4 Inclusion Mindset
Most leaders figured out a while ago that they couldn’t figure out every challenge their organizations face on their own. The problem is they are still getting input from people who think just like them. Andrés Tapia, Korn Ferry’s global diversity and inclusion strategist, says that’s inadequate to drive the innovation businesses needed to compete with change today. “It’s one thing to have diversity,” says Tapia, “it’s another to leverage that diversity into insights that drive outcomes.”
Leveraging diversity into insights requires an inclusive mindset. The more leaders invite, listen, probe, and advocate for a diversity of backgrounds and voices in decision-making, the more they can see and address change from all sides and angles.
One of the biggest mental blocks preventing leaders from developing an inclusive mindset, however, is that they narrowly assume it will slow decisions down. While it’s true that it can at the beginning, “the ROI is faster and the decision-making is better as the team revels in its inclusion.” After all, leaders have historically been rewarded for their take-charge personas. “The tyranny of their previous success of driving toward decisions on their own can often lead leaders to be blind to new ways of thinking,” says Tapia.
5 Integrative Thinking Mindset
In the context of change, integrative thinking enables leaders to connect what’s happening in one part of the enterprise with its impact across the entire enterprise ecosystem. That kind of holistic mindset is particularly critical given the current supply chain disruption and social, political, and environmental unrest.
Stu Crandell, a senior client partner and global leader of the CEO and executive assessment practice at Korn Ferry, says integrative thinking can help leaders see the whole picture rather than being blindsided by the impact of a decision after the fact. “It’s about maximizing an organization’s current business model while simultaneously building a new one to navigate change,” he says.
The problem is this kind of thinking goes against traditional leadership development, which has been oriented toward vertical, hierarchical, and siloed decision-making. “People learned how to lead their area,” says Crandell. Now, however, navigating change requires leaders to think not only across their entire organization but also its broader ecosystem of suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders.
Conclusion
Developing these mindsets is not easy, as it goes to the very core of leadership development. Many executives have one, two, or even three of these mindsets. But few have all of them — our research shows that less than 14% of executives today are enterprise leaders. That’s a very small number when juxtaposed against the 100% chance that another seismic change to the business environment is around the corner. Opening up these mindsets will make or break how leaders engage the next big disruption.