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The Key to Inclusive Leadership

  • Juliet Bourke
  • Andrea Titus

inclusive leadership research paper

Overcome unconscious bias using humility and empathy.

Inclusive leadership is emerging as a unique and critical capability helping organisations adapt to diverse customers, markets, ideas and talent. For those working around a leader, such as a manager, direct report or peer, the single most important trait generating a sense of inclusiveness is a leader’s visible awareness of bias. But to fully capitalize on their cognizance of bias, leaders also must express both humility and empathy. This article describes organizational practices that can help leaders become more inclusive and enhance the performance of their teams.

What makes people feel included in organizations? Feel that they are treated fairly and respectfully, are valued and belong? Many things of course, including an organization’s mission, policies, and practices, as well as co-worker behaviors.

inclusive leadership research paper

  • Juliet Bourke , PhD, is a professor of practice in the School of Management and Governance, UNSW Business School, UNSW. She is the author of Which Two Heads Are Better Than One: The Extraordinary Power of Diversity of Thinking and Inclusive Leadership . Email her at  [email protected]
  • AT Andrea Titus is a consultant in Human Capital, Deloitte Australia, and PhD candidate in organizational psychology at Macquarie University.  Email her at [email protected]

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The impact of inclusive leadership on employees’ innovative behaviors: the mediation of psychological capital.

\r\nYang-Chun Fang,*

  • 1 Global Institute for Zhejiang Merchants Development, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
  • 2 The School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China
  • 3 Zhejiang ChangZheng Vocational & Technical College, Hangzhou, China

Employee innovation is the cornerstone of the organization, and the motivation for employee innovative behavior largely depends on the leadership style of the leader. With the economic development of society, the traditional authoritative style of leadership can no longer adapt to the psychological characteristics of employees, who use new-era work concepts, techniques, and social rules (hereafter, new generation employees). Inclusive leadership is based on the concept of “fully inclusive and equitable” in traditional Chinese culture, and it can adapt to the independent needs of new generation employees. At present, the research on the relationship between the traditional leadership style and employee innovative behavior is relatively extensive, but there is little research on the relationship between inclusive leadership style and employee innovative behavior, and this needs further exploration. This paper takes new generation employees as the sample and uses psychological capital as an intermediary variable to explore the influence of inclusive leadership style on the innovative behaviors of new generation employees. We found that inclusive leadership is significantly and positively related to new generation employees’ innovative behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Introduction

Innovation drives enterprise development, and companies are relying more and more on their employees’ innovative contributions to maintain and improve their competitiveness ( Odoardi et al., 2015 ). “New generation employees” have gradually become the new enterprise workforce. We mean to expand the traditional meaning of the term “new generation employees” to fit today’s realistic workplace situations. We refer to the term “workers of new era,” which describes those workers who complete their jobs with new-age concepts, techniques, and social rules in mind. Accordingly, workers’ composition is not necessarily related to the sole factor of demographic age. For example, an older employee may be a new generation employee because of his/her renewed working philosophy learned through continuous education and higher educational degrees. Such workers may not be well led by leaders using traditional leadership models, which is why we conduct the present study. New generation employees have different working values from the previous generation’s traditional work values ( Hou et al., 2014 ), challenging traditional leadership and governance methods. Increasing numbers of scholars have focused their research on issues such as high turnover rate and low organizational commitment ( Cheng and Lin, 2017 ).

The effects of certain leadership styles may have different consequences for different generations in the workplace ( Al-Asfour et al., 2014 ). To date, few studies have explored the suitability of different types of leadership styles for generational working groups and how to stimulate their innovative behaviors. Leadership, as an important organizational scenario variable, has an important impact on employees’ innovative behaviors ( Zubair et al., 2015 ; Liu et al., 2017 ). Among leadership styles, the inclusive leadership style emphasizes being people-oriented ( Liu et al., 2017 ), fairness, and justice ( Liu et al., 2016 ), which might be suitable for the new generation workers mentioned above. Therefore, this paper introduces the inclusive leadership style into the research on the innovative behavior of new generation employees.

Furthermore, new generation working styles require new governance approaches, which depart from concrete, tangible, pre-defined rules to more diverse, flexible, and intangible motivators ( Chen and Zhou, 2018 ). For example, new generation employees may contribute to innovative working behaviors by using self-stimulated psychological motivators (e.g., need for achievement) rather than organizational demands and orders ( McClelland et al., 1976 ), especially in an innovative or entrepreneurial context ( Hansemark, 1998 ). In addition, new generation employees may have a different state of positive psychological power that is beneficial to the generation of innovative behaviors ( Staples, 2014 ). The effects of certain leadership styles on new generation employees’ innovative behaviors should be influenced by collective psychological state more than is seen in a traditional workplace. To examine this, we used psychological capital as an intermediary variable to explore how inclusive leadership impacts the innovative behavior of new generation employees. This paper enriches the research on inclusive leadership and innovative behavior among new generation employees, and it provides theoretical guidance for management to strengthen new generation employees’ advantages and increase their innovative behavior.

Theory and Hypothesis

Inclusive leadership.

Inclusion is written into the UN Millennium Development Goals and is a historical feature of Chinese civilization ( Yuan, 2007 ). Inclusiveness is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation. The meaning of “All rivers run into the sea” and “Wide hearts embrace all” both encapsulate the meaning of inclusiveness.

The inclusive leadership style was initially studied in the field of Western education. People of different races and abilities should be educated inclusively. Ryan believed that inclusive leadership in education requires an equal collective leadership process and defined inclusive leadership in education as the presence of a learning leader ( Ryan, 2007 ). For the first time, Nembhard and Edmondson (2006) proposed inclusive leadership in the field of management, which comprises the speech and behavioral performance of leaders in encouraging their subordinates to work and contribute. Hollander (2009) , emphasized the perceived role of employees in leadership and defined this relationship as an interdependent one that is both win-win and has a shared vision. Based on Hollander’s research, Carmeli, and Reiter believed that inclusive leadership can be judged from the interaction between leaders and employees and that inclusive leadership is open, effective, and accessible in the process of communication with employees ( Cameli et al., 2010 ). Hirak et al. (2010) used a large hospital as a study sample and found that inclusive leadership had a significant positive impact on subordinates’ psychological security. Wiebren studied the concept and measurement of inclusion. They believed that inclusion should be composed of two components: belonging and authenticity ( Jansen et al., 2014 ). Inclusion is defined as the sense of belonging and security from the team. Suk posited inclusive leadership as an open, effective, and accessible method of leadership that is positively correlated with employee performance ( Choi et al., 2016 ).

Chinese scholars started late in the study of inclusive leadership, but many explorations are still ongoing. Fang (2014) believed that inclusive leaders pay great attention to the relationship between leaders and followers, combining the characteristics of transformational leadership and transactional leadership, taking advantage of authentic leadership and shared leadership style. Liu et al. (2016) proposed that inclusive leadership pursues the principle of being people-oriented, insists on equal treatment toward subordinates’ attitudes, believes in the role of organizational cohesion, and takes its own efforts as an example. Liu et al. (2017) proposed that inclusive leadership adheres to being people-oriented, advocates individuality and difference, attaches importance to leadership-employee interaction, and is good at listening to subordinates’ opinions and contributions.

Based on the literature about inclusive leadership, this paper integrated the concept of “inclusiveness” from Chinese traditional culture into that of inclusive leadership. The concept of inclusiveness in the West was mainly derived from the ideas of democracy and justice. In Chinese culture, “inclusiveness” is more about the “tolerance and greatness” of the mind and moral cultivation. The inclusive leadership that integrates Chinese traditional culture emphasizes equal opportunity and fair distribution, in line with higher psychological pursuits and the respected needs of the new generation employees, is a new type of democratic leadership. Inclusive leaders are able to treat employees with recognition, respect, and tolerance, listen to and recognize the opinions and contributions of subordinates ( Sharifirad, 2013 ), and promote their work performance ( Choi et al., 2015 ). At the same time, inclusive leaders pay attention to employee training, give employees fair treatment, and drive business success ( Yuan, 2007 ). Inclusive leaders can help each other in interacting with their subordinates ( Nishii and Mayer, 2009 ). It is this “relational leadership” that interacts with leaders and employees ( Cameli et al., 2010 ) and is responsible for the final outcome. Inclusive leadership is an embodiment of openness and fairness ( Zhu and Wang, 2011 ).

In the design of their questionnaire scale, Nembhard and Edmondson (2006) divided the inclusive leadership into two dimensions: the leadership’s “invitation” and “appreciation” of the team members. Hollander (2009) developed an Inclusive Leadership Scale that includes “support-recognition,” “communication-action-fairness,” and “self-interest-disrespect” through in-depth interviews.

Based on the previous literature and empirical research, we introduced the concepts of recognition, encouragement, and inclusiveness into the leadership practices of leaders in the new era. (1) Leaders should listen to the opinions of employees, attach importance to encouragement of employees, and show their recognition when employees make achievements; (2) Leaders should respect and treat employees fairly. That is, the leaders can treat employees fairly, justly respect the employees’ suggestions, and let employees work more to receive more; (3) Leaders should rationally understand employees and tolerate their failures. That is, when employees make mistakes, leaders can rationally tolerate and understand them.

Employees’ Innovative Behavior

The concept of innovative behavior began in the 1970s. Innovative behaviors consist of three levels: organizational, team, and individual innovative behavior. This paper studies the individual innovative behavior of enterprise employees. Amabile (1988) believed that employee creativity is a novel, potentially valuable idea or thing that employees can generate, which can encourage companies to survive, grow, and thrive in fierce competition. Woodman et al. (1993) believed that the ideas generated during the innovation process can be novel or have been applied by others. Zhou and George (2001) believed that individual innovative behavior not only refers to the birth of an innovative concept but also its promotion and implementation.

Woodman et al. (1993) believed that employee innovative behavior includes the process of generating creative ideas and successful implementation. Scott and Bruce (1994) believed that innovation was divided into three phases: (1) the establishment of problems and the creation of solutions; (2) seeking support for their ideas; and (3) generating innovative standards or models that can be spread, mass-produced, and then used in large quantities. Kleysen and Street (2001) grouped individual innovative behaviors into five stages: finding opportunities, generating ideas, forming surveys, supporting, and applying.

