive leadership may positively influence the performance at both individual and organizational levels (Pless and Maak, 2004 ; Echols, 2009 ; Shore et al., 2011 ; Bowers et al., 2012 ; Tang and Zhang, 2015 ).

Among the positive effects that inclusive leadership exerts on multiple kinds of individual or organizational performance, this study mainly focuses on the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative performance for two reasons. First, innovative performance is recognized as crucial for organizational success and survival (Amabile, 1988 ), which makes it essential to explore ways to improve the innovative performance of organizations. In this study, we attempted to examine whether a specific style of leadership, inclusive leadership, would elevate innovative performance. Second, previous studies have proved that workforce diversity wields a positive influence on both employees' and organization's innovative performance (Govendo, 2005 ; Mohammadi et al., 2017 ). Thus, it is worth studying whether inclusive leadership, which is developed to manage workforce diversity, can also boost innovative performance.

Despite scholars' growing interests in inclusive leadership, previous studies on this topic mostly focus on the individual level, which indicates limited knowledge. This is mainly because the structure of organizations has been evolving from individual-based to team-based, and supervisors are more frequently requested to lead employees as individuals as well as teams (Cohen and Bailey, 1997 ; Hackman, 2002 ; Kozlowski and Bell, 2003 ). The team-based trend prompted a series of management issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives (Chen and Kanfer, 2006 ). Leading teams rather than individuals raises new questions, such as how team-focused leadership affects individuals, and whether trade-offs may occur between managing teams and individuals (Chen et al., 2007 ; Wang and Howell, 2012 ). Therefore, research on leadership should integrate individual- and team-level processes to answer these questions (Kozlowski and Bell, 2003 ).

To further fill the gap, the current study intends to examine the multilevel influences of inclusive leadership on innovative performance. Drawing from the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964 ), we argue that inclusive leadership offers employees higher levels of psychological safety, which is a kind of desirable psychological resource. This in turn draws employees to present better innovative performance as a return to their inclusive leaders. As inclusive leadership and team psychological safety are both team-level constructs and hold individual perceptions, we bring up our assertions according to the direct consensus model (Chan, 1998 ).

The current study makes three contributions to the existing research. First, this study reviewed a modest number of studies that explore the influences of leadership on the relevant outcomes at both individual and team levels. Second, we extended the previous research on the positive effect of inclusive leadership on innovative performance by examining how inclusive leadership promotes innovative performance at both levels and by cross-level means. Third, we expanded the literature on psychological safety in terms of the multilevel analysis by proving it to be a cross-level mediator within the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative performance.

Theoretical Backgrounds and Hypotheses

Inclusive leadership and innovative performance.

In the current study, we developed an overall theory mainly from the perspective of the social exchange theory. According to the social exchange theory, when leaders provide material or nonmaterial resources to employees, they will form an emotional social exchange relationship with employees, which makes employees generate the willingness and take on action to give back to their leaders (Blau, 1964 ). Therefore, we argue that inclusive leadership, which allows employees to perceive belongingness and present uniqueness at the same time (Roberson, 2006 ), provides lots of psychological supportive resources to help employees live comfortably in organizations. In return, employees would repay their leaders by working harder and pursuing higher performance such as innovative performance.

As Yammarino and Dansereau ( 2008 ) argued, leadership is a multilevel construct in nature. Considering this inherent multilevel characteristic, as well as few studies on inclusive leadership that covered multilevel interplay, the current study investigated the influence of inclusive leadership on innovative performance at multiple levels. According to Chun et al. ( 2009 ), the multilevel construct should consider the difference between teams, the difference within teams, and the difference between followers independent of their teams. Therefore, we have discussed our research model from several plausible levels.

Individual-Level Relationships

Inclusive leadership, constructed as motivating employees' participation and achieving organizational support by showing three attributes, namely, openness, availability, and accessibility (Edmondson, 2004 ), is an important method to manage the workforce diversity and achieve organizational inclusion (Pless and Maak, 2004 ). Some earlier studies investigated the effects of inclusive leadership on innovative working behaviors at the individual level and provided evidence mostly for positive relations (Carmeli et al., 2010 ; Javed et al., 2018 , 2019a ). The perception of inclusive leadership may foster individual innovative performance in three aspects. First, according to the social exchange theory, when inclusive leaders are perceived to provide assistance and support to employees, employees would feel obliged to repay the leader and organization (Blau, 1964 ). Thus, employees are more likely to reciprocate by displaying extra-role behavior such as innovative working behaviors (Pless and Maak, 2004 ; Choi et al., 2015 ). Second, inclusive leaders are perceived to be open to employees expressing their views and to be always available and accessible to be their listeners, which guarantees that employees can freely generate and present new ideas without being ignored or rejected (Carmeli et al., 2010 ). Third, by actively communicating and providing assistance to employees, inclusive leaders make employees feel supported by their leaders (Javed et al., 2019b ), which makes employees more likely to perform innovative behaviors (Clegg et al., 2002 ; Janssen, 2005 ). To sum up, we conclude that individual perceptions of inclusive leadership would encourage employees to express novel ideas as well as to transform the ideas into innovative behaviors and further improve their innovative performance. Hence, we hypothesize the following:

• Hypothesis 1 : Individual perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively related to individual innovative performance.

Team-Level Relationships

According to Braun et al. ( 2013 , p. 271), “if theoretical constructs relate to individuals nested in teams, one must acknowledge the team as a meaningful entity.” Thus, in addition to considering individual perceptions of inclusive leadership, we should investigate the team perceptions of inclusive leadership as well.

Unlike individual performance, to improve team performance, leaders consider not only how to improve performance at the individual level but also how to display team-focused behaviors that promote shared commitment to teams and promote positive team processes (Kozlowski et al., 1996 ; Morgeson et al., 2010 ). Despite that we mentioned inclusive leadership may positively affect individual innovative performance, these individuals, as team members, need to be encouraged to commit to the team and cooperate as a whole to improve the team's innovative performance. As the characteristics of inclusive leadership (openness, availability, and accessibility) help leaders to focus on facilitating group members to feel themselves as part of the group (belongingness) and retaining their sense of individuality (uniqueness) while contributing to the group processes and outcomes, employees can all feel inclusiveness and further get committed to the team (Randel et al., 2018 ). This commitment to the team can also be considered as team members' giving back to their leaders' inclusiveness from the perspective of the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964 ). Moreover, by overcoming the barriers between team members from different backgrounds, inclusive leadership can build a positive social environment where team members are more aware of the team goals and increase work coordination (Wasserman et al., 2008 ; Mor Barak, 2013 ; Qi and Liu, 2017 ), which might be the most important mediating mechanism for team outcomes (Anderson and West, 1998 ). Overall, at the team level, inclusive leadership improves the commitment to teams of team members and shapes a comprehensive work atmosphere where team members feel comfortable to generate innovative ideas and cooperate with each other to accomplish team innovation. Thus, we hypothesize the following:

• Hypothesis 2 : Team perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively related to team innovative performance.

Cross-Level Relationships

Furthermore, we suggest that team perceptions of inclusive leadership exert a cross-level main effect on the individual innovative performance. In this case, the individual innovative performance will not only be improved by inclusive leadership experiencing indirect interactions with the supervisor but also by leadership behaviors that are directed toward other team members or the team as a whole. For one reason, inclusive leaders may accept new information, listen to a new voice, and receive a new challenge (Hirak et al., 2012 ), which encourages every team member to generate and express creative ideas. We believe that when someone in the team witnesses other members getting appreciated for exhibiting innovative behaviors by inclusive leaders, he or she may probably suppose that it is appropriate to act the same. Thus, inclusive leadership can affect individuals by affecting other team members. For another, by creating “an environment that acknowledges, welcomes, and accepts different approaches, styles, perspectives, and experiences” (Winters, 2014 , p. 206), inclusive leadership effectively manages the workforce diversity and positively influences the team process by promoting coordination and mitigating conflicts (Qi and Liu, 2017 ; Randel et al., 2018 ). The environment created by inclusive leaders not only benefits the teams they lead but also makes every team member feel supported and energized to better engage in their tasks to repay their leaders (Pless and Maak, 2004 ). Hence, we further argue that individual innovative performance can be improved by these team-focused inclusive leading behaviors. We hypothesize the following:

• Hypothesis 3 : Team perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively related to individual innovative performance.

Psychological Safety as a Mediator

Psychological safety is defined as perceptions of the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in a particular context such as a workplace (Edmondson, 1999 ). In this study, we introduced psychological safety as a mediator from the perspective of the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964 ). As we discussed before, the three characteristics, openness, availability, and accessibility of inclusive leadership, make employees feel supported and behave more comfortably in organizations (Edmondson, 2004 ), so they would put more effort into extra-role behavior such as improving innovative performance to repay their leaders' kindness. In this logic, we further put forth that psychological safety is one of the essential psychological resources that employees receive from an inclusive leadership style (Carmeli et al., 2010 ), which would further drive them to repay their leaders with higher innovative performance.

Though first brought up as a team-level construct (Edmondson, 1996 , 1999 ), research on psychological safety has gained fruitful findings by treating psychological safety as a phenomenon at multiple levels including individual level, group/team level, and organization level (Edmondson and Lei, 2014 ). Edmondson and Lei ( 2014 ) also mentioned that, despite the multilevel findings, research on psychological safety should pay attention to how phenomena at different levels of analysis interact. Thus, we separately discuss the mediating role of psychological safety at different levels in this section.

Individual-Level Mediation

We first argue that individual perceptions of inclusive leadership will positively influence individual psychological safety. According to the essence of inclusive leadership, if an individual perceives a leader to be inclusive, he/she is likely to consider the leader to be open, available, and accessible in the leader–follower relationship. As Edmondson ( 2004 ) addressed, the openness, availability, and accessibility exhibited by leaders are likely to promote the development of psychological safety. By being open, inclusive leaders actively communicate with employees about achieving work goals or catching new opportunities, and the feeling of being invited and appreciated for their voice would help facilitate the development of employees' psychological safety (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006 ). By being available and accessible, inclusive leaders send a clear signal that employees can easily get in touch with them and address issues (Carmeli et al., 2010 ). Therefore, when individuals perceive high levels of leader inclusiveness, they would feel safe to reach out to the leader and express their ideas without worrying about causing interpersonal risk, which assists employees to develop individual psychological safety.

