Leaders Aren’t Great at Judging How Inclusive They Are

Many organizations are making concerted efforts to become not only more diverse but also more inclusive of difference. The latter is much harder to measure than the former. Do leaders know if they are as welcoming as they think they are? An analysis of 360-degree feedback assessments for roughly 4,000 leaders at one organization with a great reputation for inclusivity sheds some light on this question. When they compared leaders’ self-ratings with their ratings by bosses, peers, and subordinates, the analysts found that many leaders assume they are better at valuing diversity than they actually are. Those leaders who are the worst at valuing diversity are more likely to overrate their effectiveness, and leaders who are the most effective tend to underrate their effectiveness. While some leaders might be tempted to brush aside inclusivity as “political correctness” or “touchy-feely stuff,” the analysis also found a strong correlation between perceptions of inclusivity and overall leadership effectiveness.