Scholars in China has also conducted research on employee innovative behavior. Liu and Shi (2009) and Han and Yang (2011) defined employee innovative behavior as the creation and implementation of novel and practical methods when employees conduct related activities in the enterprise. Li (2017) believed that employee innovative behavior refers to the process by which employees discover problems, generate innovative ideas, promote and implement them throughout the life of the organization. Based on the questionnaires of Scott and Bruce, this paper divided innovative behavior into two dimensions: innovation outcomes and innovative thinking. Innovative thinking refers to new ideas arising from employees’ work or production process, and innovation outcomes refers to the effects of implementing new ideas into the work and production processes.

New Generation Employees

New generation employees are more active in their work and have stronger willingness and ability to learn at work than previous generations ( Li and Xu, 2013 ). New generation employees, who have strong creative ability, are not willing to be bound by the rules. They prefer fair, just, democratic, and simple working relationships. New generation employees tend to be more achievement-oriented and self-oriented, and they tend to focus on equality and disregard authority. New generation employees also have characteristics of working values such as pursuing a balance between work and life ( Li and Hou, 2012 ). These characteristics have led to lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment and higher turnover and occupational mobility rates for new generation employees ( Twenge et al., 2010 ). New generation employees are more committed to organizational fairness and justice, emphasizing equal relations with leaders. They are more eager to be recognized and respected, which is challenging to the traditional methods of human resources management.

Inclusive Leadership and Employees’ Innovative Behavior

Cultivating innovative behavior is one of the most important leadership functions of today’s organizations ( Pundt, 2015 ; Hakimian et al., 2016 ). Employees’ ability to innovate is significantly related to leadership style ( Lee and Chang, 2006 ). For example, a leader with humor can encourage expression of creative ideas as an innovative behavior ( Pundt, 2015 ). In addition, transformational leaders are good at stimulating employees to innovate by engaging their intelligence and motivation ( Zhang and Zhou, 2013 ).

Like those positive leadership styles, inclusive leadership also has beneficial effects from the Chinese cultural perspective. Employees are more innovative when working at a higher level of engagement because they think their efforts have won the leaders’ accolades ( Abdullan et al., 2015 ). Employees’ innovative behavior is also influenced by leadership support. Employees are more adventurous and innovative when the leaders support them ( George and Zhou, 2007 ).

Fang ( Fang, 2014 ) put forward the “fault-tolerant concept” of inclusive leadership in the Chinese situation and analyzed its positive influence on employees’ self-efficacy with concrete examples. Liu et al. (2017) found that inclusive leadership positively predicts teams’ mental models, and teams’ reflection moderates the relationship between them. More directly, Jing (2015) found that inclusive leadership has a significant positive impact on employees’ creativity in China. Jin et al. (2017) suggested that the more inclusive employees feel, the more likely they are to improve their performance. Randel et al. (2017) conceptually defined inclusive leadership as a group of positive leadership behaviors that can help team members feel the sense of belonging to the team and maintain their uniqueness within the team. Therefore, leaders with an inclusive leadership style have more positive expectations and tolerance for employees, which allows employees to feel more support from the leaders and then generate more ideas ( Zhu and Wang, 2011 ). For new generation employees who generally have more creative ideas but have views that contrast with the traditional leadership style, such inclusiveness incorporating encouragement and tolerance is more effective. Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Inclusive leadership has a positive impact on new generation employees’ innovative behavior in China.

Hypothesis 1.1: Inclusive leadership style has a positive impact on new generation employees’ innovation outcomes.

Hypothesis 1.1.1: Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of new generation employees have a positive impact on their innovation outcomes;

Hypothesis 1.1.2: Leaders’ respect and fair treatment of new generation employees have a positive impact on their innovation outcomes;

Hypothesis 1.1.3: Leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of new generation employees’ failures have a positive impact on their innovation outcomes.

Hypothesis 1.2: Inclusive leadership has a positive impact on new generation employees’ innovative thinking.

Hypothesis 1.2.1: Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of new generation employees have a positive impact on their innovative thinking;

Hypothesis 1.2.2: Leaders’ respect and fair treatment of new generation employees have a positive impact on their innovative thinking;

Hypothesis 1.2.3: Leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of new generation employees’ failures have a positive impact on their innovative thinking.

Psychological Capital

Psychological capital reflects an optimistic attitude toward work and life ( Chen and Lim, 2012 ). The concept first appeared in the related fields of economics, investment, and sociology, and it emphasizes individuals’ positive psychological resources and motivational tendency ( Luthans et al., 2007 ; Zhong, 2007 ).

The discussion of psychological capital can be divided into two categories: those based on economics and psychology or organizational behavior. The concept of psychological capital based on economics emphasizes the relatively stable psychological tendencies or characteristics that individuals develop in their early years of life ( Goldsmith et al., 1997 , 1998 ). The concept of psychology in terms of organizational behavior emphasizes the characteristics of psychological capital that can be measured, developed indefinitely, and managed ( Zhong, 2007 ). The academic community has not yet reached a consensus about the constituent dimensions of psychological capital. The most widely used structure by the academic community is Luthans’ construct, which consists of the following four dimensions. Self-efficacy means having the confidence to undertake challenging tasks and try to complete ( Luthans and Youssef, 2007 ); hope is mainly composed of three conceptual foundations: cravings, pathways, and goals ( Luthans et al., 2007 ); optimism refers to positive emotions or motivations associated with good outcomes ( Luthans, 2002 ); and resilience refers to seeking positive changes in setbacks such as conflicts and failures ( Luthans, 2002 ). The research on psychological capital-related variables has mostly focused on employees’ job performance, job satisfaction, employee work happiness, turnover intention, and work slack ( Zhong, 2007 ). Psychological capital as a positive psychological factor impacts employees’ behavior, and their level of psychological capital can predict employees’ positive or negative behavior to a certain extent.

Inclusive leadership positively impacts employee self-efficacy ( Fang, 2014 ). When leaders pay attention to their employees’ needs, motivations, and communication, the employees become more optimistic and confident in their work. Inclusive leadership behaviors facilitate group members’ perceptions of inclusion, which in turn lead to member work group identification, psychological empowerment, and behavioral outcomes (creativity, job performance, and reduced turnover) in the pursuit of group goals ( Randel et al., 2017 ). Most have agreed that the employees’ mood is affected by leaders’ recognition and appreciation ( Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006 ). Positive support from leaders enhances employees’ psychological capital ( Şahin et al., 2014 ). When leaders show an open, accessible attitude toward employees and communicate effectively with employees, their confidence and hopes are higher ( Edmondson, 1996 ). Awareness of psychological safety among employees is positively correlated with inclusiveness among leaders ( Hirak et al., 2010 ). Inclusive leaders are more willing to communicate with and give feedback to their subordinates ( Edmondson, 1999 ), and they also pay more attention to employees’ participation ( Bass and Bass, 2009 ). Thus, inclusive leadership can actively promote employees’ psychological capital through strengthened self-efficacy and other dimensions ( Fang, 2014 ). Employees with higher levels of psychological capital can more often work with full enthusiasm ( Edmondson, 1996 , 1999 ; Luthans, 2002 ; Luthans et al., 2004 ; Bass and Bass, 2009 ; Şahin et al., 2014 ). Thus, inclusive leaders can enhance employees’ psychological capital to promote their innovative behavior by recognizing, encouraging, and respecting employees and tolerating employees’ failures. Therefore, this paper proposes Hypothesis 2.

Hypothesis 2: Inclusive leadership has a significant impact on employees’ psychological capital.

As an important psychological resource of organizational collectives, psychological capital could play a mediating role that transforms organizational-wide force/interventions (e.g., inclusive leadership) and organizational consequences. Psychological capital plays mediating roles between organizational innovation atmosphere and employees’ innovative behavior ( Luthans and Youssef, 2007 ) and between transformative leadership and employees’ innovative behavior ( Mao, 2008 ). Innovation atmosphere affects employees’ work behavior by affecting employees’ internal psychological state ( Song et al., 2011 ). Thus, psychological capital as a collectively owned positive psychological state plays an important mediating role between inclusive leadership and employees’ innovative behavior ( Dreu and West, 2001 ). Innovative behavior is not only stimulated by the objective external environment, but also motivated by subjective factors of individuals or collectives. Tierney and Farmer found that the sense of innovative self-efficacy had a significant positive impact on individual innovative behavior and that innovation self-efficacy can predict individual innovative behavior ( Tierney and Farmer, 2004 ; Hassan et al., 2015 ). Psychological empowerment affects employees’ innovative behavior by influencing their internal and external motivation. Employees’ self-efficacy and ability to work stimulate their intrinsic motivation, and those with high self-efficacy show greater confidence and have more innovative behavior ( Song et al., 2011 ). Employees tend to innovate actively if they perceive themselves in a fair, friendly and innovative organizational climate ( Wang et al., 2013 ). In addition, highly activated positive emotions promote innovative behavior, while low-activated positive emotions are not related to innovative behavior ( Pundt, 2015 ). Furthermore, when employees have hope in mind, they more easily predict their leader’s instructions or guidance for them ( Byron, 2008 ) and may turn those into innovative thoughts and behaviors. Finally, when encountering challenging situations that require leadership effects to maintain employees’ resilience, successful resilience could lead employees to generate innovative thinking based on inclusive leaders’ words or helpful actions, as they can gain different experiences and reflections from challenging situations they would not encounter in routine practice. In summary, the four dimensions of psychological capital can each be examined as mediators that intervene on the influence of inclusive leadership on innovative behavior, leading to Hypothesis 3.

Hypothesis 3: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between inclusive leadership and employees’ innovative behavior.

Hypothesis 3.1: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between inclusive leadership and employees’ innovation outcomes.

Hypothesis 3.1.1: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees and employees’ innovation outcomes.

Hypothesis 3.1.2: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees and employees’ innovation outcomes.

Hypothesis 3.1.3: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures and employees’ innovation outcomes.

Hypothesis 3.2: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between inclusive leadership and employees’ innovative thinking.

Hypothesis 3.2.1: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees and employees’ innovative thinking.

Hypothesis 3.2.2: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees and employees’ innovative thinking.

Hypothesis 3.2.3: Psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures and employees’ innovative thinking.

