Abstract
Team diversity research has established that diversity has the potential to stimulate synergetic performance outcomes through information integration processes, but also has the potential to invite interpersonal tensions that disrupt the very information integration process that can give more diverse teams an advantage over more homogeneous teams. A focus on the role of team leadership in stimulating information integration processes and preempting interpersonal tensions is obvious and important, but surprisingly underdeveloped conceptually and empirically. In this article, we integrate insights from two complementary perspectives on leadership and diversity—inclusive leadership and leadership for diversity mindsets—to advance a more integrative perspective on how team leadership can stimulate both inclusion and synergy from diversity.
Over the years, work has become increasingly team-based (Mathieu, Hollenbeck, van Knippenberg, & Ilgen, 2017). An important element in this development has been the growing emphasis on knowledge work. As compared with organizing around individual job assignments, the team-based organization of work has the clear advantage of tapping into teams’ greater potential for information processing both in terms of bringing more diverse knowledge, expertise, and perspectives together and in achieving synergy from the integration of these perspectives (De Dreu, Nijstad, & van Knippenberg, 2008; Hinsz, Tindale, & Vollrath, 1997; van Knippenberg, 2017a). This team information processing perspective suggests that there is value in team diversity as an informational resource—a source of diverse task-relevant information and perspectives (van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004). Accordingly, team diversity should be a core element in considering the team-based organization of knowledge work.
Benefiting from team diversity in knowledge work requires more than composing diverse teams, however. Whereas the team information processing perspective identifies diversity as an asset, there is a counterpoint to this. Theory and evidence indicate that as a result of stereotype-based biases, team members may also respond negatively to dissimilar others. As a result, team diversity can also disrupt team information elaboration (i.e., the exchange, discussion, and integration of task-relevant information; van Knippenberg et al., 2004) and thus stand in the way of knowledge work performance (i.e., including creativity and innovation and complex decision-making; van Dijk, van Engen, & van Knippenberg, 2012). This puts a premium on identifying the influences that shape teams’ engagement with their diversity such that the synergistic benefits of diversity are realized. This is an issue that theory and research addressed extensively (for reviews, see Guillaume, Dawson, Otaye-Ebede, Woods, & West, 2017; van Knippenberg & Mell, 2016). Somewhat surprisingly, however, these efforts have paid relatively little attention to what arguably is the most proximal influence from a diversity management perspective: team leadership.
Achieving synergistic benefits from diversity requires that team processes are shaped such that negative interpersonal tensions that can be sparked by dissimilarity between team members are prevented and team information elaboration is stimulated. There are a host of factors influencing these processes, ranging from team member personality to more structural aspects of the teamwork (e.g., Homan et al., 2008). As van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, and Homan (2013a) argue, however, team leadership unites two qualities that make it a particularly relevant focus from the perspective of actionable knowledge. Team leadership is flexible in that it may be tailored to optimally align with a specific team’s diversity, and team leadership more than many other influences (e.g., member personality and the nature of the work) is under managerial control. In view of these considerations, it is surprising that research on team diversity and leadership is rare (cf. Randel et al., 2018).
