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Inclusive leadership is how managers help people contribute and grow at work. It affects whether people feel comfortable asking questions, sharing ideas, or speaking up when something is unfair.
Most companies lack clear ownership for inclusion. DHR Global’s 2025 executive survey found that 33% of organizations have a senior leader responsible for inclusion or equity. Another 56% have never had one. When ownership is unclear, expectations can vary across managers, teams, or departments.
The guide covers what inclusive leadership means in practice and offers ways to implement in your business.
What is inclusive leadership?
Inclusive leadership is a management approach that helps employees feel respected, heard, and included in daily work, regardless of their background. Inclusive leaders seek out employee perspectives to help empower and engage their workers and provide representation, while also focusing on equity and fairness in the workplace.
Representation often changes by role and level. In 2025, women made up 41.2% of the global workforce, 30.8% of senior roles, 36.2% of leadership hires, and 29.5% of STEM roles, according to Statista.
Inclusive leadership can affect the everyday decisions that help people move into these roles. Inclusive leaders take time to explain expectations, give employees useful feedback, and make growth opportunities easier to understand.
“Really good modern companies are asking people to bring who they are and what they stand for and where they come from into the workplace rather than leaving it at the front door like you used to have to do,” says Bombas co-founder Randy Goldberg in an episode of Shopify Masters. “I think a lot of companies, it used to be, ’Hey this is the way we do things here, this is how we dress, this is how we carry ourselves. Learn our way.’ And now it’s more, for us, it’s so many unique perspectives and that can only make us stronger."
What are the benefits of inclusive leadership?
Inclusive leadership can improve how employees experience their work. These are a few of the benefits to consider.
Higher employee engagement
Higher employee engagement means more profitability and less turnover. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report found that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, costing the world economy $10 trillion in lost productivity.
Authentic leadership can help employees feel more connected to their work. Leaders can help by setting clear expectations, listening to employees, and making work easier to understand.
Better employee well-being
Inclusive leadership can also improve how employees feel at work. A 2024 study found that inclusive leadership improved workplace well-being by encouraging employees’ energy and vitality. Another 2024 study involving 193 workers linked inclusive leadership with greater job satisfaction, feelings of respect, and emotional accessibility.
This suggests that leaders who are open, accessible, fair, and receptive to different perspectives may help employees feel more supported, psychologically safe, and engaged at work.
Stronger job performance
Inclusive leadership helps employees do better work. A 2025 Frontiers in Psychology study of 206 employees at a car battery manufacturer in central China found that inclusive leadership was positively associated with job performance and organizational identification.
Employees perform better when they trust their manager and feel connected to the company.
Inclusive leadership examples
Inclusive leadership is easiest to see in management decisions such as hiring, meetings, and feedback. Each reflects how employees understand the workplace.
These examples show how it can appear in your business.
Hiring
Inclusive leaders seek out diverse candidates during the hiring process to ensure their teams contain a variety of perspectives and experiences. The actual hiring process may also include blind resume reviews (removing names and identifying details from applications) to avoid bias, or putting together a diverse hiring team to review all candidates.
A transparent job description helps candidates understand the role before applying. An inclusive job posting should include the following:
- Required skills
- Pay range
- Work location
- Schedule expectations
- Physical requirements
For retail roles, include weekend or holiday needs up front so applicants can decide based on the job.
Feedback and promotions
Inclusive leaders foster environments designed to make workers feel safe and comfortable giving feedback. These managers openly listen to what their employees share without defensiveness or retaliation. Instead, there is an emphasis on active listening and empathy.
For promotions, inclusive leaders make growth paths easier to understand for all of their workers. An inclusive manager makes it clear how raises, new assignments, and promotions are decided, and actively encourages their employees to succeed. Employees should know what strong performance looks like before review season so they can ask questions and improve, without leadership gatekeeping next steps.
At Ghost Town Oats, founder Michelle Johnson relates visionary leadership with helping people move into new roles.
“For me, leading the company, it’s also the responsibility of taking care of this team,” says Michelle in an episode of Shopify Masters. “I want to create an environment where I could hire people who have worked in the coffee industry and hospitality, don’t have startup experience, but we’re able to get them into a new space. There are skills at the coffee shop that are totally transferable.”