Then, we propose that individual psychological safety fosters individual innovative performance. To achieve higher innovative performance, an employee needs to generate creative ideas and exhibit innovative behaviors. However, employees may take risks in the context of innovation by proposing and implementing new ideas, since many of them could end up with organizational failure (Janssen, 2002 ; Mathisen et al., 2012 ; Javed et al., 2019b ). Therefore, employees need support in terms of psychological safety to alleviate the risks and become involved in the innovation process and realize their creative potential (Harrington et al., 1987 ). Indeed, Kark and Carmeli ( 2009 ) proved that psychological safety induces feelings of vitality to impact an individual's involvement in creative work. Carmeli et al. ( 2010 ) further proved that psychological safety positively influences employees' involvement in creative behaviors, which is important for their creative performance. Therefore, we suggest that, at the individual level, higher psychological safety would motivate employees to create more original ideas, get more involved in innovative behaviors, and eventually improve their innovative performance.

To conclude, we discuss that perceptions of inclusive leadership would make individuals feel safe to voice their feelings and perform and develop feelings of psychological safety, which may sequentially drive individuals to engage in innovative work and manifest higher innovative performance. We hypothesize the following:

• Hypothesis 4 : Individual psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between individual perceptions of inclusive leadership and individual innovative performance.

Team-Level Mediation

The analysis of team psychological safety originated from the research by Edmondson ( 1996 , 1999 ), in which she posited team psychological safety as a shared belief by team members that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In a similar vein, we first discuss the relationship between team perceptions of inclusive leadership and team psychological safety. Team perceptions of inclusive leadership imply the average level at which the leader is perceived to be inclusive by the team. If a leader is perceived to be inclusive in the context of a team, he/she may be perceived to acknowledge and respect the uniqueness of team members, invite and listen to team members to express their suggestions and concerns, and motivate team members to implement ideas without worrying about the risk of being criticized and punished (Ye et al., 2019 ). Moreover, inclusive leaders may exhibit socio-emotional support behaviors to develop strong emotional links and interpersonal relationships with team members (Hollander, 2009 ). Thus, inclusive leadership would cause team members to feel safe to take interpersonal risks in the team, which, in other words, facilitates feelings of psychological safety of team members. Furthermore, we suggest that the feelings of safety of every team member would converge into a shared belief as team psychological safety.

Then, we conceive that team psychological safety relates positively to team innovative performance in several ways. As we mentioned earlier, team innovative performance refers to more than a simple aggregation of individual innovative performance. Team members need to cooperate with each other and work as a whole to promote team innovation. Indeed, psychological safety has been identified as an essential factor in understanding how people in a group collaborate to achieve a shared outcome in organizational research (Edmondson, 1999 , 2004 ). In specific, in a team with high psychological safety, team members are found to be more likely to question suggestions and decisions (Burke et al., 2006 ), share knowledge (Collins and Smith, 2006 ; Siemsen et al., 2009 ), and join team learning (Huang et al., 2008 ). Moreover, through these team processes, team members would take more initiatives to develop new products and services (Baer and Frese, 2003 ), which can lead to a better team innovative performance. Altogether, we argue that team perceptions of inclusive leadership would nourish a shared belief of team psychological safety, which will further promote team cooperation and improve team innovative performance. We conclude and suggest the following hypothesis:

• Hypothesis 5 : Team psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between team perceptions of inclusive leadership and team innovative performance.

Cross-Level Mediation

Finally, we propose that the cross-level relationship between the team perceptions of inclusive leadership and individual innovative performance is mediated by individual psychological safety. So far, we have discussed how individual psychological safety encourages individuals to perform better at innovative work, but we need to further investigate how a team's perceptions of inclusive leadership cultivate individual psychological safety. That is, individual psychological safety would be improved by not only the inclusive leadership experienced in indirect interactions with the leader but also the leader's behaviors toward other team members or the team as a whole. For one thing, inclusive leaders are open to opinions and suggestions generated by team members and always ready to get reached by team members for communication and discussion (Carmeli et al., 2010 ). By doing this, inclusive leaders ensure that every team member feels psychologically safe and takes no worry about interpersonal risks. We believe that, when team perceptions of inclusive leadership are high, even if an individual does not receive the inclusiveness by oneself, he/she would probably witness other team members being included to take actions in teams without worrying about being criticized or punished. As a result, he/she will develop a sense of psychological safety because he/she can act just like everyone else and get treated equally by the inclusive leaders. For another thing, inclusive leadership influences the team as a whole by motivating team processes such as knowledge sharing and team learning (Huang et al., 2008 ; Siemsen et al., 2009 ). Though directed toward the whole team, these processes can make every team member benefit. With more interaction and cooperation with other team members, an individual may develop stronger bonds with the others, which may trigger a higher level of psychological safety (Edmondson and Mogelof, 2005 ). Moreover, inclusive leadership shapes and maintains a favorable work environment and cultural norm in teams (Carmeli et al., 2010 ), in which every team member would be impacted by the safe and comfortable climate and feel psychologically safe in the team. Combining with earlier discussion, we conclude that a team-level inclusive leadership would have a cross-level influence on individual psychological safety, which would in turn promote better individual innovative performance. We hypothesize the following:

• Hypothesis 6 : Individual psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between the team's perceptions of inclusive leadership and individual innovative performance.

In conclusion, Figure 1 presents the multilevel mediation model of inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and innovative performance examined in this study.

Research model.

Methodology

Participants and procedure.

We collected data for this study from the operating departments of two large companies (one from the automobile industry and another one from the chemical industry, respectively) located in northern and southern China. With the help of the HR department, we were able to distribute surveys to participants during their work hours on site. Due to the risk of lockdown policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected the data in one wave. To prevent the common method bias that may be caused by one-wave data collection, we employed a paired-questionnaire design. The survey consists of two versions. The supervisor version, rated by the team leaders, includes measurements of the individual innovative performance, team innovative performance, and team-level controls. The employee version is rated by employees and composed of measurements on inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and individual-level controls. We invited 102 working teams to take part in the study and distributed paper questionnaires to both team leaders and team members, and 12 team leaders did not respond to the surveys. Hence, the final sample for this study consists of 90 teams (including 90 questionnaires from team leaders and 356 questionnaires from team members, representing response rates of 88.2%).

Within the sample of 90 team leaders, 86.7% are men, 72.2% are married, 51.1% grew up in rural areas, and their average age is 33.7 years old. In terms of educational level, 28.9% have a high school degree and below, 15.6% have a college degree, 45.6% have a bachelor's degree, and 10% have a master's degree and above. Team leaders' job tenure ranged from <3 years (8.9%), 3–5 years (20.0%), 5–8 years (15.6%), 8–10 years (11.1%), and more than 10 years (44.4%). Team leaders' job positions ranged from general staff (6.7%), junior manager (53.3%), middle-level manager (35.6%), and senior manager (4.4%).

Within the sample of team members, 72.2% are men, 43.0% are married, 52.5% grew up in rural areas, and their average age is 28.2 years old. In terms of educational level, 32.3% have a high school degree and below, 22.5% have a college degree, 39.0% have a bachelor's degree, and 6.2% have a master's degree and above. Team members' job tenure ranged from <3 years (33.7%), 3–5 years (28.4%), 5–8 years (11.5%), 8–10 years (6.7%), and more than 10 years (19.7%). Team members' job position ranged from general staff (92.4%), junior manager (7.0%), middle-level manager (0.6%), and senior manager (0%).

Although the original measurements were in English, our study was conducted in the Chinese context, so we followed the back-translation procedures recommended by Brislin ( 1970 ) for survey translation across different languages. All measurements have a 5-point Likert-scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree).

Inclusive Leadership

We used the nine-item scale adapted from Carmeli et al. ( 2010 ) to measure inclusive leadership. Sample items included the following: “The team leader is open to hearing new ideas;” “The team leader is available for consultation on problems;” and “The team leader encourages me to access him/her on emerging issues.” The Cronbach's α for the scale in our study is 0.942.

Psychological Safety

We use seven items adapted from Edmondson ( 1999 ) to measure psychological safety. Sample items included the following: “If I make a mistake on this team, it is often held against me” (Reverse) and “It is safe to take a risk on this team.” The Cronbach's α for the scale in our study is 0.741.

Individual Innovative Performance

We measure the individual innovative performance by adapting four items of the “innovator role” from Welbourne et al.'s role-based performance scales (Welbourne et al., 1998 ). Sample items included the following: “The employee does a good job at coming up with new ideas” and “The employee does well in working to implement new ideas.” The Cronbach's α for the scale in our study is 0.944.

Team Innovative Performance

We used a four-item scale adapted from Lovelace et al. ( 2001 ) to measure the team's innovative performance. Sample items included the following: “The innovativeness of the team's product is good” and “The number of innovations or new ideas introduced by the teams is outstanding.” The Cronbach's α for the scale in our study is 0.710.

Control Variables

We controlled for possible alternative explanations by including both individual-level and team-level control variables. Previous studies suggested some demographic variables of both team leader and team members for controlling, such as gender (1 = male, and 2 = female), age (self-reported in numbers), educational level (1 = high school degree and below, 2 = college, 3 = bachelor's degree, and 4 = master's degree and above), marital status (1 = married, and 2 = not married), birthplace (1 = rural and 2 = urban), job tenure (1 = less than 3 years, 2 = 3–5 years, 3 = 5–8 years, 4 = 8–10 years, and 5 = more than 10 years), and job position (1 = general staff, 2 = junior manager, 3 = middle-level manager, and 4 = senior manager; Carmeli et al., 2010 ; Javed et al., 2018 ). Besides, we controlled for team size at the team level according to previous findings that team size is related to both psychological safety and innovative performance (Hülsheger et al., 2009 ; Edmondson and Lei, 2014 ; Ye et al., 2019 ).

The summary of all the constructs employed in this study is presented in Table 1 .

Summary of constructs in this study.

Analytic Strategy

We employed the software AMOS 23.0, SPSS 25.0, and HLM 7.0 to test our proposed research model. First, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with AMOS 23.0 to assess the discriminant validity of core variables in the model. Second, correlation analysis was conducted to assess the correlations of the variables in the model. Third, we conducted hierarchical regression analysis with the SPSS 25.0 to test hypotheses at the mono-level. Last, we conducted hierarchical linear modeling with HLM 7.0 to test the cross-level hypotheses. The hierarchical linear modeling considered both individual- and team-level residuals, which can recognize the partial interdependence among individuals in the same team. We modeled inclusive leadership as a team-level variable, and to support the aggregation of team members' perceived inclusive leadership to the team-level variable, we also calculated within-team agreement, intraclass correlations, and reliabilities of the means.

