A Few Thoughts on Inclusive Leadership

Most businesses now seem to have an EDI lead, where several years ago they may not have even have had a basic understanding of what the term truly means. The same is true in the world of further education. There appears to be a genuine appetite to improve in this area and a commitment to do so.

I would argue that a truly inclusive environment is absolutely essential in education, including colleges, to allow every staff member and every student to not only feel comfortable, but to thrive. But what does an inclusive learning community look like and how do we achieve it?

What is Inclusive Leadership training?

The Association of Colleges (AoC) and the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) have been working together in recent years to provide training on inclusive leadership. Inclusive leadership is a way of leading that recognises and values diversity, and creates an environment where all individuals feel valued, a sense of belonging, respected and able to succeed.

Along with colleagues, I recently attended some training by the AoC and ETF on developing ourselves as inclusive leaders.

It was fascinating to experience and gave me insight into different perspectives from across education settings. One of the activities at the session involved was Lego Serious Play; an entertaining and interactive way of allowing us to consider what a truly inclusive FE environment looks like. Unless you've experienced Lego Serious Play, the concept may seem a little odd, but it’s a hands-on approach to creating visuals of what we wanted to see in our workplaces and demonstrate representations of inclusivity. Even more entertaining, but also educational, was the task of then explaining what we had chosen in our Lego models and why. The activity allowed everyone in the group to participate, contribute and commit to a solution-focus in terms of creating inclusive colleges.

It was this element of explaining why we'd built them in certain ways which stood out to me. As you may imagine, in a room of around 25 delegates from different organisations with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and job roles, there were various ways of interpreting what inclusive organisations could or should look like. Some of us built walls around the organisation to represent safe spaces. Others created models with open doors and windows to represent welcoming places for all people across the community to come and be a part of.

I was struck by one group's build, which depicted a wall around a shark to demonstrate that there may often be situations and behaviours which aren't inclusive, but these need to be contained, challenged and addressed. I thought that this was realistic and also highly representative of what education is about. We need to educate ourselves, each other and our students in ways that challenge the status quo and lead to improvements in the world around us. We also need to create the safe spaces to confidently address behaviours which are not inclusive or part of a supportive, developmental environment.

This training has been held across England in various locations, including Leeds, Birmingham and London. It will be fascinating to see how FE as a sector rises to the challenge of creating truly inclusive organisations which benefit their staff, students, communities and ultimately the 21st century UK workforce.

My takeaways

With all the training I do, I try to summarise briefly what my takeaways are so that I can use it going forward. However, this time I struggled to identify my takeaways. Maybe it was because of the size of the challenge and the importance of getting it right. There is so much involved in developing ourselves as inclusive leaders.
After much deliberation, my main three takeaways from the training day are:

1. Collaborate. Truly inclusive leadership requires collaborative working across all departments to consider challenges and ideas from different perspectives.
2. Do the work. It takes a lot of time and considered effort to build an inclusive organisation. In addition, don't get complacent because it can be dismantled too easily and when things go wrong it can have disastrous consequences unless they're addressed quickly, effectively and collaboratively.
3. Learn. This is perhaps the most obvious, especially in a sector which holds lifelong learning in high standing, but it is easy to become complacent and stuck in a routine. Not one of us knows everything and life is ever evolving. As leaders, whether that's directly in the classroom, or as managers at different levels across a variety of departments, we must all take the time to learn and develop ourselves so that we can effectively lead to create truly inclusive colleges.

Michelle Swallow,
English Lecturer and Learning Quality Manager, Bradford College

Michelle is an experienced FE English Lecturer and Learning Quality Manager at Bradford College. She also holds the responsibility of ensuring that all academic staff across the college are supported to confidently embed EDI in their teaching practice. She also writes her own weekly blog.