Moreover, most studies of team diversity and leadership adopt what van Knippenberg (2017b) called a generic approach as opposed to a team-specific approach. That is, they apply generic models of leadership that were not developed with a specific focus on leading diverse teams in mind (i.e., as opposed to a leadership approach anchoring on the team processes key to benefiting from team diversity in knowledge work). There is for instance research on the benefits for diverse teams of participative leadership (Somech, 2006), transformational leadership (Kearney & Gebert, 2009; Shin & Zhou, 2007), and high-quality leader–member exchange relationships (Nishii & Mayer, 2009). These leadership perspectives were not developed with an eye on the team processes involved in the synergistic benefits of team diversity, however. Leadership theory specific to team diversity may more precisely establish what would make leadership of diverse teams effective because it would more directly speak to the core team processes team leadership should stimulate (cf. van Knippenberg, 2017b). To our knowledge, such theory exists in inclusive leadership (Randel et al., 2018) and in leadership for diversity mindsets (van Knippenberg et al., 2013a) (a recent theory by Homan, Gündemir, Buengeler, & van Kleef, 2020 is less helpful in that it concerns reactive leadership to respond to information elaboration and interpersonal tensions rather than proactive leadership to promote the former and prevent the latter; team diversity research clearly indicates that the leadership challenge is to promote information elaboration and not to respond to it, and that intergroup tensions need to be prevented to be able to stimulate information elaboration; van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). Inclusive leadership is leader behavior aimed at creating a sense of inclusion (i.e., a sense of belongingness and uniqueness within the team; Randel et al., 2018). Leadership for diversity mindsets is leader behavior to shape the team’s understanding of its diversity (i.e., diversity mindset) such that it captures the notion of diversity as a source of information, insights, and perspectives, and information elaboration as the process to use that resource in knowledge work (van Knippenberg et al., 2013a). Whereas both inclusive leadership and leadership for diversity mindsets are diversity-specific perspectives on leadership, their current status in the field of research is quite different. Inclusive leadership is emerging as a research stream (Randel et al., 2018), whereas leadership for diversity mindsets is currently limited to the theory in which the diversity mindset concept was proposed (van Knippenberg et al., 2013a) and, empirically, only received follow-up in a study of diversity mindsets not focusing on leadership (van Knippenberg et al., 2019) and in a study of leader experience with cultural diversity informed by, but not including measurement of, the concept of diversity mindsets (Raithel, van Knippenberg, & Stam, in press). Importantly, however, as we outline in the following section, leadership for diversity mindsets complements the current theory and research in inclusive leadership and can extend and enrich the inclusive leadership perspective with an explicit focus on engendering team information elaboration, the core driver of the synergistic benefits of team diversity. We propose that integrating the notion of leadership for diversity mindsets into inclusive leadership theory results in a conceptualization of inclusive leadership that more precisely captures how leadership may engender the team processes that are core to achieving synergistic performance benefits from team diversity. Importantly, we argue that such a focus on diversity as an integral part of how the team performs its job is also a more effective way to create a sense of inclusion than a focus on psychological inclusion as a goal in and of itself (cf. Ely & Thomas, 2001)—which is not to deny that inclusion is a legitimate and important objective in and of itself; our argument is about effectiveness in achieving these objectives and not about the relatively importance of these objectives.
Diversity-specific Team Leadership: Inclusive Leadership and Diversity Mindsets
The state of the science in research on team diversity and performance supports the conclusion that team diversity can be a positive influence on knowledge work performance provided two conditions are met: disruptive interpersonal tensions are prevented and members are motivated and able to engage in team information elaboration (van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Diversity research also indicates that these are not conditions that should be considered in isolation from each other. Interpersonal tensions disrupt information elaboration (e.g., Kooij-de Bode, van Knippenberg, & van Ginkel, 2008), and stimulating information elaboration requires a situation in which such interpersonal tensions are prevented (van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Conversely, a focus on the performance outcomes that teams may achieve by drawing on their diversity arguably is among the more effective ways to reduce interpersonal tensions because it shifts attention from “the other” being different to team diversity as a characteristic of the team as a whole, captures diversity as a positive characteristic (rather than a potential source of problems), and shifts attention from preventing negative outcomes to promoting positive outcomes (Ely & Thomas, 2001; van Knippenberg et al., 2013a; cf. Dwertmann, Nishii, & van Knippenberg, 2016). Whereas research has identified a range of factors that may influence these processes and thus stimulate the synergistic benefits of diversity, our focus here is on team leadership as one such factor of particular interest because of team leadership’s potential to specifically and dynamically engage with the team and its unique composition (as per van Knippenberg et al., 2013a). A first observation in this respect is that there is no generic model of leadership that even by implication addresses these effects of team diversity. Thus, we turn our attention to inclusive leadership and leadership for diversity mindsets.