Common Method Bias Test

Though our data was collected from different sources (team leaders and team members), they were also measured at the same time, which introduced the potential for common method variance. For this reason, we employed the widely used Harman's single-factor test. The results of the test showed that the first factor explained only 31.506% of the variance, which is lower than half of the total variance explained (64.679%) as well as the critical value of 40%. Because of the limitations of this method, we also examined the effects of adding a latent common methods factor to the hypothesized measurement model (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ). The fit of this model is not significantly better than that of the hypothesized model (Δχ 2 = 10.662, Δ Df = 9). Meanwhile, the variance extracted by the common methods factor was only 0.185, falling below the 0.500 cutoff that has been suggested as indicating the presence of a latent factor representing the manifest indicators (Hair et al., 1998 ). Therefore, both results suggest that common method bias has been sufficiently controlled in our study.

Validity Analysis

Data aggregation.

As inclusive leadership and psychological safety at the team level refer to the shared perceptions of the team members, we aggregated the individual perceptions of these two variables to yield the measures at the team level. To assess the appropriateness of aggregation, we calculated within-team agreement (Rwg; James et al., 1984 ), intraclass correlations (ICC1), and reliabilities of the means (ICC2; Bliese, 2000 ). The Rwg, ICC1, and ICC2 values supported aggregating individual scores to the team level of analysis (inclusive leadership: ICC1 = 0.475, ICC2 = 0.782, Rwg = 0.972; psychological safety: ICC1 = 0.378, ICC2 = 0.706, Rwg = 0.964; James, 1982 ; James et al., 1993 ).

Construct Validation

Before examining our hypotheses, we performed a CFA to evaluate the construct distinctiveness of the measurement model consisting of perceived inclusive leadership, perceived psychological safety, and individual innovative performance. We used item parceling based on the single-factor method (Bentler and Chou, 1987 ) to check if all the measurement items are included as observed indicators (Landis et al., 2000 ). We constructed an individual-level model with three factors, loading separately. Table 2 presents the results of CFA, indicating that the hypothesized three-factor model (χ 2 = 32.344, Df = 24, χ 2 / Df = 1.348 TLI = 0.992, CFI = 0.995, RMSEA = 0.031) fits better than the other competitive models.

Results of confirmatory factor analysis.

PIL, Individual perceptions of inclusive leadership; PPS, Individual Perceptions of psychological safety; IIP, Individual innovative performance .

Descriptive Statistics

Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations of key variables at the individual level. The results indicate that individual perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively correlated with the individual perceptions of psychological safety ( r = 0.434, p < 0.01) and individual innovative performance ( r = 0.295, p < 0.01). The individual perceptions of psychological safety are positively correlated with \ individual innovative performance ( r = 0.323, p < 0.01).

Means, standard deviations, and correlations among variables at the individual level.

Table 4 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations of key measured variables at the team level. The results indicate that team perceptions of inclusive leadership are positively correlated with team psychological safety ( r = 0.538, p < 0.01) and team innovative performance ( r = 0.367, p < 0.01). Team psychological safety is positively correlated with team innovative performance ( r = 0.360, p < 0.01).

Means, standard deviations, and correlations among variables at the team level.

Hypotheses Testing

Hypotheses testing at the individual level.

We conducted a hierarchical regression analysis at the individual level to test the impact of individual perceptions of inclusive leadership on individual innovative performance and the mediating role of individual perceptions of psychological safety between the two variables. Table 5 presents the results of the hierarchical regression analyses at the individual level.

Results of hypotheses testing at the individual level.

As can be seen from model 4, individual perceptions of inclusive leadership are significantly related to individual innovative performance (β = 0.285, p < 0.001). Thus, hypothesis 1 is supported. In model 2, the individual perceptions of inclusive leadership are significantly related to individual perceptions of psychological safety (β = 0.442, p < 0.001). After entering individual perceptions of psychological safety as the mediator in model 6, individual perceptions of psychological safety are positively related to individual innovative performance (β = 0.258, p < 0.001), and individual perceptions of inclusive leadership are still significantly related to individual innovative performance (β = 0.171, p < 0.01) but weaker than that in model 4. Therefore, the results reveal a significant mediating effect of the individual perceptions of psychological safety on the relationship between the individual perceptions of inclusive leadership and individual innovative performance (Baron and Kenny, 1986 ; Wu, 2008 ). Thus, hypothesis 4 is supported.

Hypotheses Testing at the Team Level

Similarly, we conducted hierarchical regression analyses at the team level to test the influence of team perceptions of inclusive leadership on team innovative performance and the mediating role of team psychological safety. Table 6 presents the results of the hierarchical regression analyses at the team level.

Results of hypotheses testing at the team level.

As can be seen from model 4, team perceptions of inclusive leadership are significantly related to team innovative performance (β = 0.381, p < 0.001). Thus, hypothesis 2 is supported. In model 2, team perceptions of inclusive leadership are significantly related to team psychological safety (β = 0.445, p < 0.001). After entering team psychological safety as the mediator in model 6, team psychological safety is positively related to team innovative performance (β = 0.257, p < 0.05), and team perceptions of inclusive leadership are still significantly related to team innovative performance (β = 0.267, p < 0.05) but weaker than that in model 4. Therefore, the results revealed a significant mediating effect of team psychological safety on the relationship between team perceptions of inclusive leadership and team innovative performance (Baron and Kenny, 1986 ; Wu, 2008 ). Thus, hypothesis 5 is supported.

Hypotheses Testing of the Cross-Level Effect

Table 7 presents the HLM results of testing the cross-level effect of the team's perceptions of inclusive leadership on individual innovative performance through individual perceptions of psychological safety. First, we examined whether there is a significant between-team variance in innovative performance. We followed the procedure recommended by Bryk and Raudenbush ( 1992 ) and conducted a null hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analysis. The results revealed that the interclass correlation coefficient (ICC1) of individual innovation performance was 0.285/(0.285+0.475)=0.375>0.060. This finding provided a basis for examining individual-level and team-level predictors of individual innovative performance. Second, the results in model 2 revealed that team perceptions of inclusive leadership significantly helped to predict individual innovative performance (γ 01 = 0.608, p < 0.001). Therefore, hypothesis 3 is supported. Third, the HLM results in model 3 revealed that team perceptions of inclusive leadership were significantly correlated with individual perceptions of psychological safety (γ 01 = 0.360, p < 0.001). After we put both the independent variable and the mediator into model 4, the HLM results showed that individual perceptions of psychological safety had a positive within-level impact ( u 0 = 0.512, p < 0.001) as well as a between-level impact (γ 02 = 0.657, p < 0.05) on individual innovative performance. Meanwhile, team perceptions of inclusive leadership were still significantly correlated to individual innovative performance (γ 01 = 0.368, p < 0.01) but weaker than before. Thus, perceived psychological safety partially mediated the relationship, which provides support for hypothesis 6.

Results of hierarchical linear model.

σ 2 is the residual of level 1; τ 00 is the residual of intercept, that is u 0j .

IIP, Individual innovative performance; TIL, team perceptions of inclusive leadership; IPS, individual perceptions of psychological safety; TPS, team perceptions of psychological safety. In all models, level 1 variables are group-mean centered .

In addition, we conducted a Sobel test to further examine the mediating effects (Sobel, 1982 ). The Sobel test's z -value of individual perceptions of psychological safety was 2.218, which exceeded the benchmark of 1.960, which further confirms the cross-level mediating effect.

Theoretical Contribution

We believe that our study advances the previous research in three ways. First, we addressed the call to pay more attention to the multilevel nature of leadership (Bliese et al., 2002 ). As several previous studies only focused on the multilevel influences of transformational leadership (Wang and Howell, 2012 ; Braun et al., 2013 ) and authentic leadership (Braun and Nieberle, 2017 ), we further added inclusive leadership to our analysis to fill the gap. By examining the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative performance at multiple levels, we responded to the suggestions from past studies that leadership research should incorporate individual and team relations (Schriesheim et al., 2006 ).

Second, we substantiated the theoretical and empirical findings on the positive influence of inclusive leadership on innovative performance. In addition to verifying the relationship at the individual level and team level separately as earlier studies did, we further analyze the cross-level influence of inclusive leadership on the individual innovative performance. The results prove that the effect of inclusive leadership can be exerted to motivate employees to perform better at team-level, individual-level, and cross-level, which enriches the knowledge of the multilevel positive influences of inclusive leadership.

Third, we extend the literature on the multilevel effects of psychological safety. Considering that psychological safety can be conceptualized as a phenomenon at different levels (Edmondson and Lei, 2014 ), we empirically examine that the team psychological safety mediates the relationship between team perceptions of inclusive leadership and team innovative performance (team-level mediation), individual perceptions of psychological safety mediate the relationship between individual perceptions of inclusive leadership and the individual innovative performance (individual-level mediation), and individual perceptions of psychological safety mediate the relationship between team perceptions of inclusive leadership and the individual innovative performance (cross-level mediation). The findings contribute to the understanding of the multilevel effects on psychological safety.

Practical Implications

In addition to the theoretical contribution, our study provides several practical implications as well. To begin with, we remind the supervisors in organizations of the importance of inclusive leadership in motivating employees' innovative performance. Based on our multilevel findings, we suggest supervisors exhibit more inclusive behaviors because inclusive leadership is proven to exert a positive influence on employees' innovative performance from both the team level and the individual level. Furthermore, supervisors should not only facilitate the belongingness and respect the uniqueness of every individual but also advocate an inclusive environment and encourage team cooperation for teams as a whole.

Then, for organizations, inclusive leadership should be taken into account in the process of hiring, promoting, and training supervisors. As demonstrated in the present study, inclusive leadership, characterized by a leader's openness, availability, and accessibility, can enhance employees' psychological safety and sequentially improve their innovative performance. As promoting innovation is imperative for organizations in the current competitive environment (Chowhan et al., 2017 ; Hu et al., 2018 ), it is beneficial for organizations to appoint supervisors with high levels of inclusiveness.