Research Methods

We adopted a random questionnaire survey method, taking enterprise employees of Zhejiang as the research sample. We sent out a total of 372 questionnaires, and 351 valid ones were returned, resulting in a return rate of 94.35%. Among these people, 177 male and 174 female workers were questioned: 43.59% were aged less than 30 years; 19.37% were aged 30–39 years; 27.64% were aged 40–49 years; 7.69% were aged 50–59 years; and 1.71% were aged over 60 years. Most employees had a bachelor’s degree or above: 57.55% undergraduate, 10.54% master’s, and 3.70% doctorate. General staff accounted for 29.63% of the sample, followed by 19.09% middle layer managers, and 7.12% senior professional and technical personnel. Focusing on those who were aged above 40 years in the sample (i.e., those easily excluded from the group of new generation employees), nearly 60% had earned an educational degree of bachelor’s or above, and over 20% of them used continuing education as a major tool to update work concepts and skills. In terms of job positions, over 20% of them were working as experts/professionals, and over 50% were managers. Both of those job types were characterized by high-level and fast-changing knowledge bases, and those sampled employees were therefore required to update themselves to fit new work concepts, models, and trends.

Research Tool

This article contains three scales. The Inclusive Leadership Scale was designed based on the pilot study and in-depth interviews. The Employee Innovative Behavior Scale and the Psychological Capital Scale were adopted from the questionnaires by Scott and Bruce (1994) and Luthans and Youssef (2007) , but the expression was slightly modified according to employee characteristics. These three scales use Likert type 5-point scales. We listed all questionnaire items in the Appendix for readers’ reference. The details of scale development are explained below.

Reliability and Validity Tests

Inclusive leadership scale.

Based on previous literature and previous surveys, we conducted questionnaire surveys and interviewed employees and leaders. The Inclusive Leadership Scale based on the questionnaire by Cameli et al. (2010) examines the concept of inclusive leadership style using structured interviews. First, factor analysis of the Inclusive Leadership Scale data was conducted based on 151 elements of scale data. The KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) test and the Bartlett spherical test were performed to determine whether factor analysis could be performed. The KMO value was 0.936, and the value of the Bartlett spherical test was lower than 0.01, so factor analysis could be performed. The Inclusive Leadership Scale included three factors: the leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees, the leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees, and leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures. These three factors accounted for 64.13% of the variation: 23.01, 20.79, and 20.33%, respectively. The factor loading of each item was higher than 0.528 and lower than 0.832. Then, we performed a reliability test using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The alpha coefficient of this scale was 0.930, which showed good reliability. A structural dimension test was conducted on the inclusive leadership style scale by confirmatory factor analysis based on 200 elements of scale data. We selected Chi-square/df, RMSEA, NFI, IFI, and CFI as evaluation criteria. The specific data are shown in Table 1 . Chi-square/df was 2.83, RMSEA was 0.08, and NFI, IFI, and CFI were all above 0.9, indicating that the model fit the data well.

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Table 1. Confirmatory factor analysis results of inclusive leadership style questionnaire ( N = 200).

Psychological Capital Scale

The KMO value of the Psychological Capital Scale was 0.904, as obtained by analysis of the exploratory factor, and the results of the Bartlett spherical test were also significant at the 0.01 level. The Psychological Capital Scale includes four factors that accounted for a total of 63.89% of the variation: hope accounted for 20.33%, optimism accounted for 15.41%, toughness accounted for 15.16%, and self-efficacy accounted for 12.99%. The factor loading of each item was higher than 0.551 and lower than 0.868. The alpha coefficient of this scale was 0.888, showing good reliability.

Innovative Behavior Scale

The Innovative Behavior Scale uses Likert’s five-point scoring method. Factor analysis of this scale showed two factors that accounted for a total of 67.12% of the variation. The factors of employees’ innovation outcomes and their innovative thinking accounted for 34.03 and 33.09% of the variation, respectively. The factor loading of each item was higher than 0.690 and lower than 0.917. The alpha coefficient of this scale was 0.890, showing good reliability.

Descriptive Analysis

The results of the descriptive analysis are shown in Table 2 . The dimensions of inclusive leadership were ordered according to average score, from high to low: F1 (Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees), F3 (Leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures), and F2 (Leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees). The average score on the dimension of employees’ psychological capital was 3.6, which was higher than the middle level. The average scores on the dimensions of employees’ innovation outcomes and innovative thinking were 3.59 and 3.78, respectively. It is of interest to determine how to transform employees’ innovative thinking into innovation outcomes, and this requires more attention during the process of team building.

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Table 2. Results of descriptive and correlational analyses.

Correlational Analysis

The results of the correlational analysis in Table 2 show that the three dimensions of inclusive leadership also had significantly positive associations with psychological capital, innovation outcomes, and innovative thinking of employees. Psychological capital also had a significantly positive association with innovation outcomes and innovative thinking by employees. There are different correlation coefficients between the three dimensions of inclusive leadership and the psychological capital: the order from high to low is was F1, F3, and then F2. There were differences between the three dimensions of inclusive leadership and innovative behavior. The most strongly associated dimension of inclusive leadership with innovation outcomes and innovative thinking by employees was F1 (leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees).

Mediation Analysis

To verify the influence of inclusive leadership on employees’ innovative behaviors, we used regression analysis. We also tested psychological capital as the mediating variables, and the results are shown in Table 3 . Referring to Baron’s and Kenny’s (1986) methods of testing mediating mechanisms, mediating effects should obey the following conditions: independent variables significantly influence dependent variables; independent variables significantly affect mediating variables; and mediating variables significantly influence dependent variables. When the independent and mediating variables were substituted into the regression equation to explain the dependent variables at the same time, the effect of the mediating variables was significant, while the effect of the independent variables disappeared (all mediating effects) or weakened (partial mediating effects).

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Table 3. The result of regression analysis.

The dependent variable in model 1 was employees’ psychological capital. The three dimensions of controlling variables and inclusive leadership collectively accounted for 34.2% of the variation in the dependent variable of employees’ psychological capital ( F = 23.700, p < 0.001). Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees (F1, β = 0.196, p < 0.001), leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees (F2, β = 0.092, p < 0.05), and leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures (F3, β = 0.140, p < 0.01) were significantly associated with psychological capital. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 could be tested.

The dependent variable of models 2 and 3 was employees’ innovation outcomes. In model 2, the three dimensions of controlling variables and inclusive leadership collectively accounted for 22.0% of the variation in the dependent variables representing employees’ innovation outcome ( F = 13.324, p < 0.001). Among these, leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees (F1, β = 0.252, p < 0.001) and leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees (F2, β = 0.115, p < 0.05) positively influenced employees‘ innovation outcomes, while leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures (F3, β = 0.017, n.s.) could not significantly account for employees’ innovation outcomes. Therefore, Hypothesis 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 could be verified. In model 3, the controlling variables of inclusive leadership and psychological capital accounted for 35.2% of the variation in employees’ innovation outcomes ( F = 22.130, p < 0.001). Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees (F1, β = 0.141, p < 0.05) significantly accounted for the employees’ innovation outcomes, while leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees (F2, β = 0.063, n.s.) and leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures (F3, β = -0.062, n.s.) could not significantly account for this. However, psychological capital could account for the employees’ innovation outcomes (β = 0.565, p < 0.001). F2 could significantly account for the psychological capital, but F1 had a weaker association. Therefore, leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees influenced employees’ innovation outcomes through the mediating function of psychological capital, while leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees partially mediated innovation outcomes through psychological capital. Therefore, Hypothesis 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 could be verified.

The dependent variable of models 4 and 5 was employees’ innovative thinking. In model 4, the three dimensions of controlling variables and inclusive leadership collectively accounted for 25.0% of the variation in the dependent variables representing employees’ innovative thinking ( F = 15.601, p < 0.001). Among these, leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees (F1, β = 0.298, p < 0.001) had a positive influence on employees’ innovative thinking, while leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees (F2, β = 0.077, n.s.) and leaders’ rational understanding and tolerance of employees’ failures (F3, β = 0.013, n.s.) could not significantly account for employees’ innovative thinking. Therefore, Hypothesis 1.2.1 could be verified. In model 5, the controlling variables of inclusive leadership and psychological capital accounted for 36.1% of the variation in employees’ innovative thinking ( F = 22.978, p < 0.001). Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees (F1, β = 0.204, p < 0.001) significantly influenced the employees’ innovative thinking, and psychological capital (β = 0.481, p < 0.001) significantly accounted for employees’ innovative thinking. F1’s explanatory ability for employees’ innovative thinking was weak. Therefore, leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees partially mediated innovative thinking through psychological capital. Therefore, Hypothesis 3.2.1 could be verified.

The above analyses indicate that leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees can influence the employees’ innovation outcomes through the mediation effect of psychological capital. Leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees can influence employees’ innovation outcomes and innovative thinking through the mediation effect of psychological capital.

Discussion and Implications

In today’s society, new generation employees have gradually become the main drivers of workplace and enterprise development. This group’s professional values and community characteristics are different from those of the traditional labor force, which leads to great pressure and challenges for many traditional human capital management and leadership styles. Psychological capital might be a good prescription for such stresses ( Shabir et al., 2014 ). Based on the concept of inclusiveness in Chinese culture, we have explored the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee innovative behavior with psychological capital as a mediator. We conclude the following. First, inclusive leadership has a significant positive influence on new generation employees’ psychological capital and then innovative behaviors.

Second, we conclude that different dimensions of inclusive leadership have different influences on different dimension(s) of innovative behaviors. Among the three dimensions of inclusive leadership style, leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees has a significant influence on new generation employees’ innovation outcomes and innovative thinking. Leaders’ respect and fair treatment of new generation employees has a significant influence on their innovation outcomes. Further, we provide detailed information about practical implications. Leaders adopting an inclusive style know more precisely how to generate different innovative results for new generation employees. Third, psychological capital plays a mediating role between leaders’ respect and fair treatment of employees’ innovation achievements. It also played a partial mediating role between leaders’ encouragement and recognition of employees’ innovation outcomes and innovative thinking. Such results add to the existing literature by clarifying psychological capital’s differentiated effects on different inclusive leadership-innovative behavior relationships. Fourth, different from the concept of fairness and justice in Western countries, this article integrates the traditional Chinese cultural aspect of “tolerance as a virtue” into the connotation of inclusive leadership style and emphasizes the concepts of tolerance and leniency. Combining the characteristics that differ between traditional employees and new generation employees, we used empirical research to verify how inclusive leadership style affects employees’ innovative behavior. The results promote the reasonable use of the inclusive leadership style, adaptation to the characteristics of new generation employees, and giving a full audience to new generation employees. The results ultimately provide a basis for boosting the innovative thinking and behavior of the new generation employees.

