Benefits of the Inclusive Leaders Assessment (ILA)
Did you know that 85% of employees take more initiative when they receive feedback in the workplace and that employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform their best work? Countless engagement surveys have revealed that nearly all people in an organization, at all levels, crave honest, constructive feedback, and a feeling of ownership in their personal careers as well as the workplace culture. The Inclusive Leaders Assessment (ILA) provides a gateway to this kind of open sharing among colleagues.
The ILA provides myriad benefits at the individual, cohort/department, and organizational levels. Backed by research and designed to be easily navigable, the ILA offers a safe space for folks to provide, and for you to receive, honest feedback, as well as concrete steps and behaviors to help you and your organization along on your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) journey. Each of our Core Skills for Inclusive Leaders, and the questions that measure them, is based on research and provides participants with an effective and informative way to understand and grow in their inclusive behaviors.
3 Ways the ILA Benefits Participants
Bridge the Gap Between Intent and Impact
As a participant, you will receive an individualized report comparing how you rated yourself to how your colleagues rated you on the same inclusive behaviors. This allows you to bridge the gap between intent and impact—how you see yourself behaving compared to how others experience you. The report specifically categorizes behaviors into known strengths, unknown strengths, known weaknesses, and unknown weaknesses to help you quickly see where key gaps may be, and where you may wish to seek more feedback from your colleagues. In this way, your ILA report becomes a tool for opening more lines of honest dialogue at your workplace, and beyond.
Safe Environment for Honest Feedback
Because of its guarantee of anonymity, the ILA provides a supportive, non-judgmental way to give and receive feedback. As noted, this kind of honest feedback helps you open the door to deeper in-person conversations with your reviewers, and research shows that knowing one’s voice is heard is a powerful way to increase engagement. It can also help build self-awareness by giving you an idea of how far along you are on the journey of inclusion.
Powerful Tool for Learning and Self-Reflection
Finally, the ILA report provides plenty of discussion questions to promote self-reflection as well as group conversations within cohorts, or within your own team. This makes it a useful tool for driving behavioral change because it provides concrete actions to take, as opposed to vague suggestions. Be sure to keep following through on these discussions with your colleagues, as many surveys reveal that frequent feedback is essential to a healthy workplace culture for all. Action begets results, and if you find it difficult to know where to start in terms of being more inclusive, the ILA is here to help you take that first step.
3 Ways the ILA Benefits Reviewers
Safe Space to Share Honest but Anonymous Feedback
If your colleagues have ever wanted a safe environment to anonymously share honest feedback, look no further than our Inclusive Leaders Assessment (ILA). As invited reviewers, they will get the opportunity to provide you with feedback on more than 30 inclusive behaviors, and their responses will be included in the reviewer aggregate scores you receive as part of your ILA report.* In addition, open text box responses provide reviewers a place to share more specific experiences about what you are doing well and what areas you can improve in. This helps bring the data to life and provides you with tangible examples of how your behaviors and words are received. This privacy helps encourage more honest feedback, which, in turn, gives you a clearer picture of how your words and actions are experienced by those around you.
*To preserve anonymity, participants must nominate at least 5 reviewers, and have at least 3 respond, to view results for a given question.
Specific Feedback Tailored to Your Reporting Relationships
ILA questions are filtered based on a reviewer’s reporting relationship to you, allowing each reviewer to provide more personalized feedback. We encourage you to invite as many different types of reviewers as possible (from direct reports to peers, and even external stakeholders) to build a more comprehensive picture of how your intentions are received in, and outside of, your workplace. Doing so can help you understand how various colleagues experience your impact, and if you might be behaving differently depending on the person.
Opens the Door to Future Conversations
The ILA includes many discussion questions that encourage leaders to seek more real-life feedback, and open the lines of communication. Inviting a colleague as a reviewer signals that you are open to hearing feedback and looking to grow in your inclusive leadership capabilities. If you are a people manager, this can set the stage for your team to see this type of learning as a priority. After all, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion can only work if everyone is on board.
3 Ways the ILA Benefits Your Organization
Helps DEI Initiatives Succeed from the Top Down
Change happens from the top down; an organization’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives can be up to 121% more successful when embraced by top leadership4, 5 and when they align with organizational goals.6 Embracing and sharing the ILA’s results sends a signal to members of the organization that inclusive behaviors are a priority. Systemic change is never easy but having support from the highest levels is instrumental in shifting an entire workplace’s culture toward more inclusive and equitable policies and practices.
Identify High-Level Trends
Our Inclusive Leader Assessment (ILA) aggregate report is designed for human resources and talent professionals, senior leaders, and anyone else thinking strategically about inclusive leadership, DEI, and their combined effect on their organization’s culture. The report displays overall averages for both participants and reviewers and is extremely useful for spotting larger trends across time and different cohorts. By looking at inclusive behaviors across the whole organization, leadership is better equipped to implement changes that will benefit people from a variety of identity points across the organization.
Allows a Diverse Group of Voices to be Heard
Finally, both the ILA’s individual and aggregate reports have “Take a Moment to Consider” questions that support expanding the conversation of inclusion beyond individual participants to teams and working groups. Participants are encouraged to invite as many different types of colleagues as they can, particularly those with differing viewpoints, experiences, and backgrounds to provide feedback on how they are experienced at work. By including as many voices in the conversation as possible, our assessment is a way to begin open and frank discussions in a safe environment. When participants leverage the reflection questions included in their reports as conversation starters with their team it can open doors to more direct, in-person conversations that help people understand the impact of their behaviors and close any gaps that exist between intent and impact. Similarly, PMs and company leaders may use the discussion questions in the aggregate report to identify which demographics should be tapped for more specific feedback on how the organization could better engage them. Employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform better.
References
Kular, S., Gatenby, M., Rees, C., Soane, E., & Truss, K. (2008). Employee engagement: A literature review.
Mehta, D., & Mehta, N. K. (2013). Employee engagement: A literature review. Economia. Seria Management, 16(2), 208-215.
Randel, A. E., Dean, M. A., Ehrhart, K. H., Chung, B., & Shore, L. (2016). Leader inclusiveness, psychological diversity climate, and helping behaviors. Journal of Managerial Psychology.
https://fisher.osu.edu/blogs/leadreadtoday/dei-initiatives-should-start-management