Inclusive Leadership
Inclusive leadership was proposed as leader behavior that would create a sense of inclusion and psychological safety that would make it possible for all team members to contribute their own perspective (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006). Shore et al. (2011) proposed that inclusion—the core focus of inclusive leadership—should be understood to involve the experience of belongingness (i.e., being part of the group or organization) as well as the experience of distinctiveness (i.e., being a unique individual within that group or organization). Randel et al. (2018) build on this understanding advocated by Shore et al. They proposed that inclusive leadership should be understood as leader behavior to create such a sense of belongingness and uniqueness (also see Shore & Chung, 2021). These behaviors include on the one hand supporting individuals as group members, ensuring fairness, and sharing decision-making, and on the other hand encouraging diverse contributions and helping group members to fully contribute. Such leadership would result in effects on psychological states (inclusion, identification, and empowerment) and behavior (creativity, performance, and turnover). Arguably, these inclusive leadership behaviors should not be seen as either contributing to belongingness or to uniqueness but as contributing to inclusiveness as the combined feeling of belongingness and uniqueness. People resist identification with groups that they feel are associated with a denial of their uniqueness (cf. Brewer, 1991; van Prooijen & van Knippenberg, 2000). Accordingly, there is a clear case that one can only truly experience a sense of belongingness when one also has the sense that one’s uniqueness is preserved.
Whereas there is a clear diversity focus in Randel et al.’s analysis, it is also fair to say that the study of inclusive leadership as a domain of research is not diversity-specific and does not have an explicit focus on the team interaction processes that drive the synergetic benefits from diversity. Nembhard and Edmondson’s (2006) original analysis did not explicitly concern team diversity. Indeed, the majority of inclusive leadership studies do not concern team diversity as a variable (e.g., Hirak, Peng, Carmeli, & Schaubroeck, 2012; Leroy, Buengeler, Veestraeten, Shemla, & Hoever, 2021) and some do not concern the team level of analysis (e.g., Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, & Ziv, 2010). Moreover, the consideration of mediating processes focuses on psychological states rather than team interaction processes: psychological safety, identification, empowerment, and perceived status differences (e.g., Carmeli et al., 2010; Hirak et al., 2012; Mitchell et al., 2015; Randel et al., 2018).
That said, the notion of inclusive leadership as encompassing a focus on valuing uniqueness and different perspectives fits well with the notion of leadership to stimulate information elaboration in diverse teams. We are not aware of a study showing that inclusive leadership moderates the effects of diversity on information elaboration. Mitchell et al. (2015) do show that professional diversity moderates the indirect (via perceived status differences) effect of inclusive leadership on team performance, which at least establishes a diversity-specific effect of inclusive leadership on team performance. The state of the science in inclusive leadership research (as per Randel et al., 2018) as we see it thus is that of a leadership perspective with clear implications for how to stimulate the synergistic performance benefits of diversity. At the same time, we see it as underdeveloped conceptually and empirically in not speaking to the key information elaboration process driving such synergistic performance benefits. This, we argue, is where leadership for diversity mindsets comes in.
Leadership for Diversity Mindsets
In proposing the concept of diversity mindsets, van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) started from the observation that the going understanding of what is a favorable diversity climate, a favorable attitude toward diversity, and good diversity management put the emphasis on equal employment opportunity and the absence of discrimination rather than on achieving synergy from diversity (Davidson, 2011; Dwertmann et al., 2016; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Nishii, Khattab, Shemla, & Paluch, 2018; van Knippenberg, Nishii, & Dwertmann, 2020; van Knippenberg, Homan, & van Ginkel, 2013b). Van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) argued that preventing the negative effects of diversity (i.e., unfairness and discrimination) is a necessary but insufficient condition for stimulating synergistic outcomes because absent the biases that stand in the way of equal employment opportunity and effective teamwork, knowledge work teams will only engage in information elaboration to the extent that they are motivated and able to do so (van Knippenberg et al., 2004).
With this as a starting point, van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) proposed the concept of diversity mindsets: team cognition reflecting team members’ understanding of their team’s diversity and how to engage with it (i.e., the understanding is specific to the team and the team’s composition and not a generic, one-size-fits-all understanding). Team cognition refers to members’ mental representation of their team and their teamwork. Team cognition is important because, to the extent that the cognition is shared within the team (i.e., that there is similarity in members’ team cognition), team cognition guides members’ collaborative efforts and makes teams with greater sharedness of cognition more effective (Salas & Fiore, 2004). Drawing on research by van Ginkel and van Knippenberg (2008, 2009, 2012) showing that team members often are insufficiently aware of the importance of information elaboration, van Knippenberg et al. argued that a focus on information elaboration in diverse teams is not a given. Accordingly, the motivation for information elaboration (cf. van Knippenberg et al., 2004) should also be understood to include an understanding of the importance of information elaboration for nonroutine, synergistic outcomes. They proposed that diversity mindsets conducive to the performance benefits of diversity would emphasize team information elaboration as the means to achieve synergistic outcomes such as greater learning, better decisions, better solutions to nonroutine problems, and greater creativity and innovation.