Inclusive leadership can help remove systemic barriers that may block employees from growing, thriving, and expanding their skillset.
Meeting participation
Inclusive meetings give people time to prepare and room to speak, while creating a safe space for them to do so. Managers can send agendas in advance and share notes afterward. Good meeting habits help employees follow through on decisions, especially when they work across time zones or shifts.
Accessories brand Peak Design uses open Q&A to make leadership communication more direct. Founder Peter Dering describes company chats as a place where employees can ask questions and get clear answers.
“We have fireside chats,” says Peter in an episode of Shopify Masters. “It’s Q&A where it’s kind of ask me anything, and I still have not encountered a question that I won’t answer full-throated.”
Leave, holidays, and scheduling
Inclusive policies account for family needs, holidays, and work schedules.
Storage goods retailer Mustard Made built flexibility into its workplace as the team grew, including fewer hours or part-time schedules for mothers returning to work. Retail teams can apply the same idea by giving advance notice for shifts and rotating weekend work.
“Being able to offer the flexibility to maybe start with smaller hours or working part-time and then build up from there, and just watching their confidence and skills grow as our business grows as well, and I think that’s exactly what I wish someone had done for me, and nobody did,” says Becca Stern, co-founder of Mustard Made.
Access to information
Inclusive leaders share context with the people closest to the problem. In a workplace, managers can be inclusive by asking employees closest to the work what they see before changing training, schedules, or customer policies.
What makes an inclusive leader?
Deloitte describes six traits seen in inclusive leaders. These traits offer one way to describe how inclusive leadership appears in daily work.
Commitment
Committed leaders treat inclusion as part of their role, not as an added step. They take responsibility for fair decisions and apply clear standards when assigning work, giving feedback, and offering opportunities.
Courage
Courage means fostering inclusion and equity, even if that means challenging traditional norms. An inclusive leader has the courage to stand up to unfair behavior against their workers (such as bias or stereotypes), and help implement change at a systemic level.
Cognizance of bias
Inclusive leaders know assumptions can affect judgment. They are aware of any blind spots they or their organization may have, and actively work to dismantle these to ensure objective decision making. All hiring, promoting, or feedback is supported by facts rather than personal opinions or beliefs.
Curiosity
Curious leaders ask questions before drawing conclusions. They listen when employees raise concerns and try to understand how a policy or decision affects the team.
Cultural intelligence
Cultural intelligence helps leaders work openly with people from different backgrounds and with different work styles. Inclusive leaders may establish communication norms, set meeting times, or implement holiday policies that respect cross-cultural sensitivities and help build a strong, successful team.
Collaboration
Collaborative leaders involve employees in decisions that affect their work. They ask for input early, explain next steps, and make ownership clear. Collaboration is only possible when workers feel respected and safe to share in their work environment.
Inclusive leadership training and assessment
Leadership training helps handle real moments at work, such as navigating difficult conversations or addressing employee concerns. Assessment checks whether those lessons carry into daily management, so leaders know where they need to improve.
Training, coaching, and workshops
Formal training sets a shared baseline. It explains the company’s expectations and gives managers a common language for topics such as bias, feedback, and participation. It also requires time and resources. Mental Health UK’s 2026 Burnout Report found that 29% of British adults said their employer raised awareness about mental health, but managers lacked the time, training, or resources to provide meaningful help.
Training is only one part of the inclusion equation. Workshops are where managers can practice real situations. These include:
- Leading meetings
- Giving feedback
- Responding when employees raise concerns
Coaching is better for individual habits. For example, a manager who cuts people off in meetings may need one-on-one coaching to improve their participation habits. This may include things like learning when to ask follow-up questions or how to make room for quieter employees before moving to the next topic.
Assessment questions for leaders
Managers can use these questions to review their own behavior:
- Do employees understand how work, raises, and promotions are decided?
- Do I ask for input before decisions that affect the team?
- Do I give feedback early enough for employees to act on it?
- Do meetings give people room to speak or share written input?
- Am I aware of the cultural differences amongst diverse teams?