This paper provides theoretical bases and implications for future studies. It also supplements and expands the research on the relationship between inclusive leadership style and employees’ innovative behavior and provides new ideas for human resource management approaches among new generation employees.

Our results have practical significance for enterprise human resource management and the development of entrepreneurial leadership style in the new era. The results give leaders clear guidance regarding leadership style that can accommodate new generation employees’ characteristics, give full play to their advantages, and stimulate their innovative behaviors to facilitate enterprise development. In addition to caring about leadership style, leaders should simultaneously focus on cultivating employees’ psychological capital to create more advantages and value for enterprises resulting from innovation ( Luthans and Youssef, 2007 ). Encouraging, recognizing, respecting, including, and giving fair treatment to employees are all excellent qualities of new-era leaders that can promote employee innovation.

This article has some deficiencies. The questionnaires about inclusive leadership, psychological capital, and innovative behavior were all filled in by the same person, which may cause homologous data errors. However, we have made some efforts to lower potential biases. Before we collected the data, we re-ordered the questionnaire items according to the independent and dependent variables, preventing the raters from guessing the causal relationships between variables; thus, we reduced the possible bias caused by having the same person provide answers for both independent and dependent variables ( Kozlowski and Klein, 2000 ). After data collection, Harman’s test was conducted. The analytic results of the un-rotated factor solution showed that the variance of the principle component is 30%, which was less than 40%, and thus, no dominant single factor was extracted, indicating little potential for common variance bias. Additionally, our samples are all survey data from Zhejiang Province, China. This could raise some concern about generalizability. Although the currently surveyed city is representative of other similar cities in China, generalizability to other cities in other countries is indeed a common concern because the results might vary for cultural, institutional, or societal reasons. Follow-up studies could expand the scope of the survey and increase the number of samples to ensure the generalizability of the research conclusions.

Data Availability

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

Y-CF conceived and designed the research and provided guidance throughout the entire research process. J-YC wrote and supplemented the English manuscript. M-JW and C-YC participated in the data processing and writing of the Chinese Papers.

This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund Project of China (Grant No. 15BGL099), the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Science Planning Fund Project (Grant No. 14YJA630008), and the Zhejiang Province Soft Science Project (Grant No. 2018C25024).

Conflict of Interest Statement

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.

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Chinese Version of the Inclusive Leadership Scale

Encouragement and recognition to employees.

(1) In my work, the leaders actively ask my opinions and thoughts. (2) The leaders recognize the contribution of my efforts. (3) For my work, the leaders encourage me to come up with plans and ideas. (4) The leaders recognize our cooperation and exchanges across departments. (5) The leaders openly recognize the achievements of employees.

Respect and Fair Treatment for Employees

(6) The leaders treat us equally and always adhere to certain commonly recognized principles. (7) The leaders focus on fairness and justice when managing teams. (8) The leaders treat employees fairly.

Failure Tolerance

(9) When employees make mistakes, the leaders express emotional understanding and suggestions for improvement. (10) The leaders can rationally accommodate our mistakes. (11) When something went wrong, the leaders do not arbitrarily blame us without understanding the details.

Keywords : new generation employees, inclusive leadership, psychological capital, innovative behavior, China

Citation: Fang Y-C, Chen J-Y, Wang M-J and Chen C-Y (2019) The Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Employees’ Innovative Behaviors: The Mediation of Psychological Capital. Front. Psychol. 10:1803. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01803

Received: 11 May 2019; Accepted: 22 July 2019; Published: 06 August 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Fang, Chen, Wang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Yang-Chun Fang, [email protected]

Disclaimer: 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.

  • Author Rights
  • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Journal of Leadership Education

  • 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 ?

inclusive leadership research paper

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.

inclusive leadership research paper

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.

inclusive leadership research paper

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.

inclusive leadership research paper

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.

inclusive leadership research paper

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.

inclusive leadership research paper

Figure 6.  Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD1

inclusive leadership research paper

Figure 7.   Leadership Framework Emphasis for RD2

inclusive leadership research paper

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.

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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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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.

Oseguera, L. & Astin, A. W. (2004). The declining “equity” of American higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 27 (3), 321-341.

Ovseiko, P. V., Pololi, L. H., Edmunds, L. D., Civian, J. T., Daly, M., & Buchan, A. M. (2019). Creating a more supportive and inclusive university culture: a mixed-methods interdisciplinary comparative analysis of medical and social sciences at the University of Oxford. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 44 (2).

Parker, L., & Villalpando, O. (2007). A race(cialized) perspective on education leadership: Critical Race Theory in educational administration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43 (5), 519-524.

Pedersen, P. B., & Pope, M. (2010). Inclusive cultural empathy for successful global leadership. American Psychologist, 65 (8), 841–854.

Pelled, L. H., Kedfird Jr, G. E., & Mohrman, S. A. (1999). Demographic dissimilarity and workplace inclusion. Journal of Management Studies , 1013-1031.

Pierce, J. L., & Newstrom, J. W. (2011). Leaders and the Leadership Process. McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Portela, A. (2011). Identity, school inclusion and leadership.  Contemporary Management Quarterly/Wspólczesne Zarzadzanie ,  2 .

Posselt, J. (2014). Toward inclusive excellence in graduate education: Constructing merit and diversity in Ph.D. admissions.  American Journal of Education: Special Issue on Racial Diversity in Graduate Education, 120 (4), 481-514.

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.

Randel, A. E., Galvin, B. M., Shore, L. M., Ehrhart, K. H., Chung, B. G., Dean, M. A., & Kedharnath, U. (2018). Inclusive leadership: Realizing potential outcomes through belongingness and being valued for uniquness. Human Resource Management Review , 190-203.

Rankin S. R. (2005). Campus climates for sexual minorities.  New Directions for Student Services, 2005 (111), 17-23.

Rayner, S. (2009). Educational diversity and learning leadership: a proposition, some principles and a model of inclusive leadership? Educational Review, 61 (4), 433–447.

Riehl, C. (2000). The principal’s role in creating inclusive schools for diverse students: A review of normative, empirical, and critical literature on the practice of educational administration.  Review of Educational Research,   70 (1), 55-81.

Shore, L. M., Cleveland, J. N., & Sanchez, D. (2018). Inclusive workplaces: A review and model. Human Resource Management Review , 176-189.

Shore, L. M., Randel, A. E., Chung, B. G., Dean, M. A., Ehrhart, K. H., & Singh, G. (2011). Inclusion and diversity in work groups: A review and model for future research. Journal of Management , 1262-1289.

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Solorzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: The experiences of African American college students.  Journal of Negro Education,  60-73.

Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal , 1442-1465.

Strike, K. A. (1999). Can schools be communities? The tension between shared values and inclusion. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35 (1), 46–70.

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Terenzini, P., Cabrera, A., Colbeck, C., Bjorklund, S., & Parente, J. (2001). Racial and ethnic diversity in the classroom: Does it promote student learning? The Journal of Higher Education , 509-531.

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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

PLOS

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

Fig 1

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 .

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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).

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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.

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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.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212091.s002

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The role of leadership has expanded to diversity, equity, and Inclusion, coupled with a thorough understanding of the conceptual skills of interpersonal relationships. Leaders must accept that diversity is here to stay. Finding the uniqueness of each employee and accepting them where and how they are is key to future success in any organization. Conceptual skills used to be found primarily in the upper echelon of organizations. However, they are needed from the front-line staff to the management.

Furthermore, everyone needs to use conceptual skills. In his work “Skills of an Effective Administrator”, Robert Katz (1947), a seminal author, defined conceptual skills as understanding how all parts of a business work together and driving changes that affect the whole company or critical business outcomes. 1 Thus, people can manage their own jobs and the expansive reach of the organization to its vital customers. Peter Drucker once mentioned that a business is not operative without a customer, and reaching each customer where they are is equivalent to an organization’s success. Drucker also coined knowledge management as an empowering trait of all employees as they perform their jobs.

The cognitive ability is also to be capable of leading others through strong interpersonal relationships. 2 3 4 5 Interpersonal relationships between leaders and employees create a positive work environment that promotes trust, collaboration, effective communication, empathy, and teamwork. These qualities enhance employees’ customer orientation, leading to a focus on delivering exceptional service and meeting customer needs.

Is New Training Needed?

Being promoted to leadership is like becoming a black belt in martial arts. The learning just begins at that point at an entirely new level. 6 7 8 9 Many supervisors and leaders that get promoted experience very little to no training. Some go away to a two-day supervisor training, and a colleague must trust their group members to catch them as they fall backwards. This builds camaraderie, but there is so much more to leadership. Leadership training begins with an introspective journey that requires continuous development, and in some cases, as Peter Drucker once noted, leaders need to know what not to do. However, a fundamental mediator element is the one that allows the Unlearning step.

The unlearning task is not an easy one. However, today’s dynamic environment demands leaders to be able to unlearn. As a result, older methods, beliefs, and habits must be discarded to make way for new, more effective ones. Any leadership training program must incorporate the concept of unlearning.

In addition to this critical activity, a leader’s personality must be continuously discerned to achieve a challenging personal transformation and positively influence others. Therefore, leaders must deepen their insights to be more authentic in nature, and sometimes, this requires an outside evaluation from knowledgeable, effective leaders who can add suggestions for continuous improvement. Discernment is a key leadership trait and usually develops over time. Leaders must also discern followers and develop their personalities to lead better and more introspective by grasping new management techniques and attempting to implement them.

