The positive and negative impact of Inclusive Leadership

1. Introduction
The most essential resource of the organization in this challenging and rapidly changing business
environment is human resource, undoubtedly. Organizations are highly concerned with the development of
this critical resource as it is the key factor of sustainability in today’s competitive environment. Likewise,
the significance of leadership in organizations has become increasingly complex and vital because of the
impacts of emerging markets, technology advancements, globalization and the dire need of developing the
employees. The survival of the organization has been conditioned with their quick response and first moving
advantage in this complex and rapidly changing environment.(Atwater and Carmeli 2009, Nesterkin 2013,
Paulsen, Callan et al. 2013) To flourish in the current competitive environment organizations have to
embrace new complex changes for their survival (Pantano 2014, Fraj, Matute et al. 2015). These changes
persuade the organization to alter the strategies of work methods, procedures and policies (Van Woekrum,
Aarts and De Grip, 2007; Seppala, Lipponen, Bardi & Prittila-Backman, 2012). Therefore, organizations
strive to bring innovative products and services. In the light of all these circumstances the work behavior of
the employees has become crucial to manage to get the desired objectives and to meet the challenges of
current competitive market (Atwater and Carmeli 2009). To alter the behaviors leadership has a vital role in
any kind of organization. People can be influenced, inspired, motivated and involved through the right
appropriate guidelines, directions and behaviors.

“Leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue. To enlist support, leaders must have intimate knowledge of
people’s dreams, hopes, aspirations, visions, and values”.

__ Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge

The role of leaders is pivotal and condemnatory in todays’ business environment. The appropriate style of
leadership is also an essential factor for the desired behaviors of the employees and outcomes. Research
indicates that people will go beyond the expectations and required efforts if their belonging needs are met.
They want to feel valued, included and heard. Employees would exercise more freedom and autonomy to get
engaged in innovative behaviors when they were supported by their leaders (Foss L, Woll K, Moilanen M,
2013).

According to the Havard Business Review the new form of teams are increasingly emerged in organizations
which are diversed and multidisciplinary. These work teams are formed of people of different cultural
heritage, age groups, collective capabilities of men and women. A diverse workforce is essential for getting
high performance and maximizing employee potential, but simply throwing a mix of people does not
guarantee high performance, it requires inclusive leadership. According to the one of the Havard Research
teams with inclusive leaders are reported 17% high in performance, 20% high in quality decisions, 29% high
in behaving collaboratively and 10% high in work attendance.
Most of the researches have been spending their time and energy in looking for the management practices
that would bring job satisfaction, life satisfaction as well as the work engagement of the employees. They
have also been keeping in mind the factors that may result in employee deviant work behavior at their jobs.
This study would include the research on the positive and the negative outcomes of the inclusive leadership
that may have an impact on the employee performance at work (Swafffield, 2019). The research will focus
on the relationship between inclusive leadership and the positive work behavior (exceptional performance)
and negative work behavior (Deviant work behavior) with the meditating effect of self-reflection and self-
absorption as well as the moderating role of social dominance.

Nambhard and Edmondson proposed the concept of Inclusive leadership in 2006. It’s a leadership style that
not only acknowledge individual differences, engagements and contribution but also initiate certain
conscious steps that eliminates the chances and risks of being excluded of employees. It particularly focuses
on such organizational practices that pave the ways to nurture such an environment that facilitate employees
to build relationship, live a shared vision, and practice self-awareness. An inclusive leader manifests
accessibility, openness, and availability to his/her followers (Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon et al. 2010). Inclusive
leadership viewed as a relational leadership style in which leaders make his/her followers feel their
available to them by listening and paying attention(Hollander 2009). inclusive leaders are always concerned
about followers’ feelings and interests that enabled them to focus on how to support and nurture an
environment of two way communication, guidance and support by their availability.(Carmeli, Reiter-
Palmon et al. 2010). In this way inclusive leaders accept and value the differences of the people by
providing them a sense of belongingness. It will provide a competitive advantage to the organizations to get
exceptional performance of employees in today’s exceedingly diverse and disruption-prone work
environment.

According to the Armstrong (Armstrong 2011) Motivation is an objective-oriented behavior. Followers are
persuaded when their expectations about objective accomplishment can be appreciated to explicit foreseen
activities on part of the management. Essentially, motivation concerns "thought processes" and "needs";

Development of positive attitude can foster the motivated behaviors of employee for improving the
performances (Beardwell). That’s why the organizations are keenly interested not only in formulating and
executing the reward systems as well as the strategies for nurturing employees’ “self-esteem”. At the same
time, it is essential to understand that what type of reward systems are appropriate, effective and most
importantly perceived by the employees to enhance their performance. It will result in the attaining the goals
by a self-motivated workforce that exhibits the enthusiasm and accomplishment through exceptional
performance(Armstrong 2011).
1.1 Background of study:

Many different researches have been investigating to figure out the determinants that leads towards
exceptional performance and deviant work behavior of the employees. They have found various factors
that would be the cause of employees’ both type of behaviours. But one of the most effective thing is the
inclusive leadership. The inclusive leadership may have the positive impact as well as it may effect
negatively on the organizational workings. In the past most of the researchers have tried to find out the
relationship of job burnout and job satisfaction with the inclusive leadership and they had been successful up
to a certain level as they could figure out the relationship (Crossman, 2019).

