Six traits of inclusive leadership

Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani is CEO at www.bijna.com. She is a board member with various firms across the globe and works passionately to drive Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

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Manoj Agrawal: In your focus areas of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, what is your observation about the progress in the economic sphere and in the social sphere?

Dr. Bijna Kotak Dasani: Whilst there are countless economic and social progressions, directly through the DE&I spectrum, we must remain mindful of the paradoxes of diversity also catalyzed by social and economic change both in organizations and communities alike.

The practitioner's journal of The NTL Institute for Applied Behavioural Science argues that without adequate training on effective leadership, managers can in fact instigate paradoxical practices such as:

◆ Unrecognized or denied privilege or positive bias which excludes communities

◆ Selective identification where individuals will align to the weakest / most oppressed factor of their intersectionality 

◆ Fear and communities to 'walk on eggshells' 

◆ Fractured constituents where solidarity is gained for one lens of intersectionality (such as orientation) (such as gender) but fractured for others