By Marissa Ellis, Founder and CEO Diversily
Forward thinking organisations are waking up to the importance of workplace diversity and inclusion. They see it, not as a compliance box ticking exercise, but as an embedded cultural shift that drives performance.
My personal mission is to change mindsets, by helping leaders develop, what I call, ‘inclusive intelligence’ and embed this into the way they think, operate and make decisions. We all have the opportunity to be leaders by inspiring and supporting those around us by the action we take.
In this 6-part series of articles on inclusive leadership I will explore some important questions. I won’t be going into detail on the basics of what diversity and inclusion is, and why it is good for business. There is a lot of research that backs a solid business case and show numerous benefits such as financial performance, innovation, customer success, and staff engagement and productivity. Instead I’ll be diving a bit deeper to explore topics that can really help leaders to raise their game and make a personal difference. I’ll cover:
- Part 1: Why knowing yourself is the first step to becoming an inclusive leader
- Part 2: Why there has never been a more critical time to lead inclusively
- Part 3: How to create diversity and inclusion allies and advocates
- Part 4: How ‘Inclusive Thinking’ Can Help You Gets Better Results
- Part 5: Why being an inclusive leader is so hard
- Part 6: How to drive inclusive action using the ‘Diversily Inclusive Lenses’
I will be featuring quotes from a range of inspiring inclusive leaders throughout the articles. A special thanks to the wonderful inclusive leaders who have contributed; Lana Tahirly Abdullayyeva, Ivan Teage, Susan Falola and Priya Guliani.
You can find out more about Diversily Inclusive Leadership development here. You’ll also be able to download the free Inclusive Leadership Change Canvas, which is an excellent discovery tool for self-reflection. Join our growing community of leaders by using The Change Canvas to release potential.
You can also view a few snippets from some of my online inclusive leadership sessions here.
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About Marissa Ellis
Marissa is a strategist, advisor, speaker and best selling author. She is the founder of www.diversily.com and a thought leader in ‘inclusive intelligence’. Her work centres on shifting mindsets and embedding inclusion into products, people and practices.
From well-known names such as Reuters, Barclays, SWIFT, lastminute.com to high growth start-ups and accelerators, Marissa has led teams, launched market leading products and delivered complex programmes. Drawing on over 20 years of experience, Marissa challenges the status quo, by sharing her personal experiences and providing actionable insights and frameworks to help others drive inclusive change.
About Diversily
Diversily empowers innovative organisations to embed inclusion. We help you drive up performance and impact by developing your leaders, culture, strategy and products, all with an inclusive lens. Our frameworks and toolkits are used by hundreds of people around the world, and we have an impressive list of clients, who trust us to support them to embed inclusion. We are known for our highly rated Inclusive Leadership workshops, which have been described as ‘life changing’, ‘eye opening’ and ‘impactful’.