In the modern world, that is increasingly defined by a variety of businesses these days. There are various
types of leadership approaches that are followed by the leaders of the companies.

Some of them were quite effective in the previous ages like democratic, autocratic and laissez-fare approach
of leadership but inclusive leadership is much better approach in a sense that it makes employees closer and
more comfortable with the leader. Inclusive leadership may have the positive aspects and it may also have
the negative impact on the business. These positive and negative aspects would be analysed in the research
that would be conducted for inclusive leadership.

Inclusive leadership has also its dual impact like other leadership style. People get self-reflected through the
Inclusive leaders that enabled them to show exceptional performance at their work place. Inclusive leaders
support their employees in a way to make them feel autonomy and freedom and resultantly employee engage
themselves in innovative behavior. (Foss L, Woll K, Moilanen M, 2013). Boren argued that inclusive leaders
enhanced the capacity and the potential of the followers by improving their trust through making them
exercise different skills (Boren LA, 1994). More positive outcomes are there if leader-follower relationships
are of high quality (Basu & Green, 1997, Costigan, Insinga et al, 2006). The environment of the greater
sense of responsibility, autonomy in decisions, availability of information, support, feedback and
encouragement is created by the appropriate inclusiveness (Arnold JA et al, 2000). These factors, if
positively adopted by the employees, lead towards the self-reflection of the employees and then they get
involved in the work processes own the responsibility and show exceptional performance.

Self-reflection is highly created by inclusive leadership style. As leaders are closer to the followers than any
other leadership style so he/she has more opportunities to bring best out of the employees. Due to the
closeness and comfortability level the feed back is also observed more quickly than other situations.
Inclusive leaders provide the most supportive situation that heightens the meaningfulness and self-
determination of the employees and increase their level of intrinsic motivation. (Randel et al 2017).
Inclusive leaders play a significant role to enhance the positive feeling and emotions of the followers.
(Hollender, 2009). One of the major quality of Inclusive leader is accessibility that causes to develop the
attitude self-worth and self-identity among the employees. ( Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993; Edmondson,
Kramer, & Cook 2004).

At the same time it is observed that sometimes due to the closer relationship of leader-follower, people take
for granted this relationship. Not significant research has been found on the dark side of inclusive leadership
and this is the significance of the study that this research will identify and prove the negative impact of this
style of leadership that may observed and reported in actual workplaces but not researched in deep so far.

1.2 Statement of the problem

“To find out the positive as well as the negative impact of the inclusive leaders and the significances of
those impacts on favorable and non-favorable attitudes and behaviors of the employees” .

With the enormous growth in the competition in the world, it is highly important for the companies to have
such leaders who would lead their businesses to the heights of success. In order to do that the leaders must
use the effective strategies because their one wrong decision can give a huge loss to the business
organization. The loss in the business is a great deal as it may affect many lives. Hence, in this research it
would be figured out that either the inclusive leadership plays a role in the success of the business or
whether it is a mere theory and is not very effective in nature. The research would identify the positive and
the negative impact of the Inclusive leadership, that ultimately have an impact first on the attitude of the
employee then behaviors of them.

1.3 Objectives of the study

The main objective of this study is to find out the positive and the negative outcomes of the inclusive
leadership. The research would be conducted by keeping in mind the following objectives that have to be
fulfilled:

 To understand the positive influence of inclusive leadership on the employee productivity.

 To understand that whether the inclusive leadership leads to employee job satisfaction.
 To understand that the inclusive leadership may have a negative impact on the overall production of
the organization.
 To understand that whether the inclusive leadership leads to the employee burnout.
 Analysis of the negative impact of inclusive leadership on the organization and employee behavior.
 Find out the ways to show a self reflection to the inclusive leaders so that they can make themselves
better leaders by self absorption.
Research framework:

Social Dominance

Self-reflection Exceptional
performance
Inclusive
Leadership
Deviant work
Self-absorption behavior

Social Dominance

1.4 Hypotheses of the Study

Following are the hypothesis that are made for conducting this research study:

Hypothesis 1: Inclusive leadership has a positive impact on the employee’s self- determination.

Hypothesis 2: Inclusive leadership results in employee job satisfaction that leads to exceptional
performance.

Hypothesis 3: there is a indirect relationship between the inclusive leadership and the social dominance
attitude.

Hypothesis 4: there seems to be a negative relationship between the inclusive leadership and employee’s
attitude.

Hypothesis 5: Inclusive leadership may result in negative employee attitude of self-absorption.

Hypothesis 6: Inclusive leaders may need to go through self reflection to make themselves better leaders.

Hypothesis 7: Inclusive leadership may leads to deviant work behavior of employees.