Moreover, our study highlights the influence of psychological safety. With the growth of knowledge economies and teamwork presence, psychological safety has become an essential topic (Edmondson and Lei, 2014 ). According to the results of our study that higher psychological safety fosters better innovative performance of employees, we recommend supervisors to pay attention to establishing the psychological safety of employees. Furthermore, supervisors should notice that psychological safety might be affected by both team-focused and individual-focused leader behaviors as our study indicates. Hence, supervisors should work on facilitating employees' individual psychological safety as well as building a psychologically safe climate within the teams.

Limitations and Future Directions

Despite the theoretical and practical implications presented by our study, there are also several issues worth noticing. First, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the data were cross-sectional through the one-way collection, which made it difficult to infer a causal relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative performance via psychological safety in our study. Even though the causal effect can be supported by our theoretical discussion and findings from previous studies, future research should choose a multi-wave data collection procedure or longitudinal design to further improve the explaining power of the causal relationship.

Second, we exerted the measurements developed by Carmeli et al. ( 2010 ) in the Western context to examine the positive influence of inclusive leadership in the Chinese context. Although we carefully checked the reliability and validity of the scales in our study, the results may still have some deviation, which could potentially weaken the applicability of the results of our study. As Tang et al. ( 2015 ) addressed, inclusion and inclusive management in China may contain special contents. Thus, future research is suggested to develop new measures in the Chinese context and conduct more indigenous studies.

Third, we did not investigate the boundary conditions of the multilevel mediation model. Indeed, the mediation of psychological safety can be influenced by many other factors. For example, contextual factors such as organizational context and country or culture context, team characteristics, and other individual characteristics, such as job duties, could potentially affect the mediating role of psychological safety (Edmondson and Lei, 2014 ). Combined with the multilevel model of our study, future research should explore the boundary conditions at different levels to generate more inspiring findings. Besides, when investigating the boundary conditions, we also call for studies focused on more multilevel mediating mechanisms underlying the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative performance, through which we can gain more knowledge about the positive influences of inclusive leadership.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author Contributions

Both authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71672114).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Impact of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior: Perceived organizational support as a mediator

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Management, Shandong University, Jinan, P. R. China

Roles Data curation, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Roles Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Kings College, The University of Aberdeen Business School, Old Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, The United Kingdom

• Lei Qi, 
• Bing Liu, 
• Xin Wei, 
• Yanghong Hu

• Published: February 28, 2019
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091
• Reader Comments

Despite extensive literature on leadership and its impact employee innovative behavior, few studies have explored the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. To address this gap, this study aimed to investigate how inclusive leadership influenced employee innovative behavior by examining perceived organizational support (POS) as a mediator. We used multi-wave and multi-source data collected at 15 companies in China to test our theoretical model. Results revealed that inclusive leadership had significantly positive effects on POS and employee innovative behavior. Furthermore, POS was positively related to employee innovative behavior and partially mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. We discussed implications and limitations of this study as well as avenues for future research.

Citation: Qi L, Liu B, Wei X, Hu Y (2019) Impact of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior: Perceived organizational support as a mediator. PLoS ONE 14(2): e0212091. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091

Editor: Yannick Griep, University of Calgary, CANADA

Received: October 10, 2016; Accepted: January 28, 2019; Published: February 28, 2019

Copyright: © 2019 Qi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: This research was financially supported by the National Social Science Foundation (14BGL073), Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Sciences Research Planning Fund Project (19YJA0056), Shandong Social Science Planning Fund Program (17CLYJ26), Major Program of Humanities and Social Sciences of Shandong University (17RWZD21), Bing Liu as the funding recipients.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

In a competitive environment characterized by globalization, shortened product life cycles, and rapid technological change [ 1 ], innovation has been regarded as the crucial facilitator for growth, performance, and competitiveness [ 2 ]. Managers and scholars have increasingly emphasized the important influence of innovation on competitive advantage, sustainable development, and long-term organizational success [ 3 ]. A key issue of innovation was that an individual had an innovative, novel and creative idea and developed that idea beyond its initial state [ 4 ]. Given that employee innovation in organizations was of critical importance to an organization, it was vital to identify factors that could stimulate employee innovative behavior [ 5 ], which referred to employee’s engaging innovative activities [ 6 , 7 ].

Investigators have sought to identify determinants of employee innovative behavior [ 6 , 8 ]. Many determinants have been explored, such as knowledge sharing [ 9 ], human resource (HR) management practices [ 10 ], innovation climate [ 11 ], absorptive capacity [ 12 ], and perceived innovation job requirements [ 7 ]. Among all these determinants of innovative behavior, leadership has been arguably noted as the most important factor that influenced creativity and innovation in organizations [ 13 ]. Several studies indicate that transformational leadership [ 1 , 14 ], ethical leadership [ 15 ], and paternalistic leadership [ 16 ] significantly influenced employee innovative behavior. Despite those studies has not yet examined the effect of inclusive leadership on innovative behavior. Inclusive leadership was quite different from other kinds of leadership [ 17 ]. Inclusive leadership closely matched the determinants of innovation at the workplace, some of which were inclusiveness, openness, uniqueness, and support for innovation [ 17 , 18 ]. Studying the impact of inclusive leadership on innovative behavior could provide further insights into extant literature regarding the effect of leadership on innovative behavior. Unfortunately, published empirical studies on the link between inclusive leadership and innovation performance are rare.

The current study developed novel theoretic insights on how employee innovative behavior was affected by inclusive leadership. Innovation involved change [ 19 ], which by its nature (i.e. diversity) required inclusiveness, openness, and support. Business organizations capable of fostering an innovation-supportive work environment may realize a sustainable competitive advantage in innovation [ 20 ]. To examine the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior, we proposed employees’ perceived organizational support (POS) of employee, as a mediator for this relationship. POS, which was valued as assurance that would be available from the organization when needed to carry out their job effectively and deal with stressful situations [ 21 , 22 ]. Researchers have highlighted the importance of inclusive leadership [ 17 ] and organizational support [ 23 ] in stimulating employee innovative behavior. However, few studies focused on the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior through employee’s POS [ 24 ].

In the current study, we contributed to extant research [ 17 , 23 ] by investigating the influence of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior through POS. Our study aimed to make two major contributions to understanding the role of leadership behavior in developing organizations’ competitive advantage [ 25 , 26 ]. First, our study contributed to research on organizational leadership by emphasizing the role of inclusive leadership, as “research into inclusion is still in its infancy” [ 27 ]. Second, our study extended previous studies on the antecedents of employee innovative behavior by examining how organizational contextual factors such as inclusive leadership (Time 1) and POS (Time 2) influenced employee innovative behavior (Time 2). This research echoed the call for “future studies that may adopt a longitudinal approach to study the effect of change in supervisors’ leadership style on employee creativity” [ 11 ]. Also, this study responded to call for rich and nuanced conceptual research in the innovation field, especially concerning the role of employees’ cognition in motivating their innovative behavior.

Theoretical Foundation and research hypotheses

Inclusive leadership.

The concept of inclusive leadership was originally proposed in the field of management by Nembhard and Edmondson (2006) [ 24 ], which was defined as the “words and deeds by a leader or leaders that indicate an invitation and appreciation for others’ contributions.” Subsequently, Hollander (2009) [ 28 ] defined inclusive leadership as a win-win situation with a common goal and vision of interdependent relationships. Hollander emphasized the important role of followers in this relationship and paid attention to their perception of leadership. Ospina (2011) [ 29 ] described an inclusive leader as valuable, and someone who accepted staff at all levels in the organization and was responsible for results. Furthermore, an inclusive leader was considered as playing a key role in forming an inclusive organization. Specifically, inclusive leadership contained three dimensions: (1) Leaders tolerated employees’ views and failures by listening attentively to their views, rationally tolerated their errors, and provided encouragement and guidance to support staff when they make mistakes. (2) Leaders recognized and trained employees by respecting and focusing on employee training and praising achievements rather than displaying jealousy [ 30 ]. (3) Leaders treated employees fairly, considered their needs and interests, showed a fair attitude towards employees, and ensured that they share earnings.

Compared with the other forms of leadership that may be conceptually related, inclusive leadership held unique nature of acceptance, belongingness, uniqueness, and inclusiveness [ 18 ]. Specifically, transformational leadership focused on motivating and developing employees based on the organization’s needs [ 31 ], and transformational leadership centered in the leader, without active employee involvement, reciprocal influence, and rewards [ 28 ]. In contrast, inclusive leadership emphasized on accepting employees for who they were, allowing them to contribute their unique abilities and views, and encouraging them to involve in organizational activities. Although, servant leadership focused on helping employee grow and succeed [ 32 ], inclusive leadership focused on tending to member’s needs for work group openness and availability. While empowering leadership focused on leading by example, sharing power, teaching and coaching [ 33 ] inclusive leadership facilitated the perception of inclusiveness and accessibility. Based on above differences, the overlap between inclusive leadership and existing conceptualizations of leadership was minimal, and other types of leadership could not fully capture key tenets of inclusive leadership [ 18 ]. Despite the unique and critical role of inclusive leadership in the leadership research, to date, few studies have investigated the link between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. The aim of this paper was to investigate how supportive conditions in an organization affected employee innovative behavior through POS. Fig 1 showed the research model developed for this purpose.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091.g001

Employee innovative behavior

Innovative behavior was considered as a series of activities pertaining to idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization for new technologies, processes, techniques, or products [ 34 – 36 ]. Employee innovative behavior focused on the innovation process, (i.e., engaging in innovative activities) rather than the innovation outcome (i.e., new products) [ 6 , 37 ], which was beyond the concept of creativity [ 7 ]. In this study, we followed Shin, Yuan, and Zhou’ (2017) research, “draw from the literature about innovative behavior in general, including the literature on creativity”, to develop our theoretical model [ 7 ]. For decades, several types of leadership have been demonstrated to influence employee innovative behavior in organizations [ 38 ]. Amabile et al. (1996) proposed that freedom, supervisory encouragement, and organizational support were closely related to innovation [ 39 ].