Diversity mindset as team cognition is related to but not the same as team diversity climate (i.e., the shared perception of how the team views and approaches diversity; Kossek & Zonia, 1993; Mor Barak, Cherin, & Berkman, 1998; Nishi, 2013) in that team cognition concerns members’ own understanding and climate concerns members’ perception of the team’s or organization’s perspective. When diversity mindsets are shared, and team members are aware of this sharedness (cf. van Ginkel & van Knippenberg, 2008), however, the distinction between team cognition and team climate blurs and mainly resides in whether it at core is understood, and operationalized, as team members’ individual understanding (team cognition) or as team members’ perception of their team’s understanding (climate). In that sense, then, van Knippenberg et al.’s analysis of diversity mindsets can be understood to be highly relevant to our understanding of diversity climate. Should one be interested in leadership of diversity from a team climate perspective, the notion of leadership for diversity mindsets could also be reframed as leadership to build a team climate capturing the key elements that would make such a climate conducive to the synergistic performance benefits of diversity.
With these notions in place, van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) analyzed how team leadership could stimulate the formation of shared diversity mindsets. They proposed that leaders can stimulate the development of favorable diversity mindsets through the combination of three elements of leadership that mutually reinforce each other and over time stimulate the emergence of shared diversity mindsets in the team. The first element is leader advocacy of such mindsets: an important element in shaping team cognition is advocating the leader’s own understanding of the team and teamwork (i.e., it starts with the leader’s own diversity mindset; cf. Davidson, 2021). Outside the diversity domain, van Ginkel and van Knippenberg (2012) showed that this can help build team members’ shared understanding of the importance of information elaboration, and the same logic should hold for diversity mindsets. The second element is leader stimulation of team information elaboration. The leader can do this through such actions as inviting diverse input and encouraging the discussion and integration of diverse perspectives (cf. Roberson & Perry, 2021). The logic here is that shared understanding emerges from shared experience at least as much as from exposure to leader advocacy, in part because experiencing something can clarify what talking about it in the abstract may not. Guiding teams into such experience is also important in preventing a potential gap between what is espoused and what is enacted (cf. Mor Barak, Luria, & Brimhall, 2021; Nishii et al., 2018). Conversely, leader advocacy is important in helping make sense of the experience and in allowing the leader to guide the team into an information elaboration process. The third element is to stimulate a process of team reflexivity to learn from these information elaboration experiences and develop the team’s transactive memory (i.e., an understanding of the expertise and perspectives of different team members, of “who knows what”; Wegner, 1987) that helps the team draw on its diverse informational resources (Richter, Hirst, van Knippenberg, & Baer, 2012). Team reflexivity refers to the team discussing team process and performance to develop a better understanding of what to aim for and how to achieve this (West, 1996). Leaders can engage members in team reflexivity by engendering a discussion of teamwork experiences and guide this discussion to touch on such issues as what the team learned about different members’ expertise and perspectives (i.e., developing transactive memory) and what the team gained in insights through information elaboration. Team reflexivity is important because learning from experience does not occur automatically, and a deliberate effort to learn helps in this process. This is for instance illustrated by van Ginkel and van Knippenberg (2009), who showed that by reflecting on what they knew about different team members’ expertise team members came to a better understanding of the importance of information elaboration (i.e., realizing that different members know different things help see that information elaboration is the way to use this diversity of expertise). In a similar vein, van Ginkel, Tindale, and van Knippenberg (2009) showed that reflexivity helped team members with different understandings of the task to converge on a shared understanding of the importance of information elaboration. Conversely, reflexivity alone is less effective in developing diversity mindsets without the leader advocacy and information elaboration experience as input for team reflexivity.