The simplistic perception of human beings as the most complex phenomenon is why leaders stay away from deepening their insights and resort to simple management fad-type techniques to minimize the complexity of the leader-follower equation. Executives must smooth the path of leadership development to enhance their ability to solve complex leader-follower conflicts. Leader-follower conflicts show their ugly face when followers are left alone without any direction or when many demands are coming from multiple leaders, causing friction. Employees must also use their conceptual skills to let leaders know when their needs may not be realistic in the allotted timeframe.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Leadership

We have found that the discussion of the challenges and complexities of leadership makes some senior managers reluctant to develop as leaders. This reluctance seems quite logical, as leadership development requires leaders’ personal development and deepening their insights in dealing with complex issues. These issues are sometimes too complex to solve in a short time or more significant and more prominent issues must be addressed. Two EDI experts, Robin Di Angelo, and Verna Myers, have observed authentic leadership asks to manage discomfort and difficult conversations about systemic inequities. Authentic leadership involves a deep dive into the realm of introspection to develop an authentic leadership persona. In an international financial company in Australia, after several meetings were held via chatbots with lower-level employees to include their views on the redevelopment of new knowledge management systems, employees became more aware of the possibility of cyber-attacks and how to avoid phishing, reducing the related risks. 10 11 12 In some cases, executives appear to be following predetermined recipes to resolve problems and lead others. Models of leadership are often used in universities and specific organizations. Some leadership models are only used once, while others are only used with some leaders. Once the leader moves on, they take the leadership model with them, and that leadership model is not utilized.

The key to leadership models is that they are for all people in organizations and, in some cases, reach out to suppliers, vendors, and even customers to build a solid leadership presence—leadership models that reap the most significant benefits to the stakeholders. In practice, leadership models set specific roles at all levels of the organization that not only motivate people within the organization and instill a sense of ownership into employees but also become a boundaryless model of organizations, creating an Open business system: In an open business system, team members are involved in decision-making and creativity and collaboration are encouraged. This can lead to increased innovation and greater efficiency in the organization.

Aggressive behavior from leaders is nothing new. At Salomon Brothers Inc., leaders would tell people to tell their story walking or fire someone by saying they are out of here. These aggressive behaviors are not known as micro-aggressions. Micro-aggressions are pinpointed toward a particular group. They could be passive or aggressive. The key is understanding where they are and abolishing them from the organization.

The Future of Leadership

Making the organization a think-tank for the world to view, understand, learn, and apply. Next, we define the roles of leaders for the future. We need to have a deeper dive into the roles for the future. We propose a new model of leadership that can help develop leadership in today’s global and complex business environment. A model that, along with personal development, introduces leadership as a set of roles that leaders should adopt according to diversity, equity, and Inclusion.

Leaders can play an essential role in leadership development. 13 14 First, leaders must take a deep dive into the introspective journey and personal development of authentic leadership for their personal transformation and to better influence others. 15 Some executives see nothing wrong with having a psychologist in the midst to help them and other employees cope with the day-to-day stress of leadership—both personal and professional.

This new leadership model also needs to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusive practices that can meet the needs of all employees and stakeholders. Our approach with executives is to pose leadership roles that consider leadership a responsible and continuous commitment to create motivation and a sense of shared ownership for employees, ensuring everyone feels included and valued and operating in an environment where employees feel safe to speak up and share ideas without fear of being judged or punished (Psychologically safe environment -PSE).

The New Leadership Model: New Roles for the DEI World

We now describe these new leadership roles after the deep dive and the personal assessment criteria. The first role ( Innovative Democratic Leaders ) emphasizes the democratization of the organization and away from pyramidal and bureaucratic structures. With the emergence of the complexities of digital transformation and artificial intelligence, leaders need to grasp ways of meeting the needs of employees and stakeholders without them being persuaded by leadership models that are counterproductive not only in the workplace but also in their personal lives.

In another new role ( Innovation Leader Search Steering Committee ), they appear as supporters who are full of personal qualities such as patience and humility. They are at the forefront of the future. They invite all employees to participate broadly in transformations. In this role, leaders recognize that all employees, from the lowest to the highest organizational levels, are pieces of what we call organizational genius. The other we suggest for leaders is Organizational Excellence Keeper . In this role, leaders are responsible for maintaining organizational excellence through continuous learning of human capital within the organization. Leaders should expand the infrastructure to develop the knowledge flow process throughout the organization and help their human resources on the path of excellence and growth by designing performance feedback systems. The effectiveness of this stage also requires communication of human resources with DEI experts and management consultants.

inclusive leadership research paper

Figure 1: The New Leadership Roles in the DEI World

How to Equip Leaders to Champion DEI?

As for the new, learning also requires upskilling in culture, communications, allyships, and creating an inclusive environment. With reference to training content about diversity, equity, and inclusion. we have asked executives to develop a positioning statement that reflects how they address DEI, why they do it, what it means to them to understand and develop leadership competency, and the importance of this introspective viewpoint as role models for followers.

The origins of managing DEI come from authentic leadership and servant leadership approaches, resulting in extensive participation. Promoting self-reflection, building skills, adopting inclusive behaviors, driving systemic change, fostering collaboration, and establishing accountability measures.

Achieving this personal transformation for leaders requires understanding the impact of assumptions of their past and present behaviors. In fact, leaders must realize that their beliefs will play an essential role in their behavior. Leaders should adopt the best assumptions according to the diversity, equity, and inclusion circumstances to provide the best behaviors to meet the followers’ needs.

We also distributed a checklist determining their stand on several managerial issues. And the best possible behaviors according to adopting the best assumptions and trying to master behaviors separately. Once this was diagnosed, we attempted to raise the bar through extensive training and development.

We demonstrated to the managers in workshops’ training that best assumptions and pursue behaviors could play an essential role in their personal development. For example, we asked them to hypothesize how humility can be essential in developing organizational leadership. Then, we asked them to write down the best behaviors in performing their duties in a checklist, according to this assumption and regardless of the position of the organization in which they are located. The results were fantastic, and the feedback received from the managers showed us that many behaviors with their employees had improved significantly compared to before these training workshops were held.

How To Transform Employee Training

There are many ways of using DEI executive training. We use DEI training to improve discussion learning quality by enhancing teaching and learning to maximize opportunities and experiences for employees and stakeholders. We do it by enhancing the tools and techniques of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to explore significant ways of learning and growing with diverse life experiences, different perspectives, and a wide array of backgrounds.

Interactive Techniques:

  • We propose a life story exercise that gets executives to explore their life stories and utilize lessons to help them lead people better.
  • We shed light on motivational techniques that address inequities in leadership and follower relationships by enhancing authentic leadership to meet the needs of the people who collaborate with and communicate with them in our diverse global society.
  • We use particular movie scenes and exercises that tap into the inner core of leadership development.
  • We develop the civil leadership characteristics that enhance organizations’ ability to meet stakeholders’ needs by equipping them with what it takes to have an inclusive community, embracing a society of social justice.
  • AI and Automation play an essential part in leadership development. Here, we examine their benefits and risks while simultaneously discussing building PsyCap (Psychological Capital). PsyCap skills offer positive perspectives to tackle difficult situations.

Key Points and Insights for Executives

Some crucial points are making leadership roles where everyone can take part and feel ownership, helping leaders grow in self-understanding and open-mindedness, and doing fun training on diversity, fairness, and Inclusion using real people’s stories and motivation exercises.

We have four actionable ideas for executives.

  • First, set up deep training sessions on diversity, fairness, and Inclusion using real stories and inspiration. This helps leaders stop biases and learn to value differences.
  • Second, make leadership roles where all workers can take part in big decisions. This stops rigid top-down control. Leaders need to stop wanting to control everything and learn to share power.
  • Third, leadership roles are all about constant learning. Help people stop using outdated skills and learn skills needed today to understand the impact and how to manage DEI.
  • Fourth: Use chatbots and AI to create safe places to stop old assumptions and behaviors. Do activities like picturing an ideal diverse future and thinking backwards about how to get there. Question old assumptions by exploring worst-case situations.

The bottom line is leadership now means making DEI the top priority. Interactive training, roles where everyone participates, and constant learning allow this change. Leadership has to champion DEI, including everyone’s unique talents. Executives should lead this change to create positive, engaged cultures where all feel they belong.

  • Katz, R. (1974). Skills of an Effective Administrator. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/1974/09/skills-of-an-effective-administrator
  • Engin, A. (2021). The cognitive ability and working memory framework: Interpreting cognitive reflection test results in the domain of the cognitive experiential theory. Central European Journal of Operations Research 29, 227–245 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-020-00721-6
  • Goffin, R. (2020). Intelligence in the Workplace. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_770
  • Dåderman, A.M., Kajonius, P.J., Hallberg, A. et al. (2022). Leading with a cool head and a warm heart: trait-based leadership resources linked to task performance, perceived stress, and work engagement. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03767-8
  • de Jong, T. (2010). Cognitive load theory, educational research, and instructional design: some food for thought. Instructional Science 38, 105–134 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-009-9110-0
  • Davis, T.J., Christian, P.C. (2018). Leadership Development. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20928-9_1892
  • Reiß, H. (2022). Leading Oneself. In: Onboarding for managers. Springer, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38884-3_4
  • Zohar, D. (2022). A Leader of Leaders. In: Zero Distance. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7849-3_12
  • Pendleton, D., Furnham, A. (2016). The Impact of Personality on Leadership. In: Leadership: All You Need To Know 2nd edition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55436-9_8
  • Waghmare, C. (2019). Create Digital Transformation Using Chatbots. In: Introducing Azure Bot Service. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4888-1_8
  • Paliwal, S., Bharti, V., Mishra, A.K. (2020). Ai Chatbots: Transforming the Digital World. In: Balas, V., Kumar, R., Srivastava, R. (eds) Recent Trends and Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 172. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32644-9_34
  • Guarda, T., Augusto, M.F. (2022). ChatBots and Business Strategy. In: , et al. Innovations in Bio-Inspired Computing and Applications. IBICA 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 419. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96299-9_53
  • Uzorka, A., Olaniyan, A.O. (2022) Leadership role and professional development of technology. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11201-6
  • Ötting, S.K., Masjutin, L. & Maier, G.W. (2021). The future of leadership—How is leadership in small and medium-sized enterprises going to change?. Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) 52, 639–647 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11612-021-00610-9
  • Serrat, O. (2021). Personal Leadership Development Plans: Essentials and Practicum. In: Leading Solutions. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6485-1_3

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Empowering nurses through inclusive leadership to promote research capacity building: A James Lind Alliance priority setting Partnership in Community Nursing

Catherine henshall.

