Inclusivity

This mini blog series is about what makes a good leader – particularly in health and care/public sector organisations.

So far, we’ve explored curiosity and humility. This time it’s inclusivity.

The best kind of leaders of teams are inclusive. Inclusive in 3 ways.

Firstly, because they are empowering and nourishing, the best leaders want to include people in the learning and decision-making process. So, for example in shaping the vision and values of an organisation they want people across their team, from all backgrounds and roles to be able to participate and contribute to the process. This is because inclusion creates ownership. It’s amazing when we look at problems from different angles, perspectives, and backgrounds, how frequently solutions come from surprising people. This is because they see things which others cannot. The more inclusive we are, the more welcoming we can be to fresh perspectives.

Secondly, because they are kind and compassionate, the best leaders want to ensure that teams don’t become cliquey or exclusive. Inclusive leaders value the notion of belonging. When team members feel like they belong, they have more skin in the game. Relationships are strong and every contribution matters. This leads to great accountability and agency – because each team member knows that who they are and what they do really matters. Even more importantly, inclusive teams are diverse and celebrate this, because it makes them more effective. When leaders value difference it means there is more equality and diversity, better representation and therefore wiser, kinder decisions are made.

Thirdly, because they are curious and humble, the best leaders listen to, involve and include local communities in co-creating solutions to complex issues. They understand when it comes to finding solutions to wicked problems, the importance of addressing both intrinsic and extrinsic gaze. Intrinsic gaze focuses on recognising what is strong about a community, rather than what is wrong – that there is innate goodness and power within communities and incredible assets that needs to be built on. Extrinsic gaze focuses on how leaders and their teams can join with communities to highlight the systems of injustice which hold communities in places of disempowerment and disadvantage. This kind of inclusivity ensures that people get to be involved in challenging and changing these structures, dismantling and reforming them to bring about meaningful change. The work of inclusivity in communities breaks down our dividing lines, heals our fractures and welcomes everyone around the table. It creates the interstitial spaces necessary for our society to be made new, in which human relationships can really flourish.

So, if you’re a leader – don’t be a cock! Be a chicken!

C – Curiosity

H – Humility

I – Inclusivity

C – Compassion

K – Kindness

E – Encouragement

N – Nourishment

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Curiosity killed the Kat?

This is a blog mini series on leadership and culture.

In the introductory post, I explained why I think cocks make terrible leaders but CHICKENs make great leaders! To refresh your memory, CHICKENs are leaders who outwork the values of:

Curiosity

Humility

Inclusivity

Compassion

Kindness

Empowerment

Nourishment

My wife, Kat, is hands down the best person I know. A total CHICKEN.

One of her best qualities and one of the reasons I love her, is her incredible and insatiable curiosity.

When she was training as a therapist, her mentor was always saying to her, ‘stay curious!’

And she does. She is. Curious. Not as in strange or unusual. But as in, she is genuinely interested to learn and know more about people. She has this incredible ability, to lock eyes with someone, let them know she deeply cares about them, tilt her head to the side and create a beautifully safe space in which her curiosity helps unlock healing for people. Amazing. And it’s never killed her – not even once.

Curiosity is such an important quality and for me now a core value, in life generally, but especially in leadership. Perhaps it is far too unusual as a quality valued in leadership.

Curiosity allows us to suspend our judgments. It stops us from thinking that we know it all. It allows us to be surprised, to ask better questions, to dig a little deeper. Curiosity prevents us from assuming we know the answer before we have really heard and seen what is emerging. It allows us to celebrate difference, recognise uniqueness and opens up new possibilities. It is open handed and tender hearted. It holds complexity and is not afraid to feel insecure in the ‘not-knowing’.

We all know what happens when we are not curious. We keep on trying to answer the questions in front of us with the same old mechanistic answers. And then we wonder why we don’t see the changes we need.

Curiosity allows you to look at data about a group of people and then go and sit with them to find out whether or not that is, in fact, their lived experience. Curiosity enables you to explore why things might not be working and to discover creative ways of engaging with the issue at hand. Curiosity is deeply joyful because it can open up new paths, fresh perspectives and exciting new potentials.

One of the best leaders I have met is Ellie McNeil, Chief Executive of YMCA Together. There’s a good reason why it is considered to be the best charity in the UK to work for!

Image from YMCA Together Website

One of the things Ellie has done so well as a leader is to instil curiosity in all of her team and volunteers.

She uses Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT) as a means to developing compassionate leadership throughout the organisation. In other words, she encourages everyone to be actively curious about why they might treat one person differently to another, or why they might have a particular reaction in a given situation. It allows people to be kind, to ask better questions of themselves and others and be honest about what is going on inside themselves in any interaction.

In my team, we’ve recently had some difficult conversations about finance. I found it so interesting that when we introduced the topic of conversation, every persons body language changed. Having learned from Ellie, I simply asked them to notice this, to reflect on it, to be curious about what changes in them when we start to talk about money. Then we postponed the conversation and brought it back next time with people being more self-aware about what was happening in them and for them.

If we’re going to develop truly caring organisations in the NHS and social care, we need to develop genuine curiosity. What’s going on in me? I wonder what’s going on in you? What’s really happening here?

In every consultation I have with a patient, I’m asking myself these questions: What’s your story? What matters to you? What do we know? What do we not know? What do we need to know? How can we find out? What are we going to do with the information when we make those discoveries? What choices will you make about your own care, once we know the options?

Curiosity never killed anyone in health and social care. On the contrary, it literally saves thousands of lives. It is a lack of it that is dangerous.

So…..Don’t be a cock. Be a CHICKEN – it starts with being curious.

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