The focus in this analysis is on developing a shared diversity mindset in the team and on benefiting from the diversity of insights and perspectives of the team as a whole. This should be seen in the light of theory and evidence that in diverse teams, members of historically marginalized groups—who also find themselves in a numerical minority position in many teams—face greater challenges in feeling included, seeing their expertise recognized, feeling psychologically safe to voice their perspectives, and being able to engage the team in a discussion of their perspectives when they do (Guillaume, Brodbeck, & Riketta, 2012; Subasi, van Ginkel, & van Knippenberg, in press; Tröster & van Knippenberg, 2012). Thus, shared diversity mindsets emphasizing information elaboration to realize the synergistic benefits of team diversity are especially important in including the perspectives of members of underrepresented groups in the team information elaboration processes (van Knippenberg et al., 2019). Accordingly, inclusive leadership for diversity mindsets may affect the information elaboration and performance of the team as a whole, but its effects will be strongest for the extent to which the perspectives of members from historically marginalized groups are included in the elaboration process.
Van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) propose that leadership for diversity mindsets is a dynamic process in which recurring advocacy, information elaboration experience, and team reflexivity stimulate the emergence of shared diversity mindsets that emphasize the elaboration of the team’s diversity of information and perspectives for synergistic outcomes (accordingly, it would require more of such leadership early on to stimulate the emergence of such diversity mindsets than later on when such mindsets have been established). The emphasis here is different than in analyses of inclusive leadership (e.g., Shore & Chung, 2021), and the inclusive leadership perspective and the leadership for diversity mindset perspective complement each other. In the following, we consider how these perspectives can be integrated and how this may enrich inclusive leadership theory with a stronger focus on creating synergy from diversity—a focus that we argue would also increase inclusive leadership’s effectiveness in fostering inclusion.
Inclusive Leadership for Diversity Mindsets
Inclusive leadership as originally conceptualized emphasized the creation of psychological safety (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006). Psychological safety is important as a precondition for the elaboration of diverse information and perspectives, but this should not be equated to psychological safety as a sufficient condition for information elaboration. Research by van Ginkel and van Knippenberg (2008, 2009, 2012) shows that a core problem in the use of informational diversity is that team members are often focused on determining what they agree on more than on exchanging and integrating all task-relevant information and perspectives. As a result, more distinct and unique perspectives may often not be exchanged and integrated because team members’ understanding of their work suggests that they should focus on reaching agreement on the issues at hand rather than on achieving synergy from diversity. Inclusive leadership as originally conceived thus is important in helping set the stage for information elaboration but in and of itself may fall short of stimulating substantive levels of information elaboration in search of synergistic outcomes. Randel et al. (2018) conceptualization of inclusive leadership as not only helping individuals be part of the team but also encouraging individuals to contribute to teamwork from their own unique perspective in that sense is an important step toward leadership for information elaboration and synergy. Integrating the van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) insights regarding leadership for diversity mindsets adds value to the study of inclusive leadership for two reasons, however.
First, information elaboration is more than information sharing. A key reason for van Knippenberg et al. (2004) to focus on information elaboration as the exchange, discussion, and integration of task-relevant information and not just on information sharing (i.e., exchange) was the evidence that more unique information and insights often get ignored in team discussions even when they are shared (e.g., Winquist & Larson, 1998). That is, information sharing does not automatically mean information elaboration and this holds especially for the more unique insights associated with the synergistic benefits of diversity. Supporting this argument, direct comparisons have shown that information elaboration is more predictive of synergistic outcomes (decision quality and creativity) than information sharing (Hoever, van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, & Barkema, 2012; van Ginkel & van Knippenberg, 2008). Arguably, it is therefore important that leadership does not just encourage diverse contributions (i.e., sharing) but also encourages their discussion and integration—information elaboration. This is, all the more important in view of the evidence that especially the elaboration of the contributions of members of historically marginalized groups may be at stake in diverse teams (Subasi et al., in press).