1 Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford UK

Louise Jones

2 Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne UK

Claire Armitage

3 Directorate of Mental Health, Partnership NHS Trust, Leicestershire UK

Lee Tomlinson

4 Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, London UK

Associated Data

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

This paper focuses on the benefits of inclusive leadership when undertaking a priority setting partnership in community nursing, through providing a collaborative and committed nurse‐led forum for initiating impactful changes, identifying evidence uncertainties and driving research capacity‐building initiatives.

This is a Discussion paper. The project was undertaken between 2020 and 2021.

Data sources

This paper is based on shared reflections as 70@70 Senior Nurse Research Leaders and is supported by literature and theory. It draws on issues relating to collective leadership, stakeholder engagement, diversity, inclusivity and COVID‐19.

Implications for nursing

The James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership catalysed the development of a rigorous evidence‐base in community nursing. The collaborative opportunities, networks and connections developed with patients, carers, nursing leaders, policy makers and healthcare colleagues raised the profile of community nursing research. This will benefit nursing research, practice, education and patients in receipt of community nursing care. Collective buy in from national leaders in policy, education, funding and commissioning has secured a commitment that the evidence uncertainties will be funded.

Four key learnings emerged: collective leadership can ensure learning is embedded and sustained; developing an engaged stakeholder community to promote community nursing research is essential; a diverse membership ensures inclusivity and representation; and insights into the impact of COVID‐19 aid progress. The process increased research engagement and created capacity and capability‐building initiatives. This will help community nurses feel empowered to lead changes to practice. Sustained engagement and commitment are required to integrate research priorities into community nursing research, education and practice and to drive forward changes to commissioning and service delivery.

The study promoted research capacity building through inclusive leadership. This can increase community nurses' research engagement and career development and patient care quality and safety; this can incentivize funders and policy makers to prioritize community nursing research.

1. INTRODUCTION

Globally, patients who participate in a research report greater satisfaction with care and improved clinical outcomes (Ozdemir et al.,  2015 ). Similarly, research‐active healthcare organizations have lower mortality rates and higher quality care outcomes, highlighting the positive effects of healthcare research at an international level (Royal College of Physicians,  2020 ).

Nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals worldwide and are continually engaged in innovative practice (Hughes,  2006 ), providing more patient‐facing care than other healthcare professionals. Because of their close proximity to patients, nurses are able to rapidly adapt and respond to international public health challenges adeptly and with expertise (Hughes,  2006 ); the recent COVID‐19 pandemic has illustrated this. This places nurses in a prime position to contribute to, and shape, healthcare policy and practice through the utilization of research knowledge, skills and practice to improve service delivery and care outcomes. However, this ability to respond to challenges has been less evident in a research context.

Despite their positioning, nurses often lack the research expertise, confidence or engagement required to lead others in the healthcare system. Reasons for this are multifaceted and include a lack of protected time to undertake research training, unstructured career progression pathways to support them, a lack of mentorship and role‐modelling and limited buy in from partner organizations (Henshall, Greenfield, et al.,  2020 ; Henshall, Kozlowska, et al.,  2020 ). This problem is exacerbated in community nursing where there is a lack of clinical academic nurses and sub‐optimal use of the evidence‐base in clinical decision‐making (Bowers,  2018 ). This is in part due to specific challenges community nurses face in engaging with research; a recent systematic review found that practical barriers in implementing evidence‐based practice in community nursing settings included research implementation challenges, organizational and infrastructure changes, research uncertainty and research being perceived as incompatible with community nursing roles (Mathieson et al.,  2018 ). This combined with a lack of time, heavy patient caseloads, staff shortages and autonomous working practices means that the research component of the community nurse's role is often lacking (Brooke & Mallion,  2016 ). However, these autonomous working practices make it even more important that community nursing practice is embedded in the evidence base, as community nurses often lack the peer‐to‐peer support in decision‐making that many of their hospital‐based nursing colleagues benefit from. With changes to community nursing practice evolving rapidly, community nurses need support to help them meet the outcomes that matter most to patients and carers (Kenkre et al.,  2013 ).

Many different definitions of community nursing exist, with a lack of clarity around their role. Community nurses are often described as ‘nurses who care for people in their own homes’ (Mathieson et al.,  2018 ). However, in the UK, the boundaries are much more blurred with community nurses acting as the conduit between community, primary and secondary care settings, as well as working closely with social care services and local authorities to ensure the holistic needs of patients are met. Community nurses have long been leaders in promoting this kind of partnership working and the benefit this can bring to patient and service outcomes across healthcare systems have been identified in recent policy documents (NHS,  2021 ). The National Health Service's (NHS) Long Term Plan sets out its vision for implementing integrated care systems (ICSs) across England by 2021. ICSs promote the dissolution of traditional divisions between hospital and home care, with a view to providing coordinated support across the NHS, social care services, local councils and the voluntary sector (NHS,  2021 ).

Despite the recognition by the UK government that coordinated working between hospital and community settings is imperative for optimizing patient care outcomes (NHS,  2021 ), there remains a substantial lack of research investment in community settings, with anecdotal evidence suggesting a disproportionate amount of research funding is directed towards acute hospital care settings. This lack of research funding has had a detrimental effect on community nursing research, adding yet another barrier to community nurses' abilities to engage with the evidence base. These barriers persist at an international level, with an American study reporting on barriers to research nursing utilization in a Magnet community hospital. The study found that barriers included a lack of a supportive environment for research, a lack of research access and availability, a lack of research education and communication and minimal practical application of research (Karkos & Peters,  2006 ). Furthermore, an Australian study surveying current practice and guideline use in adult cancer pain assessment and management by community nurses found that a range of healthcare system, health professionals and consumer barriers limited access to the best available treatment. The study recommended that an evidence‐based clinical pathway was required to enable community nurses to ensure their patients had access to the best available care (Philips & Lovell,  2015 ).

Despite efforts by the International Collaboration for Community Health Nursing Research (ICCHNR) to provide support for community nurses on a global level through building an international network of nurse researchers, hosting conferences and funding scholarship awards (ICCHNR,  2021 ), engagement in evidence‐based practice remains less than satisfactory (Bowers,  2018 ), with a lack of studies in community nursing (Bowers,  2018 ). This has potentially devastating consequences for the future of the community nursing profession and its ability to keep up to date with changes across healthcare systems, with resulting implications for the retention and recruitment of staff and the quality and safety of patient care.

To address some of the issues described above, a group of senior nurse and midwife research leaders (SNMRLs) undertook a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership (JLA PSP) bringing together carers and clinicians in Community Nursing (James Lind Alliance,  2021a ), between March 2020 and September 2021, to identify the top 10 evidence uncertainties in this area. This was done to raise the profile of community nursing research and to attract more research funding to this area of healthcare; JLA PSPs focus on issues that are of direct relevance and potential benefit to patients, their carers' and healthcare professionals (James Lind Alliance,  2021b ). To work together as a collective with a view to empowering other nurses in the community nursing landscape, concepts and theories from the literature around inclusive leadership were studied and used as a framework with which to conduct the PSP. Table  1 shows how the theoretical concepts underpinning inclusive leadership were reflected on and interpreted by the SNMRLs before being applied to the JLA PSP. Inclusive leadership can be defined as ‘words and deeds by a leader or leaders that indicate an invitation and appreciation for others’ contributions', with inclusive leaders shaping situations where ‘voices are genuinely valued’ (Nembhard & Edmondson,  2006 ). Furthermore, positive correlations have been found between inclusive leadership styles, innovative work behaviours and psychological empowerment (Javed et al.,  2018 ). Through the provision of a supportive climate and attempts to include others in discussions and decisions where their voices and perspectives might otherwise be absent (Nembhard & Edmondson,  2006 ), this model of leadership was applied to the JLA PSP in an attempt to empower and inspire others to engage in real‐life issues surrounding community nursing practice.

Reflections on inclusive leadership theory and its application to the JLA process

Note : Bortini, P., Paci, A., Rise, A., & Rojnik, I. (2018). Inclusive leadership: Theoretical framework. Inclusive leadership. Available online https://inclusiveleadership.eu/ [Accessed 20 Jan 2022].

This paper focuses on the benefits of inclusive leadership in providing a collaborative and committed nurse‐led forum for initiating impactful changes across community nursing, by identifying evidence uncertainties, raising the profile of these uncertainties and driving forward research capacity‐building initiatives in community nursing on a national and international level.

2. BACKGROUND

The project sought to address a gap in nursing knowledge by undertaking a JLA PSP in community nursing, to promote and increase engagement amongst community nurses in research at a national level. The JLA is a non‐profit making initiative that brings patients, carers and clinicians together in PSPs. PSPs identify and prioritize evidence uncertainties, or unanswered questions relating to a specific area of healthcare, to ensure that health research funding bodies consider which research questions to prioritize (James Lind Alliance,  2021b ).

Mindful of the challenges and barriers to embedding research in the community nursing setting (Bowers,  2018 ; Karkos & Peters,  2006 ), four nursing research leaders connected through the National Institute for Health Research's (NIHR) 70@70 Senior Nurse and Midwife Research Leader Programme (NIHR,  2019 ). The SNMRLs articulated a shared commitment to collectively working together during the SNMRL programme on this project to identify community nursing research priorities and to empower community nurses to explore and engage with research that is directly related to their practice and patient care outcomes. The 70@70 SNMRL Programme was established in 2019 as a 3‐year programme which aimed to strengthen the research voice and influence of nurses and midwives in health and social care settings in England, with a view to building research capacity and capability amongst nurses and midwives (Henshall, Greenfield, et al., 2020 ). SNMRL cohort members were provided with 2 days' protected time each week as part of the 70@70 Programme to drive forward research innovations and initiatives to generate, lead and support research activity, as well as informing research priorities at a local, regional and national level (Henshall, Greenfield, et al., 2020 ).