- Do I follow up when employees raise concerns?
- Do schedules, policies, and communication habits work for different employee needs?
How to implement inclusive leadership
Create a set of repeatable habits to implement inclusive leadership in your business. The steps below focus on daily actions leaders can use when running meetings and making decisions:
- Ask questions
- Review decisions for bias
- Write inclusive job descriptions
- Make meetings and decisions more inclusive
- Share information equitably
- Demonstrate flexibility
- Measure inclusion and solicit feedback
1. Ask questions
Ask employees where work feels unclear, difficult, or uneven. Keep the questions focused on the work.
Examples include:
- What is making this task harder to complete?
- Do you have the context you need to make a decision?
- Are meetings giving everyone enough room to participate?
- Are decisions usually made in the meeting, after the meeting, or in side conversations?
- What would make this process easier to follow?
2. Review decisions for bias
Bias training is only one step. Review daily decisions in areas like hiring and promotions.
Look at who gets detailed feedback, stretch assignments, promotion conversations, and early notice of new opportunities. Use the same standards across the team, and check decisions before they are final.
3. Write inclusive job descriptions
Inclusive job descriptions use clear language and focus on the skills the role requires. Review each posting for gender-coded language, unexplained acronyms, and unnecessary job requirements.
For example, a role may require strong English writing skills, but not “native English speaker.” A retail role may require standing, lifting, or weekend shifts, but the posting should explain those needs clearly.
Have HR or legal review the job description before publishing.
4. Make meetings and decisions more inclusive
Inclusive meetings are easier to join when people know the topic, the context, and the decision being made. A few guidelines to follow:
- Before the meeting: Send the agenda and background notes.
- During the meeting: Ask for input from people close to the work.
- After the meeting: Share the decision, next steps, and person responsible.
Written input also helps employees who need more time to think or work different shifts.
5. Share information equitably
Information is easier to access when it moves through documented channels. Written announcements, shared team docs, open Q&A sessions, and follow-up notes give employees the same source for company updates and policy changes.
Mentoring access needs the same clarity. Employees need to know who is eligible, how to join, and what the program includes.
For retail store teams, access also applies to the POS system. With Shopify POS, account owners and administrators can assign staff roles and permissions, including access to areas like orders, products, customer lists, and reports.
6. Demonstrate flexibility
Inclusive leadership requires an evolving, rather than static, approach to fairness. It can require you to make room for individual circumstances without compromising the values behind a policy.
For example, you may opt for flexible holidays to honor a range of cultural and religious observances, rather than a set list.
7. Measure inclusion and solicit feedback
Give employees more than one way to share feedback. There are a few options available:
- Pulse surveys are a short set of questions sent to employees periodically. They work for quick check-ins.
- Anonymous forms allow workers to provide feedback without sharing their name or other personally identifying details. These can help with sensitive topics.
- One-on-ones involve meetings between managers and individual employees. They can help give managers more context and open a direct line of communication.
After collecting feedback, share what you heard and what will change. Explain what will stay the same and why. Feedback loses trust when employees take time to share concerns and nothing happens afterward.
Inclusive leadership FAQ
What are the 5 principles of inclusive leadership?
Five principles of an inclusive leadership style are clear communication, fair decision-making, employee participation, equal access to information, and flexibility. These principles help managers clarify expectations and give employees a clearer way to contribute.
How can you be an inclusive leader?
You can be an inclusive leader by listening to employees and embracing diverse perspectives. Use the same standards across the team, ask for input early, and follow up when people raise concerns.
What are inclusive leadership traits and behaviors?
Open-mindedness, humility, flexibility, and dedication are four of the most important inclusive leadership traits. These qualities help leaders learn from others and make the adjustments necessary to build an inclusive culture over time.
Why is inclusive leadership important?
A diverse and inclusive workplace benefits employers and employees. Inclusive behaviors help employees feel safe and understood. Fostering a welcoming environment is good for business because strong morale can increase productivity and reduce employee turnover.
What is inclusive leadership training or assessment?
Inclusive leadership training helps managers practice situations like giving feedback, leading meetings, and responding to concerns. Assessment helps leaders review their habits and see where they need to improve.