From theoretical perspectives, inclusive leadership can stimulate employee innovative behavior in multiple ways. First, inclusive leaders can energize employees to engage in innovative process [ 40 ]. Conger and Kanungo considered inclusion as a process of improving internal perception of organization employees and as a concept related to intrinsic motivation [ 41 ]. Increasing motivation leaded to more involvement in innovative behavior [ 40 , 42 ]. Second, based on organizational support theory [ 43 ], employees’ work outcomes relied on organizational support. Inclusive leaders were able to provide resources including information, time, and support necessary for innovative behavior [ 44 ]. “Leader inclusiveness is directed toward encouraging and valuing the different viewpoints of diverse members within team interactions” [ 27 ]. When employees were supported by their leader, they would get more autonomy and freedom to engage in innovative behavior [ 45 ]. Boren argued that inclusion was based on employees’ basic trust, explaining that managers use various skills to improve the capacity and potential of subordinates’ behavior [ 46 ]. In addition, Randel et al (2018) stated that the inclusive leadership might facilitate organization employees perceiving belongingness (by supporting team members, ensuring justice and equity, and sharing decision-making) in the organization while maintaining their uniqueness (by encouraging diverse contributions and helping team members fully contribute) within the organization as they fully contribute to the organization processes and outcomes of innovation (i.e. creativity) [ 18 ]. Third, inclusive leaders could serve as role models for innovative behaviors [ 47 ]. Nembhard and Edmondson suggested that leader inclusiveness was positively related to engagement in quality improvement work [ 24 ]. Carmeli et al. argued that inclusive leadership demonstrated a specific relationship exhibited through openness and harmony in communication, accessibility, and offering [ 17 ]. Through appropriate inclusiveness, leaders created an environment where employees had a greater sense of responsibility [ 48 ], had more decision-making autonomy, and received more information and feedback as well as support and encouragement [ 49 ]. General openness, availability, and accessibility facilitated employee involvement in innovative work [ 17 ]. Innovative behavior was often noted as “discretionary behavior” [ 34 ]. Inclusive leadership’s unique features reshaped followers’ perception of support and enhanced more innovative behavior [ 18 ]. Thus, based on organizational support theory [ 43 ], we formulated the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Inclusive leadership is positively related to employee innovative behavior.

Perceived organization support

Eisenberger and Stinglhamber proposed that POS referred to "employees develop global beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing" (1986: 501) [ 43 ]. POS was grounded in the theory of organizational support, underlining the importance of viewing employees as valued organizational assets [ 23 ]. New areas of research emphasized organizational support as an important factor affecting employees’ willingness to contribute to the organization [ 50 ]. Inclusive leadership represented an important organizational aspect that can assist in creating a more innovation-supportive work environment [ 17 , 51 ], but our conceptual understanding of the supportive mechanisms linking inclusive leadership to employees’ innovative behavior remains underdeveloped. In this section, the mediating role of POS will be clarified. How inclusive leadership affects POS will be clarified first, and subsequently the effect of POS on innovative behavior will be explained.

According to organizational support theory [ 43 ], employee’s perception of favorable treatment received from the organization, such as supervisor support, should increase POS [ 52 ]. Supervisors in leadership roles played a key role in providing organizational resources and rewards for subordinates, and therefore, should be regarded as an important source of organizational support [ 53 ]. Inclusive leader could provide benefits that subordinates could make use of. Supportive behaviors from inclusive leader helped subordinates perceive that their contributions were valued and their well-being were cared about [ 54 ], and should enhance POS. Thus, supportive behaviors from inclusive leaders should be closely related to POS, and we proposed the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2: Inclusive leadership is positively related to POS.

Employees’ innovative behavior can be stimulated by fostering a work context in which employees feel supported to generate, promote, and realize inventive ideas and concepts [ 55 ]. Innovation and spontaneous problem solving may additionally be associated with perceived support [ 55 , 56 ]. First, on the basis of social exchange theory [ 57 ], POS should elicit the norm of reciprocity, leading to employee’s obligation to help the organization to achieve its goals, as well as the expectation that increased efforts on the organization’s behalf would be noticed and rewarded [ 52 ]. Employees who perceived high levels of POS were more likely to feel a duty of caring for the organization’s development and help it achieve its goals. Luksyte and Spitzmueller (2016) indicated that “high levels of POS create a sense of obligation to contribute to the organization” [ 23 ]. This responsibility enhanced employees’ affective commitment to the organization and the will of retention. For instance, according to the social exchange theory (the principle of reciprocity), employees’ sense of responsibility and emotional commitment would help decrease absenteeism and increases altruistic behavior [ 58 ]. Barksdale and Werner (2001) argued that POS could motivate employees to better fulfill in-role behavior [ 59 ]. Similarly, employees who felt more POS experience a better needs–supplies fit, and increased creativity [ 23 ]. Also, Bammens claimed that organizational care, which was closely related to POS, positively predicted innovative behavior [ 20 ]. Conversely, when employees perceived low support of organization, their involvement in innovation would be lessened [ 55 ]. Therefore, we suggest the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: POS is positively related to employee innovative behavior.

Inclusive leadership could influence employee innovative behavior through POS. According to social exchange theory [ 57 ], the more desired inclusion, permission, and resources employees received from the leader and organization, the higher the POS and the more motivated and obliged they were to reciprocate by being more engaged in innovative behaviors. Employees were highly attuned to leaders’ behavior and examined leader actions for information on what was expected and acceptable in organizational interactions [ 60 ]. To assist them in unleashing their innovation potential, employees may require a general sense that leaders showed support [ 4 , 51 ]. On the one hand, if leaders care about subordinates’ needs and feelings, provided positive feedback, encourage employees to express their own ideas and develop their skills, and helped them solve job-related problems, organizational loyalty and employees’ interest in work will greatly improve, increasing their enthusiasm to explore and innovate [ 61 ]. Furthermore, inclusive leadership could inspire a sense of responsibility: When employees received support from the organization, their confidence increases, they demonstrate more voluntary acts, and actively use their potential to fulfill the organization’s mission, further increasing their abilities and awareness of innovation [ 62 ].

If a leader was inclusive and welcomed challenges, employees were likely to perceive more organizational support and became more innovative, for perceived support for innovation was an important source of innovation or creativity [ 63 ]. Leadership can affect innovative behavior through its influence on employees’ perceptions of a climate supportive of innovation [ 1 ]. Inclusive leaders, by intellectually stimulating their subordinates, championing innovation, and tolerating attempts, helped establish a climate that employees felt encouraged and energized to explore innovative approaches in their work. Fitzpatrick claimed that the best way to support progressive care nurses was inclusive leadership [ 64 ]. Inclusive leadership delivered to employees the unique perception of support from leaders that should increase employee innovative behavior. Taken together, POS increased the likelihood that employees would develop more creative solutions and approaches to address issues [ 55 ]. Hence, we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: POS mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior.

The hypothesis model of our study is illustrated in Fig 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091.g002

Research design

Sample and procedures.

Data were collected among employees and supervisors from 15 service-based organizations such bank, law offices, Sinopec, and retailing stores in 6 cities in China. Initial contacts with these companies were via connections to current and former MBA students. We used three ways to reduce the common bias [ 65 ]: First, a two-wave survey with a three-month interval was conducted. Using different time intervals for data collection helped to minimize the impact of memory and common method variance bias and enhanced the robustness of findings by collecting data on predictors and outcomes separately [ 65 ]. Second, a two-source survey with employee-supervisor matched was adopted, because employee innovative behavior rated by supervisors was much more valuable. Third, during the process of questionnaire design and distribution, strict program control was carried out in this study. Each survey was conducted with the help of human resources department. At the beginning of the survey, 401 subordinates and their matching supervisors were randomly selected, and all employees had the freedom to decide whether to participate in this study. Every participant received a red pocket with a random amount of money (5–20 RMB) for each questionnaire completed. To ensure participants’ confidentiality and decrease their fear of exposure and risk of liability, surveys were placed into a sealed envelope and respondents were instructed to return the completed questionnaires directly to the researchers. Anonymity was assured. The survey questionnaires were coded before being distributed.

Time 1 (T1), we administered questionnaires to 401 employees in 127 teams, who were asked to provide their demographic information (e.g., age, gender, education, and tenure) and perceived inclusive leadership. We received usable responses from 364 employees in 116 teams, for a response rate of 90.77%. Three months later, we conducted the second survey (T2), 330 employees who participate in the T1 survey and 112 supervisors were available. Employees were asked to report their perceived organizational support and supervisors were asked to rate their subordinates’ innovative behavior. 329 questionnaires reported by employees and 105 questionnaires rated by supervisors were collected. As a result, we obtained completed questionnaire from 226 employees (a response rate of 56.36%) and 75 matched supervisors (a response rate of 66.96%) after excluding missing data. Of the sample, 61.10% of the respondents were female; most (81%) were below 35 years old; 54% employees got bachelor degree, 41.20% employees got college degree or below, 4.80% employees got master degree or above; the tenure of employees ranged from 1 year to 10 years (40.7% of employees worked 1–3 years, 18.6% of employees worked 4–6 years, 18.1% of employees worked 7–10 years).

Ethics approval

An ethics approval was not required as per institutional guidelines and national laws regulations because there’s no unethical behaviors existing in the research procedures. We just conducted questionnaire survey and were exempt from further ethics board approval since our research did not involve human clinical trials or animal experiments. Also, the content of the questionnaire did not involve any sensitive or personal privacy or ethical and moral topics. In the first page of the questionnaire, information on consent procedures was included and participants were notified that consent was to be obtained by virtue of survey completion. Meanwhile, we informed that participants about the objectives of the study and guaranteed their confidentiality and anonymity. The way to fill in the questionnaire is to take out the secret system, which can further ensure rights of people who answer the questionnaire. All the participants were completely free to join or drop out the survey. Only those who were willing to participate were recruited.

To maximize the validity and reliability of the measurement tools, we used existing scales published in top journals. The original scales were all written in English. Thus, we followed the back translation procedures recommended by Brislin (1980) [ 66 ] to translate the measures. A management scholar who was fluent in both English and Chinese translated the items from English into Chinese. We then asked another bilingual management professor to translate the items from Chinese back into English. We also asked a management researcher to check the English and Chinese translations, and any discrepancies in the translation procedure were solved through discussion. Furthermore, before finalizing the formal questionnaire and survey, a pre-survey was conducted to guarantee the appropriateness of the questionnaire design and diction to the study context. The questionnaire was then revised based on feedback regarding the pre-survey. Unless otherwise noted, we used a five-point Likert scale ranging from “1 = totally disagree” to “5 = totally agree” to assess each measure.