The community nursing PSP's aim was to define the top 10 evidence uncertainties relating to community nursing through a shared, inclusive partnership with key stakeholders including patients, carers, community nurses and other community‐based healthcare workers. The breadth and diversity of community nursing roles meant that the JLA PSP's scope needed to be well‐defined. As such, the PSP's scope set out to identify evidence uncertainties for community nursing in England, with a focus on the provision of nursing care to adults in their own homes, in community clinics or in residential homes. Community nursing encompasses a diverse range of nurses and support staff working in the community including district nurses, intermediate care nurses, community matrons and hospital at home nurses. Community nurses have knowledge and experience in supporting people with multi‐morbidities, acute illness, chronic and long‐term conditions, such as heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, cancer and diabetes. They focus on preventative, coordinated care to avoid hospital admissions and facilitate self‐management at home (Maybin et al.,  2016 ). This support facilitates improvements in quality of life, promotes independence and offers a patient‐centred, supportive and appropriately applied service from diagnosis to end‐of‐life care (Department of Health,  2005 ). The evolving complexity of patient care requirements means community nurses continually respond and adapt to meet the needs of local populations (Maybin et al.,  2016 ).

To ensure PSP inclusivity, stakeholders' views were collated at a national level through the dissemination of two surveys. Survey findings identified questions that were prioritized by a steering group, with members including Chief Nurses, community nurses, patients and carers. The first steering group meeting took place in September 2020, with PSP surveys conducted between December 2020 and July 2021. Separate surveys were sent to community‐based health care professionals and to patients and carers who had utilized community nursing services. The healthcare professional survey contained questions about what needed addressing in community nursing settings. The patient and carer survey asked respondents to identify what community nursing teams did well and what could be improved. Over 700 responses to the initial surveys were received, despite pressures from COVID‐19. Responses were grouped together and collated until 40 overarching questions were developed. The 40 questions related to a range of community nursing and patient‐focused topics. Topics included caring for the complex needs of patients; promoting health and self‐management strategies for patients and their families; optimizing integrated working practices, improving community nurses' staffing ratios; enhancing the wellbeing of community nursing staff; and retention and recruitment issues. The questions formed the basis for the second survey, which was sent to community healthcare professionals, patients and carers, who ranked these 40 questions in priority order. A final workshop, based on the top 18 prioritized questions that were ranked by survey two respondents, took place in September 2021 to agree on the top 10 priority questions or evidence uncertainties. The PSP process is outlined in Table  2 . Funding was provided by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, which supports applied health research innovations that make a difference in patient care outcomes.

An outline of the steps involved in the James Lind Alliance priority setting process

Note : James Lind Alliance. (2021). JLA Guidebook. Retreived from https://www.jla.nihr.ac.uk/jla‐guidebook/ [Accessed 20 Jul 2021].

This discussion paper is based on shared reflections of four SNMRLs who undertook the PSP in community nursing; learning points are supported throughout the paper by relevant literature and theory. The SNMRLs were situated in geographically diverse locations across England and had different professional nursing backgrounds; they were well placed to undertake the PSP using an inclusive leadership model (Bortini et al.,  2018 ), as they could access a range of stakeholders with varying demographic characteristics across the population. This enhanced representation and ensured that the top 10 evidence uncertainties identified through the JLA PSP process were informed through a wide variety of viewpoints, contexts and perspectives (James Lind Alliance,  2021b ). Their inclusive leadership style was evident throughout the JLA PSP, with every effort made to seek out the views of patients, carers, community nurses and other healthcare workers who had an experience in the community working across a range of geographical and healthcare settings (Table  1 ). This collaborative model meant the SNMRLs could share ideas, develop extended networks and reach geographical locations across England that would not otherwise have been possible. This paper considers how four SNMRLs adopted an inclusive leadership approach to support and enable the delivery of a priority‐setting partnership in community nursing, through a collaborative and committed nurse‐led forum. The process of gathering evidence uncertainties, through national surveys and delivering a final inclusive workshop to prioritize them, is detailed.

3. DISCUSSION

3.1. data sources.

This discussion paper is based on shared reflections, through extensive note‐taking after meetings and frequent team discussions (Gibbs,  1988 ), supported by relevant literature and inclusive leadership theory (Bortini et al.,  2018 ). The paper draws on four main areas that emerged relating to the PSP. These were collective leadership, stakeholder engagement, diversity and inclusivity and the impact of COVID‐19.

3.2. Collective leadership

Many collective benefits emerged from the PSP, not least the ability to influence and lead through collaboration. As a core team of four nursing leaders, the SNMRLs drew on individual strengths, skill sets and reflections to enable the diversity of thinking, ideas and perspectives. Rather than one individual leading the PSP, the collaborative, inclusive nature of the SNMRL team meant that a supportive environment for sharing plans, strategies and processes was cultured. This inclusive leadership style enabled the PSP to have a collective impact in terms of the people, organizations and systems it infiltrated and influenced. Throughout, the PSP engagement was sought at a grass roots level locally and at a national level, to influence policy and practice in healthcare systems. This ability to engage at all levels was facilitated through the 70@70 platform (Henshall, Greenfield, et al., 2020 ) which allowed existing links in local trusts to be capitalized on, whilst providing collective influence through the national profile of the programme. As the 70@70 programme was affiliated with England's National Institute for Health Research, this made it easier for the JLA PSP to gain traction and for its aim and purpose to be articulated by leaders at national meetings where policy and funding decisions were considered. This led to buy in and positive acknowledgement from external stakeholders involved in research policy, practice, design and delivery, which generated momentum for how the outputs from the PSP could be embedded and sustained nationally. Funding opportunities and decisions to deliver on the top 10 evidence uncertainties were also generated and secured through this approach.

3.3. Stakeholder engagement

Increasingly, there is a requirement in research funding applications for patients and the public to be an integral part of the research design, delivery and dissemination process. Lack of involvement and engagement from these individuals can have a negative impact on successful outcomes, as an application's perceived value and credibility are undermined (Horrocks et al.,  2018 ). This meant that in the JLA PSP, the research priorities of healthcare professionals' patients' and the public needed to be identified, listened to and heard, to appreciate the true complexities and context of the area under investigation (Schot et al.,  2019 ). The JLA PSP process epitomizes this concept through its collaborative nature, working with patient and clinical communities, without imposing a top‐down, inflexible set of rules. Whilst the JLA PSP leaders' imposed structure and process to the project, the stakeholders contributed knowledge, experience, insights, networks and personal and professional investments in future research, in and across their spheres of interest. This led to a sense of empowerment as the shared research priorities generated from the PSP belonged to everyone involved (James Lind Alliance,  2021b ).

Throughout the PSP, it was anticipated that community nurses at a local and national level would engage with, enhance and expand their involvement in research and start to critically analyse their own clinical practise to ensure its alignment with up‐to‐date evidence. The collaborative, inclusive approach generated by the SNMRLs was adopted by local and national nursing research leaders and was a crucial component in promoting and supporting active involvement in the PSP from the nursing community. Research champions for the PSP were linked to local hospitals and this led to them sharing details of the PSP at strategic and operational levels. This resulted in the development of an engaged community with a common purpose of progressing and enabling involvement in community nursing research.

To ensure that the contribution of community‐based healthcare professionals was heard throughout the PSP, each SNMRL recruited community and Chief Nurses from their own organizations to join the steering group. It was important to reach the Chief Nurses to achieve full engagement and commitment across the different organizations, whilst gathering perspectives from community nurses resulted in valuable insights about what the frontline issues and challenges facing them were. This widespread representation from healthcare professionals, patients and carers, engendered confidence that the views of people living and working in different communities with varying socio‐economic needs and healthcare priorities were being heard. The theoretical underpinnings of inclusive leadership provided a lens for the team to view leadership and change processes as emerging through networked forms of communication, relationships and influence (Nembhard & Edmondson,  2006 ). This was achieved by understanding the views and needs of the people involved in the process and by actively drawing on the diversity and richness of different perspectives, backgrounds and experiences (Amin et al.,  2018 ). This enabled the SNMRLs to become more adept at including the wider stakeholder group in PSP discussions and decision‐making and to facilitate a supportive environment to encourage sharing of opinions and perspectives (Nembhard & Edmondson,  2006 ) (Table  1 ).

3.4. Diversity and inclusivity

The four SNMRLs held a broad variety of roles including Lead Community Research Nurse, Research and Development Manager, Clinical Academic Nurse and Deputy Head of Nursing. They also spanned different geographical locations from the North West to the Midlands, South East and South England, working in a range of rural and urban communities. The hospitals they were based at included acute and community health, mental and community health and stand‐alone community settings. A significant benefit of this professional role diversity was that it generated multiple ideas and perspectives that related to the varying organizational pressures and priorities of different organizations and communities. This diversity in leadership is cited as beneficial for delivering a more inclusive leadership approach due to the dissipation of interpersonal tensions that are more likely to occur in more homogenous teams, disrupting the integration of opinions as a result (van Knippenberg & van Ginkel,  2021 ). The professional role diversity of the SNMRLs also enabled them to access and utilize a wide range of networks at a local, regional and national level including community nurses in local teams, care home residents, patients living in the community, local chaplains, research and development teams, national community nursing bodies, healthcare organizations, policy makers and professional bodies. Access to a diverse stakeholder group enabled the SNMRLs to stay close to issues that really mattered to patients, carers and frontline nurses, whilst increasing opportunities to leverage power and influence policy and practice at a national level and to collaborate through new connections and mutually beneficial interactions across the healthcare system.

Increased recognition is being paid to ensuring that under‐served groups should be represented on research boards and committees, such as funding panels and ethics committees, where any barriers to participation should be identified and resolved as a means of promoting inclusivity (Witham et al.,  2020 ). In terms of the PSP, every effort was taken to ensure that a representative mix of steering group members and survey responders with different genders, ethnicities and geographical locations was obtained; however, this was not without its challenges. The steering group meetings included representation from a variety of ethnicities and cultures, which led to meaningful discussions relating to survey development. For example, the survey wording was altered to reflect the fact that in some cultures, family members do not identify as ‘carers’, but maintain their identity as a husband, wife or family member (Hughes et al.,  2013 ). These insights supported the group to develop a survey that was as inclusive as possible. This collaborative nature of the group also meant that relationships and confidence grew over time, with a growing focus on the purpose of the team's shared objectives.

