# 30 Leading An Inclusive Culture

As leaders, we need to create a safe and welcoming environment in our organisations – a culture of inclusion. Not only it is the right thing to do, it turns out it is also good for business. 

A culture of inclusion is one that respects the dignity of everyone and creates a high trust environment which allows people to be more creative, engaged, and productive.
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On a recent HBR Webinar with Marcus Buckingham promoting his upcoming book Love + Work, he stated that the threshold for truly loving your job is that you get to do something you love at least 20% of the time. He added that a key to achieving this is to have leaders creating a culture that sees “the value of the whole human.”

As a leader, if you start from a place of unconditional regard for others, and lead by Connecting the Dots, Energising Action and Nurturing Growth, then you can create that culture of inclusion, engagement, creativity, innovation, and productivity.
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Connecting the Dots is answering the question Why. Why are we doing this? When people have the context for why they are doing something, then they are more ​

likely to choose to use their discretionary energy in their work. As a leader when you Connect the Dots, you create a sense of purpose that allows them to align with their own passions.

Energising Action answers the question What. What do we need to do? Being clear on what success looks like, giving effective coaching that recognises what is working, and providing autonomy to do the work, maximises engagement. As a leader when you Energise Action, you create the belief that their effort makes a difference.

Nurture Growth answers the question How. How do we approach our work? In other words, how can we think outside the box, but still be within our values? As a leader when you Nurture Growth, you are reinforcing your philosophy of leadership, which provides clarity for your team of what you truly expect of them.

As leaders we are all on this journey to some extent. It is helpful to continue to reflect on where we are and what our goals are moving forward. Part of this reflection is to get a measure of your culture, if not the entire organisation, at least your own team. Measuring your culture gets you data. Data brings light, which illuminates our current situation and welcomes the conversation to seek to understand and to decide why, what, and how we want to grow our culture.