Inclusive Leadership: We assessed inclusive leadership using a nine-item scale that were developed by Carmeli et al. (2010) [ 17 ] (T1, rated by employee). A similar approach was used by Hirak, Peng, Carmeli, and Schaubroeck (2012) [ 67 ] and Choi, Tran, and Kang (2016) [ 68 ]. A sample item was: “The manager is open to hearing new ideas.” The reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s Alpha) of the scale in this study was 0.927, indicating that the scale has good reliability.

Perceived organizational support (POS): The eight-item scale by Eisenberger (1986) [ 43 ] was employed to measure POS (T2, reported by employees). The scale has been used by Edwards and Peccei (2015) [ 69 ] and Zumrah and Boyle (2015) [ 70 ]. A sample item was: “My organization takes pride in my accomplishments at work.” The reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s Alpha) of the scale in this study was 0.952, indicating that the scale had good reliability.

Innovative behavior: The nine-item scale by Janssen (2000) [ 34 ] was used to measure employee innovative behavior (T2, rated by supervisor). The scale had been used by Janssen (2003) [ 58 ] and Agarwal, Datta, Blake-Beard, and Bhargava (2012) [ 71 ]. The scale measured employee innovative behavior based on three aspects of “ideas put forward,” “promotion of ideas,” and “apply the idea of.” A sample item was: “Creating new ideas for difficult issues (idea generation).” The reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s Alpha) of the scale in this study was 0.951, indicating that the scale had good reliability.

Control variables: Based on previous research [ 72 – 74 ], we selected gender, age, education, and tenure (which reflects work domain expertise) [ 75 , 76 ] as main control variables for their probable association with employee perceived organizational support and innovative behavior.

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 presented descriptive statistics and correlations. Consistent with the hypotheses of this study, as shown in Table 1 , inclusive leadership was positively related to employee innovative behavior (r = 0.302; p <0.01) and POS (r = 0.697; p <0.01), and POS was positively related to employee innovative behavior (r = 0.279; p <0.01).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091.t001

Tests of hypotheses

To test hypothesized main effects and mediation effect, we followed Hayes’ approach [ 77 ] and used the bias-corrected bootstrapping approach, including 95% bootstrap confidence intervals using 5,000 bootstrap samples in Mplus version 7.4 software [ 78 ]. Unstandardized coefficient estimates for the model were presented in Table 2 . After controlling gender, age, education, and tenure, inclusive leadership was positively related to employee innovative behavior (β = 0.339**, SE = 0.081, p <0.01, 95%CI = [0.183, 0.503]). Because the CI did not contain zero. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported, indicating that when employees perceived more inclusive leadership, they demonstrated more innovative behavior. Inclusive leadership was positively related to POS (β = 0.843**, SE = 0.068, p <0.01, 95%CI = [0.710, 0.977]), supporting Hypothesis 2. This result indicated that when employees perceived more inclusive leadership, they experienced more POS. POS was positively related to employee innovative behavior (β = 0.244**, SE = 0.068, p <0.01, 95%CI = [0.112, 0.381]), supporting Hypothesis 3. This result demonstrated that when employees perceived more organizational support, they demonstrated more innovative behavior. Inclusive leadership was positively related to employee innovative behavior through POS (β = 0.206**, SE = 0.059, p <0.01, 95%CI = [0.092, 0.327]). The result indicated that POS mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091.t002

Conclusion and discussion

In this study, we aimed to investigate how and why inclusive leadership influenced employee innovative behavior based on organizational support theory and social exchange theory. Consistent with organizational support theory, we found that inclusive leadership was positively related to employee innovative behavior and POS mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. That is, when employees perceived that leaders showed more inclusiveness to their new ideas, technologies, and processes, they perceived being more valued and cared about by the organization and thus, increased their innovative behavior.

Theoretical implications

The current study made several important theoretical contributions. First, the findings suggested that inclusive leadership had an important effect on employee innovative behavior, which was consistent with research demonstrating the importance of supervisory support in innovative behavior [ 5 , 51 , 75 ]. This empirical work addressed important gaps in the innovation literature with respect to supportive determinants of employee’ innovative behavior [ 72 ]. Inclusive leadership was likely to act as an innovation–facilitating force. Inclusive leadership promoted employee innovative behavior by increasing POS and encouraging employees intellectually to bring forth alternative ways to solve existing problems or improve existing procedures.

This research also advanced the inclusive leadership literature by complementing the classic social exchange theory with fresh insights from the organizational support theory framework [ 50 ], thereby broadening its theoretical scope to account for support-based outcomes that hinge on employees’ POS. Although the concept of inclusive leadership has received increasing attention in recent years, inclusive leadership remained a new concept without consensus on the nature of the construct or its theoretical underpinnings. This lack of theoretical and practical consensus hampered the utility of inclusive leadership [ 79 ]. Our study was one of few studies to investigate the influence of inclusive leadership on POS and employee innovative behavior, which responded to the view that “the inclusion construct and its underlying theoretical basis need greater development” [ 79 ] and “much work remains to be done to advance theory related to our understanding of inclusive leadership” [ 18 ].

Second, our results highlighted the role of POS as a mediator for the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior. This finding contributed to the literature in that it showed POS as a mediator through which inclusive leadership influenced employee innovative behavior. In the past research, studies had not yet explored the mechanism underlying the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior from the perspective of organizational support. The current study complemented previous research by revealing how inclusive leadership increased employee innovative behavior through POS. Our findings were consistent with a view from Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davislamastro’s saying that “perceived support might be associated with constructive innovation” [ 55 ].

Third, support for the positive effect of inclusive leadership on employee innovative behavior proposed an important role in addressing determinants of innovation. Advancing employee innovative behavior were critical to organization’s competitiveness and long-term success. Although an organization’s employees had idiosyncratic attributions and perceptions of leadership styles, our findings illustrated how an organization and its leaders can advance employee innovative behavior through inclusive leadership.

Practical implications

In a dynamic environment, as organizational competiveness relied on employee innovative behavior, it was vital to identify how leaders can stimulate their follower innovation [ 51 ]. The theoretical model proposed in this paper could inform managers of how to improve employee innovative behavior. As mentioned, creativity/innovation was risky, requiring employees to change and act differently and leaders to tolerate and accept deviation from conventional practices. Since inclusive leadership was demonstrated to promote employee innovative behavior in this way, managers should develop skills of inclusive leadership in order to encourage employees engage in innovative behavior more. We suggested that leadership training programs could help leaders realize the importance of inclusiveness, openness and quip them with necessary skills to provide support for employees.

Moreover, the finding that POS mediated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior suggested the need of paying attention to the underlying mechanism through which inclusive leadership stimulated followers’ innovative behavior. Managers should consider ways such as showing openness and inclusiveness to employees’ new ideas, technologies, and products, and valuing their efforts to increase employees’ POS. Furthermore, managers may offer other kinds of support, such opportunities, resources, and autonomy to employees to stimulate more innovative behavior.

Finally, given that people naturally tended to maintain their status quo, it was of critical importance to identify factors that could help employees to overcome this tendency and engage in more innovative behavior. Our findings suggested that inclusive leadership was a driver of employee innovative behavior.

Limitations and future research

Several limitations of this study should be mentioned. While mentioning the study’s limitations, we simultaneously suggested directions for future research. The first limitation was that the sample size from one organization is small, which may reduce generalization, thus limiting the use of results pertaining to significant relationships. The current findings may provide conservative estimates of hypotheses testing, suggesting potentially stronger effects in industries where innovation are much higher (e.g., technology). Future research could advance our knowledge by replicating this study’s results across diverse industries using a larger sample size.

Second, the current study explored only one mechanism between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior, although other mechanisms may exist (e.g., psychological empowerment). Furthermore, it could be helpful investigate boundary conditions that might influence the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovation. Future research could examine other types of employee performance such as task performance.

Supporting information

S1 questionnaire. questionnaire i-iii..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091.s001

S1 Dataset.

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Thursday, February 23: The Clark Library is closed today.

Inclusive Leadership

• Belonging in Higher Education: An Inclusive Leadership Assessment
• What is Inclusive Leadership?
• Draw attention to systemic inequities
• Get involved in solving systemic inequities
• Evidence-based student interventions
• Work in allyship with others to shift systems and behaviors and take action
• Resilience when you encounter resistance
• Practical Tools
• Self-Compassion
• Positionality
• Share Your Thoughts

Welcome to the Inclusive Leadership guide, which provides citations and links to resources about inclusive leadership.

The guide is organized using the framework from Jennifer Brown's (2019) book:

How to be an inclusive leader: Your role in creating cultures of belonging where everyone can thrive

This book is available through the Clark Library either in print  (1st edition) or as an eBook  (2nd edition, 2022).

This LibGuide aims to serve as a resource for a broad audience of individuals interested in developing and enhancing their inclusive leadership skills. The resources provided will be useful to anyone who is interested in understanding their role in fostering inclusivity, creating cultures of belonging, and contributing to environments where everyone can thrive. Using Jennifer Brown’s framework, this LibGuide contributes to an ongoing discourse about inclusive leadership by moving beyond just a discussion on the importance of diversity and inclusion, to providing actionable, concrete, and practical guidance that leaders can implement to create more inclusive workplaces. Links are provided to open access / freely available resources when possible. For resources that require a subscription, links connect to University of Portland’s subscription. People from outside of the University of Portland community are encouraged to seek these resources through their local libraries.

Inclusive Teaching Guide

For more resources about inclusive teaching, please visit the Inclusive Teaching Database . 

Invitation to Contribute & Share Ideas

This is a living document. We welcome your ideas and contributions. To contribute materials, ask questions, or send suggestions, please use our feedback form or contact  [email protected] .

Please also participate by completing the Baseline Leadership Assessment Survey .

Contributors to this Guide

Dr. Kala Mayer:  As a white middle-aged cisgendered woman who has navigated the roles of nurse, public health practitioner, mother, and teacher, my positionality is shaped by the intersections of caregiving, community health, and education within the context of a middle-class upbringing in the Midwest. These experiences have instilled in me a deep understanding of the importance of empowerment, empathy, collaboration, and adaptability in both professional and personal spheres. In leadership, my perspective emphasizes the value of inclusive decision-making, recognizing the diverse needs of individuals, and fostering environments that prioritize safety and empowerment. My background shapes my perspectives on leadership.  