Second, teams involved in knowledge work would ideally be substantially self-leading, especially where it concerns the synergistic benefits of diversity. The notion that members of diverse teams may have unique information and perspectives implies that it may often not be realistic to assume that a leader is aware of these unique insights and can specifically prompt the sharing of these insights (i.e., often, “you do not know what you do not know”). Member proactivity in sharing such insights therefore is key. This implies that optimal elaboration of diverse information and perspective would be self-leading and not leader prompted. This is where team cognition comes in. Shared cognition helps a team to effectively coordinate its collaborative efforts (Salas & Fiore, 2004). A shared diversity mindset emphasizing information elaboration thus has the advantage that it motivates members to proactively share and integrate their unique insights rather than leave the team dependent on leadership to engender and guide the information elaboration process (van Knippenberg et al., 2013a). Leadership for diversity mindsets thus arguably is preferable over leadership that more directly guides team process.
With these considerations in place, we propose that it is valuable to integrate the notion of leadership for diversity mindsets with the current understanding of inclusive leadership. We also argue that this integration is quite straightforward. Inclusive leadership as actions focused on creating a sense of belongingness and uniqueness among group members and encouraging members to act on that sense of inclusion (Randel et al., 2018; Shore & Chung, 2021) sets the stage for information elaboration by creating both engagement with the team and psychological safety within the team. As we noted, this does not prioritize some of the inclusive leadership behaviors over others; it is the balance between belongingness and uniqueness that sets the stage for participation in team information elaboration. Leadership to develop a shared diversity mindset focused on the performance benefits of diversity is a natural complement to such inclusive leadership. It captures behavior to add to the inclusive leadership repertoire that should seamlessly fit with the behavior identified by Randel et al. (2018). These two sets of behaviors complement each other in that inclusive leadership as per Randel et al. creates more fertile ground for leadership for diversity mindsets as per van Knippenberg et al. Conversely, leadership for diversity mindsets to complement inclusive leadership as per Randel et al. renders it more likely that the team achieves synergistic benefits from diversity.
Importantly, van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) analysis implies that leadership for diversity mindsets is not merely a performance-focused extension of inclusive leadership. Leadership for diversity mindsets can be expected to enhance the effectiveness of inclusive leadership in creating an inclusive team climate. As van Knippenberg et al. outlined, for a couple of interrelated reasons, a focus on the synergistic benefits of diversity is likely to lay more fertile ground for inclusion than a focus on inclusion as valuable in and of itself. A focus on synergistic benefits shifts the focus away from a problem—lack of inclusion of members of underrepresented groups—to an opportunity—the performance benefits of diversity. A focus on promoting positive outcomes makes the team more resilient in the face of setbacks to achieving these outcomes than a focus on preventing negative outcomes (cf. Ely & Thomas, 2001). The focus on team performance benefits also shifts the focus from “the other,” members that do not feel included or members that carry some responsibility for that lower sense of inclusion, to team diversity as a shared characteristic of the team as a whole. This should reinforce the sense of “teamness” rather than make divisions salient and thus speak to belongingness. This team focus should be reinforced by the emphasis on the shared team information elaboration processes, which, with its emphasis on the integration of diverse perspectives, also reinforces the uniqueness aspect of inclusion. This team focus is also important in shifting attention from a potentially cynical reading of inclusion as only being in the service of some members (cf. the evidence that diversity climates that are perceived particularly favorable by members of underrepresented groups may be perceived more negatively by members of the dominant majority; van Knippenberg et al., 2013b) to a focus on team performance as being in the service of the team as a whole (again, this is not to argue against the value of inclusion in and of itself but to address the question of what is the more effective way to achieve such a valued outcome). Thus, the focus on developing a diversity mindset that revolves around the pursuit of team benefits from diversity may actually be more effective in achieving inclusion than a focus on inclusion as valuable in and of itself. Put less boldly, inclusive leadership understood to both encompass inclusive leadership as conceptualized by Randel et al. (2018) and leadership for diversity mindsets as conceptualized by van Knippenberg et al. (2013a) may be more effective in achieving both inclusion and synergistic diversity benefits than either of these elements of leadership alone.