1.5 Significance of the Study

This research study would analyze the relationship of inclusive leadership to various factors that contribute
to the success of the organization. It would also find out that whether it effects the business more positively
or negatively. The results of this research study would be contributing to the researches of the people that
have been done in the past in understanding the best leadership styles that can be used for an organization to
become successful. This research would be adding value to the lives of people as well in such away that the
leaders would come across the positive and negatives outcomes of the inclusive leadership so they would
have an opportunity to use it in some cases and omit in some cases. This research would also contribute to
the literature that is present about leadership strategies and styles. The practitioners can also find the
knowledge of the positive or negative impact of the inclusive leadership style on the businesses.

2. THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Inclusive leadership is a development of the style of social association, which highlights the efforts of
leaders and followers in which leaders focus on providing the suitable working environment to the
employees of the company. A study of this style of action was conducted to improve the current style of
"leader" authority (e.g. Transformational, authoritative), which highlights the change in standard leader
characteristics to improve the individuals. This leadership style combines quality independently to organize
leader’s information. Striking because fan-driven, wide-ranging activities emphasize how supporters can
undoubtedly have amazing interaction with each other and directly influence leaders. For example, while
transformational leadership relies solely on quality to validate supporters' feedback that can build their
confidence in achieving goals (Burrell, 2018).

Inclusive leadership is basically having a negative impact on the employees as well as on the overall
productivity of the employees. This is because they may get upset due to such rude behavior of their
manager or may get lazy if they are relaxed so much so this does not show motivation for work in the
employees. The previous researches on the impact of inclusive leadership does not show much work being
done on the negative impact of the leadership. Most of the work in the past researches is focused on the
positive impact of the leadership. Sometimes the leaders have to be tough and rigid in their rules and
regulations otherwise their colleagues may not take them seriously and would make them feel as if they do
not have any important as being a boss. This is actually the negative phenomenon of being an inclusive
leader. The leaders should not only for the interest of their workers but they are actually running a business
whose main objective is profit maximization and their job is also based on that business. so it is important
that they understand the need of the hour and get focused on the organizational goals rather than being
people oriented (Dillard, 2018).

An inclusive leadership allows leaders to dynamically excite employees without changing their
methodology. Inclusive leaders are sympathetic, open and available in contact with employees. As
supporters, employees are becoming the rule, they worry about relationships when it comes to data sources
and individual limits. The type of intensity can give a logically fundamental achievement, helping with
current arrangement issues in the general market. This can give different leveled skills for using contrasting
potential employee contact points, also as an update convincing the unusually participatory situation in
current coordinated organized activities (Wanjiru, 2019).

Social dominance theory is applicable in explaining the context of inclusive leadership. This theory was first
put forward by the two researchers named as Jim Sidanius and Felicia Pratto in 1999. The theory basically
explains the hierarchical perceptions of leaders. The theory of social dominance can be applied in an
organization as well in order to understand the way that there are various levels of hierarchy in the
companies (Stewart, 2018).

A difference between self awareness and self absorption can be seen when a person has an effect on others.
Self awareness is basically kindness that a person may show with others because his own personality is to be
polite and being kind. He can express those feelings that he has inside him. The self awareness and self
absorption can be related with the inclusive leadership. The inclusive leaders can play their role in the
organization positively or negatively. So the self awareness and self absorption can be considered as the
positive and negative aspects of inclusive leaders. The self awareness is the positive aspect of the inclusive
leaders because due to their kindness they can understand the emotions of the employees and can provide
them space and comfortable working environment (Lee, 2017).

However, self absorption can be described as the a person considers the matters from his own perspective.
The person only prioritize the things that suit him or which are comfortable for him or what he thinks would
be good for others as well from his point of view. Self absorption can be a negative aspect of the inclusive
leaders. This is because the self absorption is prioritizing the things according to the perspective of a leader
himself. This shows that the inclusive leader actually imposes his decisions on the employees without
consulting with them anything which can be quite irritating for the workers who are working under his
supervision.

Various assessments examined the relationship between reality and prosperity, using the results achieved
and mental flowering. To develop the giant's practice of confirming validity in working conditions, this
assessment seeks to see the relationship between reality and duty to work and burnout through several
hypotheses, previous disclosures and other supportive clashes (Fang, 2019).
The duty to work is a positive perspective related to business. Particularly related to delegates is the idea of
perseverance while working in challenges (authority), required for vitality (duty) and difficult to associate
with work (maintenance). The tedious number of hypotheses was convenient in examining how to extend
the duty of agents to work. There is a solid argument about the central nature of approaching action to
transfer agents to a higher duty of work. Supportive closeness can be achieved thanks to the full proximity
of agents in their activities, where employees may want to give their mastered and authentic self at work and
directly deal with belonging and the process of dealing with matters that show their character and the most
unprecedented work. These considerations explicitly took into account the change in the authenticity of
operators in giving the meaning of work at the moment the obligation to work (Burrell, 2018).
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