Dr. Randy Hetherington:  As a married, first-generation college student, teacher of some 43 years, father, Rotarian and white cisgendered male, I bring a number of identities to this work and often understand my own biases at their intersection. My journey is far from over and that is the motivation for my involvement in this work. I believe we become stronger as a community when we engage with each other in community through creation of gracious spaces and the willingness to have courageous conversations within those spaces. I have practiced leadership in schools, communities and organizations and am hopeful that be becoming more inclusive we will be the leaders our world needs us to be.

Dr. Toyin Olukotun:  As a Black immigrant woman, I bring a multifaceted positionality to my role as a college-educated, first-generation, Nursing professor. Rooted in the values of social justice and shaped by life experiences, I approach academia with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Additionally, my experiences as a Black immigrant provides me with a nuanced understanding of the complexities and nuances of navigating unfamiliar cultural landscapes. This perspective fuels my passion for fostering cross-cultural understanding and dismantling barriers that hinder equity and inclusion in academia and healthcare. Given my educational and career trajectory, I am also acutely aware of the transformative impact education can have on individuals and communities, inspiring me to advocate for inclusive pedagogies and leadership approaches that empower all relevant stakeholders.  

Dr. Kate Trumbo:  I am a first-generation college graduate as well as a graduate of Catholic education. It is an honor and a pleasure to engage with students who are the first in their families to explore opportunities in higher education.

As a clinician, patient safety guides my practice. Healthy work environments are vital to safety, and we know that high-performing interprofessional teams are often necessary to ensure quality care. Cultures grounded in incivility are no longer acceptable as the status quo. We have so much more to offer ourselves, our patients, and our communities.

In my classroom, we go inward to change the world. We learn to see ourselves as humans who need help and make mistakes. Introspection guides difficult conversations. Self-reflection is a practice that we use to look deeply at situations we may regret or wish to transform. We lead by empowering others and showing appreciation for our colleagues. 

Ms. Stephanie Michel:  My positionality is shaped by my experience as a white, middle-class, middle-aged cisgendered woman raised on the West Coast of the United States. My professional role as a librarian has developed my skills of organization, communication, empathy, and understanding users’ needs.  This experience has shaped my commitment to inclusive leadership by reinforcing that research is stronger when an array of voices and sources from multiple perspectives are integrated.

We also acknowledge the internal and external reviewers who contributed to the development of this LibGuide. 

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• Last Updated: May 6, 2024 4:35 PM
• URL: https://libguides.up.edu/inclusive-leadership

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May 13, 2024

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Inclusion is not enough: New study reveals the potential of coaching employees to drive new strategic ideas

by Strategic Management Society

In the landscape of modern business, inclusion isn't just a buzzword—it's a strategic imperative. Companies like IBM, Volkswagen and Starbucks are moving to more participative strategy development approaches that reflect a growing understanding of the importance of diversity in fostering innovative and creative strategic ideas. Yet the outcomes of inclusive strategy processes often fall short of expectations. A new study in the Strategic Management Journal sheds light on why that may be.

In their study of an inclusive strategy process in a large insurance company, Violetta Splitter, along with co-authors David Seidl and Richard Whittington, showcase the transformative potential of inclusion in strategy development processes.

In their study, 40 mid- and lower-level managers and professionals were invited to participate in a 20-week strategy development process. Their task was to submit concepts for a fresh strategic plan aimed at gaining investor confidence and employee support. The result? An increase of three percentage points in the company's share price—an $18bn increase in market capitalization.

Yet getting there wasn't easy. Despite initial enthusiasm from senior management , the first few weeks of the process were plagued by frustration, as employees failed to pitch ideas in a manner that the CEO and top managers could work with.

At the heart of the issue was that employees, inexperienced with corporate strategy-level communication, defaulted to reiterating corporate themes that the CEO was already familiar with, or else spoke about local concerns that did not connect coherently to strategic goals.

Yet, as the weeks went by, a significant change took place. As employees engaged in direct interactions with the CEO, or observed their peers interacting with the CEO, they gradually honed their ability to express ideas in ways that held the CEO's attention in meaningful ways.

Notably, the most productive interactions took place when the CEO actively and specifically coached employees on how to shape their ideas, such as pointing out missing themes, or explicitly indicating how to relate different themes to each other.

The study provides important insight into how inclusive strategies must prioritize opportunities for both employee development and managerial coaching.

"The findings underscore the imperative for senior managers to actively engage in coaching and provide avenues for employee learning," emphasize the authors. "By fostering a culture of inclusive discourse, organizations can unlock untapped potential for innovative strategic ideas."

Journal information: Strategic Management Journal

Provided by Strategic Management Society

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May 16, 2024

Fostering Inclusive Leadership in Remote Project Teams

By Amanda Winstead

Inclusivity is crucial for all high-performing, progressive businesses. Employees deserve to feel welcome at work and should be supported by the culture of their company. This can bolster your bottom line, too, as research by McKinsey suggests that firms which champion diversity are more profitable than their less inclusive competitors.

However, when working remotely, it’s easy to overlook the importance of inclusivity. After all, most people are working from home, where they’re almost certain to feel safe and secure.

In reality, inclusivity is about much more than how your firm manages physical space. True inclusivity happens when your business takes intentional steps to alleviate marginalization and embrace the needs and preferences of your entire team.

Leadership Strategies

Fostering inclusive leadership at your company is more difficult than it may sound. While every leader wishes to believe that they are inclusive, welcoming, and respectful, few actually make the effort to adapt their approach in order to better serve remote employees. Rather than overlooking the differences between office workers and WFH employees, leaders can build inclusivity in the remote workplace by:

● Building a supportive environment, so that folks feel comfortable coming forward with their concerns

● Remaining adaptable when transitioning to remote work in order to foreground the needs of workers

● Advocating for your employees during the decision-making process by highlighting the productivity-boosting potential of initiatives like flexible hours for parents

● Creating open communications channels for folks to discuss sensitive topics, minimize meetings, and raise issues that they may have

● Encouraging all employees to offer feedback by creating multiple methods for folks to pitch input

These steps will help your leadership team connect with their employees and create a more inclusive workplace. This approach can help raise issues that undermine your staff’s effectiveness and may increase operational agility. Even minor changes, like opening a channel on your collaboration software for folks to raise issues, can have a major impact on your company culture.

Continued Learning Initiatives

If you want to keep your best employees, you have to invest in them. This helps folks feel included in the company culture and ensures that they are able to grow within their role. This same insight applies to your leaders, who will need regular retraining to stay up to date with the latest learning initiatives.

Companies that invest in continued learning also benefit from improved recruitment and retention. This ensures that employers are able to connect with a diverse talent pool and select candidates that will improve inclusion and equity efforts. This effectively fills skill gaps at the firm, encourages innovation at work, and increases productivity. Training your leaders can keep them up to date with the best inclusive remote work practices , too.

Continuous learning initiatives are particularly beneficial for remote leaders, who may not benefit from the same oversight that their office-bound peers enjoy. Rather than assuming remote leaders are developing their skill set, directors can work with HR to support leadership growth at the management level .

Multilingual Teams

Working remotely allows you to tap into an international talent pool. However, few leaders have invested in their language skills and expect employees to speak English rather than their first language. While this may be the current norm in business practices within the US, investing in multilingual teams may mean you want to rethink your employee education plans.

Rather than forcing all employees to speak English while working remotely, consider offering language courses at the leadership level. Even if folks do not become fluent in their target language, making the effort to learn conversational-level language is a sign of respect.

Being able to hold informal conversations with employees in the first language shows that leaders are there to serve, rather than direct employees, too. This can be transformational if you’ve recently hired a fleet of international remote workers, and want to position yourself as an inclusive, people-first employer.

Effective Project Management

Effective project management should be your leadership team’s bread and butter. However, if you’ve recently moved to remote operations, your managers may struggle to make the switch work. Rather than forcing folks to figure it out themselves, consider revising your approach to better suit remote operations.

If your project management (PM) team has fallen behind the times, consider bolstering essential PM leadership skills and attributes like:

● Emotional intelligence

● Communication

● Conflict resolution

As well as creating a more effective PM leadership team, these changes will drive inclusivity at work. Put simply, folks are more likely to feel valued and respected when their managers use emotional intelligence and exhibit patience when dealing with challenges. This can have a profound impact on the morale of your employees and will help your firm resolve conflicts with inclusivity in mind.

Inclusivity is key to any firm’s ambitions. When folks feel wanted at work, they’re far more likely to be productive and are less likely to jump ship to a competitor. This can support the long-term ambitions of the company and improve your ability to attract and retain top talent. However, many leaders do not know how to manage remote teams with inclusivity in mind. Get the ball rolling with simple steps, like opening communication channels for questions and concerns, and follow through with continuous learning opportunities for leaders who are new to the world of remote work.

Amanda Winstead is a writer from the Portland area with a background in communications and a passion for telling stories. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on  Twitter .

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What Inclusive Leaders Sound Like

• Noah Zandan
• Lisa Shalett

Researchers identified what they say — and how they say it.

Leaders across virtually every industry are pledging to be more inclusive; but if their actions and behaviors don’t support those values, the progress stops there. In their recent study, the authors applied a combination of computational linguistics, vocal mapping, and facial micro-expression analysis to determine what truly makes a leader inclusive in the eyes of an audience. Here they provide three behaviors that can be learned, practiced, and mastered.

When leaders commit to building an inclusive organization, they tend to start with the company mission, vision, values, and a promise to ensure everyone in the organization has a voice. But if they don’t change the way they communicate every day with their employees, leaders are missing a crucial piece.

• Noah Zandan  is the CEO and Co-Founder of  Quantified Communications , a firm that combines data and behavioral analytics to help people measure and strengthen the way they communicate. Quantified Communications works globally with leaders of corporations, government organizations, higher education institutions, sales teams, nonprofits, and hundreds of TED speakers.
• Lisa Shalett is a former Goldman Sachs partner who led Goldman’s brand through the financial crisis. She now advises growth companies, including Quantified Communications, and serves on corporate boards. She is the founder of Extraordinary Women on Boards, a community of hundreds of women corporate board directors focused on advancing board excellence, modernizing governance, and increasing board diversity.

