Inclusive Leadership: Observing the Evolution of Leaders
Inclusive leadership is always preceded by conscious self-awareness. Getting comfortable knowing that we don’t know what we don’t know, is the beginning of inclusive leadership. Wisdom teachings describe this process of awakening as embodying the beginners’ mind. Inclusive leadership is the ability for all of us with formal and informal titles as leaders, to know that our very existence and any success we will attain comes to us through our people.
I see evidence of inclusive leadership demonstrated powerfully in ancient African civilizations. Our ancestors used oral tradition to educate, teach and lead. They practiced the important inclusive leadership principle of communication - sharing their wisdom, knowledge, and general know-how with their people. This would mean we could consider our ancestors as the earliest coaches and mentors!
The concept of inclusive leadership is simple but very difficult for those of us who are more in love with our titles than we love our people who are in our care! This thought got me thinking about non-African countries whose early leaders are documented as describing the continent of Africa as not having any history! Europeans assumed because there was an absence of evidence of written history that there was evidence of absence of African history!
Great Zimbabwe, built by indigenous Bantu speaking Africans between the 11th and 15th century CE, is one of over 300 massive and magnificent stone structures in South Africa. They are said to rival the pyramids of Egypt! Archaeological evidence shows Bantu speaking Africans used similar technology that was used in building the pyramids to build the Great Zimbabwe…hmmm? Could the leaders of these two great African nations have been communicating with each other?
The evidence was and still is prominent but failure to consciously assess and seek wisdom, led to denial of the greatness of a nation that is as old as time. In today’s organizations the blinders on conscious leadership are slowly and surely being removed. I see this evidence especially in newer leaders who are more inclined to lead with certain aspects used by our ancient ancestors.
Check out our course on inclusive leadership practices to learn more.
Key Points:
Inclusive leadership requires having a beginner’s mind.
Because of their oral tradition, ancient African leaders could be deemed to be among the earliest coaches and mentors!
Inclusive leadership starts with self-leadership.