In terms of the survey, contributions from patients and carers were continuously monitored to promote inclusivity and diversity of the responders (Figure  1 ). During the dissemination of the first survey, it became clear that certain sectors of the population were underrepresented. However, with regard to gender, this was not the case. The NMC register to practice, records more women (89%) than men (11%) on its nursing register (NMC,  2021 ). This is in line with our survey findings which recorded 92% of responses from women and 8% from men, largely representative of the nursing workforce. Geographically, there was representation from all areas of England, although 62% of all respondents came from the North. Most survey respondents were people who identified as being of White ethnicity (94%). The remaining 6% were from a range of ethnically diverse backgrounds including Black, African, Caribbean, Black British, Asian British (1.7%), Asian (1.4%), Mixed, multiple ethnic groups (0.8%) and other (0.5%) with the remaining 1.6% preferring not to say. Diversity was monitored throughout the PSP process, however, due to the challenges of non‐face‐to‐face contact and an inability to target specific religious groups during the COVID‐19 pandemic, we were unable to achieve the level of diversity that we would have liked. Efforts to rectify this included snowball sampling, utilizing personal contacts to increase diversity at the start of the process and the identification of community gatekeepers to explain the value and purpose of the research to hard‐to‐reach communities (Lee,  2005 ). Other strategies included utilizing social media platforms and targeting communications to key stakeholder groups, as well as connecting with individuals via email as a means of building the PSP network and staying connected virtually. Despite these outreach initiatives, limited progress was made. This may be partly due to the COVID‐19 pandemic which meant that many community nurses were under enormous workplace pressures and were unable to prioritize the dissemination of the surveys to community groups.

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Demographics of James Lind Alliance priority setting partnership in community nursing survey responders.

3.5. The impact of COVID ‐19

Despite the challenges faced, with the UK having one of the highest rates of infection globally at certain timepoints during the pandemic (Anderson et al.,  2020 ) and many nurses being redeployed to frontline care, the PSP demonstrated the commitment felt by community nurses, patients and carers to improve the research standing of the profession. The imposed transition from face‐to‐face meetings to virtual, online platforms led to considerations as to how regularly the leadership team and the steering group should communicate, as well as how to best ensure that the voices of patients and carers who could not access online platforms could be heard. Although coordinating the project virtually had drawbacks in terms of not being able to connect in a face‐to‐face setting, there were advantages, including a reduction in travel time for all stakeholders, reduced project costs and increased productivity and efficiency through making better use of shorter online meetings. The SNMRLs promoted a non‐hierarchical culture throughout the process, stipulating that every individual's voice and perspective was equal and should be treated with respect. This required experienced facilitation to ensure that everyone's voice was listened to and considered (James Lind Alliance,  2021b ). Equality amongst the group was valued by all members and led to richer and more meaningful discussions taking place. It also helped to reduce potential anxieties about speaking up that can occur in healthcare settings when senior team members can monopolize meeting agendas.

During the PSP, the SNMRLs were aware that a sector of the patient and carer population might not have easy access to the JLA PSP online and paper surveys, leading to their potential exclusion from the process. An ONS survey in 2020 found that although 96% of UK households had access to the internet, issues of age and disability remained key barriers to adoption. Only 67% of those over 65 s classified themselves as daily or almost daily internet users and people considered to be disabled reported lower than average internet use when compared with the general population (Office for National Statistics,  2020 ). This lack of online access is problematic for people from lower socio‐demographic backgrounds, as they may have greater health issues and need more healthcare professional support. This need for support is magnified in the community setting, where in the UK, it is estimated that 51% of people aged over 75 years live alone (NHS Choices,  2015 ) and a visit from a community nurse may be their only point of social interaction. To overcome these barriers during the COVID‐19 pandemic, the SNMRLs tried to ensure that PSP surveys were made available to patients and carers who were not easily able to access them. This proved difficult due to the social restrictions imposed by COVID‐19, as leaving paper surveys in community settings such as general practices, churches or community centres was not permitted. However, the SNMRLs who visited patients in their homes provided paper surveys and invited individuals to complete them with assistance. This allowed surveys to be completed by a small subsample of patients and carers, including the elderly and frail. However, only a small number of surveys were collected using this method due to difficulties including the ill health of patients and the time constraints of the SNMRLs. Due to the ever‐changing challenges relating to COVID‐19 that community nurses were facing, the SNMRL team decided not to ask community nurses to take a role in disseminating the surveys or supporting patients and carers to complete them. However, the community nurses were asked to complete the surveys themselves and to promote them across their organizations, via their communications teams and other methods, including word of mouth.

3.6. Implications for nursing

An international study investigating how nursing leaders promote evidence‐based practice found that the involvement of patients was lacking throughout this process (Kitson et al.,  2020 ), highlighting the importance of an inclusive approach to ensure that the voices of all relevant parties are listened to and considered. The PSP was careful to engage with patients, carers and community nurses at all levels and has provided a catalyst for developing rigorous evidence in community nursing practice. The collaborative opportunities, networks and connections that have developed with patients, carers, nursing leaders, policy makers and healthcare colleagues across the country have allowed new relationships to be developed, thereby raising the profile of the PSP and increasing the likelihood of sustained impact. This can lead to widespread benefits for nursing research, practice and education, and most importantly, for patients who will be in receipt of community nursing care in the future.

Collective buy in and engagement with the JLA PSP from national leaders in areas such as policy, education, funding and commissioning has resulted in a commitment that the evidence uncertainties identified will be funded and focused on in the future. However, in addition to funding the evidence uncertainties, more widespread action is required to ensure the legacy of the PSP is long‐lasting and influential. The creation of research strategies developed to support community nursing research, such as the Welsh Community Nursing Research Strategy (Kenkre et al.,  2013 ), is one way to facilitate the embedding of evidence in community nursing, by supporting nurses with the right research infrastructure and encouraging them to play an active part in developing community nursing research and evidence‐based practice (Kenkre et al.,  2013 ).

National and international bodies, such as the Queens Nursing Institute and the ICCHNR, align with the ethos of the community nursing PSP as they support the importance of utilizing evidence to inform practice (ICCHNR,  2021 ; The Queens Nursing Institute,  2021 ). This is important in terms of ensuring that the findings generated by the PSP are implemented in national and international policies linking to nursing practice, education and research. Additionally, in 2018 the Care Quality Commission, which regulates the NHS, formally recognized clinical research activity in the NHS as a key component of best patient care (Care Quality Commission,  2021 ). This is significant in terms of positioning, as research is now recognized as a key part of patient care in the NHS Constitution. As such, NHS managers will be seeking to increase levels of research activity in their clinical areas and outputs from the PSP can be used as the basis for ensuring that research priorities are examined and embedded in frontline community settings and that the projects undertaken are meaningful and add value to patient care pathways.

4. CONCLUSION

The 70@70 SNMRL programme facilitated a shared platform for nurses working across different healthcare boundaries, with different healthcare priorities, to raise the profile of community nursing research, with international implications for nursing practice. The programme promoted inclusive leadership and empowered SNMRLs to initiate capacity and capability‐building strategies that were made possible due to the profile and connectivity resulting from it. The diversity in leadership, organizational representation, networking and geographical scope of the PSP provided an opportunity to benefit those working and living in the community in the long term.

Revitalizing an area of practice to address the lack of evidence underpinning the activities of a profession requires a truly collaborative and inclusive effort to be effective. Seen through the lens of inclusive leadership, contributors to the process were encouraged to raise the voice of less represented views and to challenge their own biases and preferences. The value of applying the theoretical principles of inclusive leadership to practice (Table  1 ), and the national collaborative effort this entailed, led to the creation of a national network of nurses, patients and carers that developed research priorities to change the way community nurses' practice. An inclusive leadership approach was effective in generating momentum in community nursing research and transcended the outcomes of the PSP itself. The sustained engagement that has been harnessed from the process can be applied across practice, research and education, with a focus on discovering the best ways of translating and applying research findings into practice and vice‐versa. This model of inclusive leadership can be applied to other areas of nursing outside of community settings and across international nursing contexts and cultures, by prioritizing shared decision‐making and empowering others to develop tangible outputs that can change practice for the better.

Through its inclusive approach the JLA PSP has ensured that its legacy goes further than solely ascertaining funding to deliver research on the top 10 evidence uncertainties; it has also increased engagement, created capacity and capability‐building initiatives and raised the profile of community nursing research. This is essential to ensure that research becomes a core part of the practice and that community nurses feel empowered to lead changes to practice through questioning the evidence base. Continued, sustained engagement and commitment is required to influence funders of research, integrate research priorities into community nursing research, education and practice and drive forward changes to commissioning and service delivery as a means of optimizing patient care.

FUNDING INFORMATION

This study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

No conflict of interest has been declared by the authors.

PEER REVIEW

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1111/jan.15342 .

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all the patients, carers and healthcare professionals who took part in the James Lind Priority Setting Partnership in Community Nursing. CH, LT, LJ and CA are NIHR Senior Nurse and Midwife Research Leaders. CH is supported by the NIHR Oxford Cognitive Health Clinical Research Facility and is a member of the Oxford Precision Psychiatry Lab, NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford, UK. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, UK National Health Service, or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.

Henshall, C. , Jones, L. , Armitage, C. , & Tomlinson, L. (2022). Empowering nurses through inclusive leadership to promote research capacity building: A James Lind Alliance priority setting Partnership in Community Nursing . Journal of Advanced Nursing , 78 , 2765–2774. 10.1111/jan.15342 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Contributor Information

Catherine Henshall, Email: ku.ca.sekoorb@llahsnehc , @cathy_henshall .

Lee Tomlinson, @leetomlinson8 .

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Inclusive Leadership for Reduced Inequality: Economic–Social–Economic Cycle of Inclusion

  • Original Paper
  • Published: 22 September 2021
  • Volume 181 , pages 563–582, ( 2022 )

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  • Yuka Fujimoto 1 &
  • Jasim Uddin 2 , 3  

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The Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations related to reduced inequalities calls for greater economic inclusion of the poor. Yet, how business leaders grant economic opportunities and development to the poor is significantly under-researched. Extending burgeoning responsible leadership theory that promotes paradox-savvy leadership for building inclusive ventures through various actors, this study introduces new concepts of inclusive leadership that foster the economic inclusion of the poor from Amartya Sen’s capability approach perspective. By studying how leaders include the poor in social businesses, we provide a fresh perspective of inclusive leadership as a personalized empowering cycle of economic–social–economic inclusion to close the gaps between the rich and poor in business and society. This perspective provides new territories of diversity and inclusion research for reduced inequality.

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Fujimoto, Y., Uddin, J. Inclusive Leadership for Reduced Inequality: Economic–Social–Economic Cycle of Inclusion. J Bus Ethics 181 , 563–582 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04920-2

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