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Jim Simons: A Life of Scholarship, Leadership and Philanthropy

Beloved friend, generous philanthropist, pioneering mathematician, and visionary leader James H. Simons died on May 10 at the age of 86. 

For six decades, Jim Simons was Stony Brook University’s most vocal champion. His teaching, research, academic and volunteer leadership, and philanthropy have forever transformed the university and his generosity of spirit was matched only by his probing intelligence and profound optimism for the future. Whether as chair of the Department of Mathematics or his leadership on the Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees, Jim always saw Stony Brook’s potential. He looked beyond what was and saw what could be — and he helped bring that future to life.  

“Jim was a remarkable friend and advocate, both to Stony Brook and to me personally. I am honored to have known him,” said Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis. “Stony Brook is incredibly fortunate to have been a part of his life and to have shared in his generosity, brilliance, humor, and unending curiosity about the world around him. The University is infinitely better because of Jim, from the students he taught to the research he led, the faculty he supported, and the programs he helped build .”

An Enduring Impact

When Stony Brook President John Toll hired Jim to lead the Department of Mathematics in 1968, he could not have foreseen the magnitude of his decision. As the youngest chair in the history of the university, Jim joked that he was given the opportunity because he was the only person who would accept the challenge. Jim’s stereotypical humor aside, he brought his curiosity and intellect to bear on the role and built one of the nation’s top math departments during his 10-year tenure as chair.

 Jim unassumingly credited his success to the team he recruited: “I was able to hire some great people…and we really built up an outstanding department. And that was fun.” 

One of his most prized relationships was with his colleague in the Department of Physics, Nobel Prize winner C.N. Yang and founding director of the eponymous Institute for Theoretical Physics on Stony Brook’s campus. Their many conversations inspired Jim’s deep interest in the intersection of geometry and physics, ultimately leading to the establishment of the renowned Simons Center for Geometry and Physics (SCGP). 

“From Archimedes to Newton to Einstein, much of the most profound work in physics has been deeply intertwined with the geometric side of mathematics,” said Jim upon the 2008 announcement of the gift that would fund the SCGP. “Since then, in particular with the advent of such areas as quantum field theory and string theory, developments in geometry and physics have become if anything more interrelated. The new Center will give many of the world’s best mathematicians and physicists the opportunity to work and interact in an environment and an architecture carefully designed to enhance progress. We believe there is a chance that work accomplished at the Center will significantly change and deepen our understanding of the physical universe and of its basic mathematical structure.”

Since then, the SCGP has evolved into an internationally renowned think tank whose permanent members have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society, the American Mathematical Society, the Japanese National Academy of Sciences, as well as received the Fields Medal, Shaw Prize, Packard Fellowship, Clay Research Award and  Dannie Heineman Prize as well as many other awards. 

Beyond his academic leadership, Jim helped inspire the next generation of volunteer leaders through his participation in and stewardship of the Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees. 

“One of the great privileges of my life has been to know and work with Jim Simons for the past three decades,” said Richard Gelfond ’76, Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees Chair. “His service on the Board strengthened all of us. He had a way of immediately getting to the fundamental issues and asking the right questions. His unique wit, incredible intellect and philanthropy, particularly toward Stony Brook, will always be remembered. I will miss him mightily.”

Philanthropy on an Astonishing Scale

Jim’s influence at Stony Brook extends far beyond his intellectual contributions. He met his wife Marilyn through Stony Brook, and together they created an extraordinary legacy of impactful philanthropy for the university that has surpassed $1 billion. As if their own remarkable contributions weren’t enough, the Simons directly inspired more than 2,100 people to contribute an additional $230 million in philanthropy for scholarships, faculty support, and the university’s endowment.

Through Jim and Marilyn’s foresight, strategic counsel, and investment, they have been instrumental in making Stony Brook a highly ranked national research university and an unmatched agent of progress and social mobility.

Examples of some of Jim and Marilyn’s substantial investments include:

The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics (SCGP) , which opened at Stony Brook University in 2010 thanks to Jim and Marilyn’s philanthropic support and Jim’s belief that progress in mathematics and theoretical physics can be made when researchers come together in an environment that encourages the sharing of ideas, bridging divides and increasing innovation. 

In addition to the center, the Simons established the Simons Math and Physics Operating Funds to ensure that Stony Brook’s Mathematics and Physics departments consistently rank among the top in the nation.

The Simons also played a significant role in elevating what is now the renowned Renaissance School of Medicine . Through a matching challenge gift announced in 2011, Jim and Marilyn transformed research across several areas of the medical and life sciences. Ultimately, their matching gift and the philanthropy it inspired provided critical funding for research excellence in the School of Medicine as well as other parts of the university, faculty hires through new endowed professorships, and recruitment of top-level graduate and undergraduate students. As a result of this historic investment, Stony Brook was able to build the Center for Medical and Research Translation (MART). 

Announced in late 2020, the Presidential Innovation and Excellence Fund has enabled Stony Brook to attract preeminent scholars, pursue cutting-edge research, and win leadership of the Center for Climate Solutions on Governors Island through the New York Climate Exchange.The Simons Foundation provided seed money for the fund, with a matching challenge that attracted additional philanthropy from other generous donors. This fund makes it possible for Stony Brook to invest in current strengths and pursue big and bold opportunities that address the world’s most critical challenges of the future.

The Stony Brook Simons STEM Scholars Program welcomed its inaugural cohort in 2023. Spearheaded by David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, and championed by Jim and Marilyn, the program provides comprehensive financial support for some of the nation’s most talented students to pursue undergraduate STEM degrees at Stony Brook. By providing opportunities for historically underrepresented students to join the frontlines of global STEM challenges, this life-changing experience enables these exceptional scholars to become the change needed in the world today.

Jim and Marilyn’s $500 million Simons Infinity Investment is the largest unrestricted endowment gift in American higher education, and its impact on Stony Brook is expected to reach $1 billion through matching contributions from New York State and other philanthropic leaders. Investments stemming from this gift will have a direct impact on the university’s ability to pursue new opportunities and provide student scholarships, endowed professorships, innovative research, and excellent clinical care for generations into the future. 

T he Simons Foundation supported Stony Brook’s partnership with Richard Leakey, helping to establish the Turkana Basin Institute in 2012. The institute, which was originally built to support the study of prehistory and human origins, now attracts researchers from around the world from multiple disciplines who are interested in studying the Turkana Basin’s unique landscape and applying their findings to address some of the world’s biggest challenges. 

In support of the Stony Brook-led New York Climate Exchange , the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International pledged $100 million as a matching gift and have inspired other leading philanthropists and climate solutions advocates to lend additional support. As a coalition of the world’s leading universities, corporations, and community organizations, the Exchange will be an international hub of research, innovation, education, and collaboration to address the global climate crisis.

Founded in 1984, the Simons Summer Research Program has helped more than a thousand high school students conduct innovative research alongside esteemed faculty mentors.  

Through these initiatives and programs, Jim’s influence and impact spanned the tenure of former Stony Brook leaders John Toll, Jack Marburger, Shirley Strum Kenny, and Sam Stanley — and that impact lives on through the students, faculty, and research he enabled and through the relationships he made.

“Jim was among the finest people I’ve ever known,” said Samuel L. Stanley, Jr., MD. “His magnificent mind was enhanced by his vision and optimism. The result was an incomparable leader and philanthropist who has helped provide Stony Brook with infinite possibilities and the capacity to reach unparalleled heights in the areas of research, education and discovery. ”

“Jim was not only mathematically brilliant but also a visionary advisor about what Stony Brook could — and did — become,” Shirley Strum Kenny said. “Stony Brook would not be Stony Brook without Jim’s vision and commitment.”

The satisfaction of seeing Stony Brook thrive fueled their generosity, as Jim reflected: “Stony Brook gave me a chance to lead —and so it has been deeply rewarding to watch the University grow and flourish even more.”

“Jim Simons leaves a tremendous and incomparable legacy at Stony Brook University,” reflected President McInnis. “His inquisitiveness, vision, caring, and extraordinary philanthropy have made an indelible and irreplaceable impact on every corner of the University. Through his generosity, his intellect, and his leadership he will continue to enrich lives and advance science and knowledge at Stony Brook for generations to come.”

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Jim Simons contributions to Stony Brook University will always be remembered. Even beyond the walls of Stony Brook University.

I wish I could go back to school to take advantage of everything SBU has to offer.

Jim Simon will be miss, he and his team did the impossible and beat the market

Thank you Jim Simmons for your contributions to SB and to the world.

Stony Brook University has often been lucky, but never so much as when Jim Simons came our way. He was a great mathematician and inspired us all. But he also built a world-class mathematics department, was a good university colleague, and later became interested in the mathematics of investment and characteristically was a unique achiever in financial investment research and the construction of a great company. And if that wasn’t enough, he gave sage advice to generations of Stony Brook leaders and left a legacy of astute donations in so many dimensions of Stony Brook’s university endeavors that we can only begin to understand the benefits of his legacy. On top of all this he turned his own tragedies into productive things like bike trails and secured land in Stony Brook to leave a legacy of community enjoyment and environmental protection. I hope that a major part of campus will be named after him.

Rest in peace, your contributions to SB and the world are immense and great investments towards the future!

The story isn’t complete without discussing how Renaissance Technologies grew into the first successful big hedge fund. Jim was the brains behind the statistical arbitrage algorithms that were employed to quantize risk and reward. Being close to Wall St. certainly helped get the ball rolling — investors were very interested in how algorithmic math could be harnessed to make more “objective” trading platforms, and Jim was just the right person to make this start-up work. Begun in 1982, Renaissance (Setauket) was always staffed by the brightest whiz kids — Jim was a brains-magnet. Their Medallion Fund started 6 years later holds the record of being the most profitable investment fund ever over its 36 year span.

It was because of Jim’s risk-taking and vision starting Renaissance that he and Marilyn could become such generous benefactors to Stony Brook.

I wish I had known Jim….I’m sure I could have convinced him to invest in my math education startup (DataflowGeometry.org), a 21st century reboot of high school geometry steeped in Computational Thinking.

When I think of Jim, I think of that 1960s song by Jay and the Americans “Only in America…..land of opportunity….yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” That “can do” DNA is America’s most prized cultural asset….it’s now up to us to follow Jim’s example and keep that mentality strong and kicking.

Pierre Bierre SBU ‘1972 Theoretical Physics

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