Thus, we may conceptualize our proposed integration of inclusive leadership and leadership for diversity mindsets as inclusive leadership for diversity mindsets. We define such inclusive leadership for diversity mindsets as leader behavior aimed at shaping the team’s understanding of the value of diverse perspectives and of information elaboration as the process to realize that value. Note that this emphatically does not mean that inclusive leadership is defined in terms of its effects (cf. van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013). What “aimed at shaping” captures here is that such leader behavior will be displayed with intended effects in mind, but it is the behavior that defines the leadership, not the intended (or realized) effect. As per the analysis advanced here, we propose that this integrative understanding of inclusive leadership for diversity mindsets should be more effective in achieving both inclusion and synergistic benefits than either inclusive leadership more narrowly defined (Randel et al., 2018) or leadership of diversity mindsets (van Knippenberg et al., 2013a) alone.
In Conclusion: Moving Forward
A key element in our analysis is the observation that inclusive leadership research seems more focused on psychological inclusion than on synergistic performance outcomes in knowledge work (likewise, the more behavioral inclusion focus seems more concerned with voicing per se—cf. information sharing, which cannot be assumed to translate into synergistic outcomes—than with synergistic outcomes). Our emphasis on synergistic benefits is not to reduce the issue of inclusion to performance outcomes—we underscore the value of inclusion in and of itself—but to recognize that employment is framed around performance expectations (in the broad sense of the pursuit of the organization’s purpose; Selznick, 1957; van Knippenberg, 2020) and that a focus on the synergistic benefits of diversity may be a powerful way to realize both inclusion and performance benefits.
There is a good case to understand inclusion to encompass a psychological aspect (cf. Shore & Chung, 2021) as well as a behavioral aspect in terms of a presence in decision-making and the pursuit of work objectives (cf. Davidson, 2011; Mor Barak et al., 2021; Nishii, 2013). Our emphasis on synergistic benefits is aligned with this understanding and makes more explicit that the issue is not just that individuals should not experience barriers to inclusion because of their background but that inclusion can result in synergistic benefits from diversity (cf. Dwertmann et al., 2016; van Knippenberg et al., 2020). As we outlined in our analysis, we see a clear case to expect that such an emphasis on synergistic outcomes is not only more effective in realizing the performance benefits of diversity but also in realizing the psychological and behavioral experience of inclusion. Putting this proposition to the tests would seem an important direction for future research.
A second direction for research we highlight anchors on the observation that inclusion is an issue more for members of historically marginalized groups than for the historically dominant group (cf. Davidson, 2021). There is evidence that members of historically marginalized groups have more negative perceptions of their organization’s diversity climate as well as that their functioning is more influenced by the diversity climate (Avery, McKay, Wilson, & Tonidandel, 2007; Ely, Padavic, & Thomas, 2012; Kossek & Zonia, 1993; McKay, Avery, & Morris, 2008; Mor Barak et al., 1998). There is also growing realization that team research often works from an overly simplified reduction of reality in the implicit assumption that all members partake equally in all team processes and that this assumption may be particularly unfounded in the study of team diversity (van Knippenberg & Mell, 2016). From the perspective of team diversity and synergy, the issue here is that the participation and influence in the information elaboration process of team members with an underrepresented background is under greater pressure than the participation of members with a dominant majority background (Subasi et al., in press). As we outlined in our analysis, even when inclusive leadership would pursue shared diversity mindsets and shared team information elaboration, ensuring psychological and behavioral inclusion of team members from historically marginalized groups is a greater challenge than ensuring the inclusion of members of the traditional majority groups. Even when inclusive leadership is best seen as a form of team leadership, these challenges imply asymmetries in that leadership will need to be more focused on ensuring, recognizing, and processing of the contributions of members of historically marginalized groups. The leadership behaviors we identified as inclusive leadership for diversity mindsets should be key in this respect, but should be deployed such that they target these asymmetries in inclusion, for instance by being more concerned with majority members’ recognition of minority members’ expertise than vice versa and by being more concerned with seeing minority members’ contributions receive full consideration in team information elaboration. This also implies that ideally it would be part of team members’ diversity mindset that the inclusion challenge is different for team members with different backgrounds. Pursuing the study of such asymmetries, and the inclusive leadership to target these asymmetries, would be an important direction for future research.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Associate Editor: Lisa Nishii
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
