The Contemporary Leader

Strategies and tools to become a better leader by developing an inclusive perspective at work

Instead of seeing inclusiveness as a “trendy concept,” The Contemporary Leader: The Value of Inclusion in Successful Leadership shows its audience on how inclusion is an emotion that is achieved only through effective practice abilities. This book delves into what inclusiveness promises us, discusses the relationship between inclusiveness, productivity, and diversity, evaluates concepts that are useful for us to increase our capacity for inclusion and looks at the obstacles that stand in the way of inclusion (such as unconscious prejudices) to help teach readers understand how to change and become an inclusive leader.

Written by Dr. Riza Kadilar, President of European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC Global), this book explores topics including:

• How inclusion is effected when people feel respected, valued, trusted and safe, have a sense of belonging and are able to be their best self
• Why diversity in aspects like age, appearance, culture and education can be turned into a benefit for any organisation
• Why leaders must regard the differences, and not be regardless of the differences, of their team members

The Contemporary Leader earns a well deserved spot on the bookshelves of all coaches and mentors, business leaders, HR professionals and managers who seek to reinvent their perspective surrounding timely interpersonal topics and achieve greater organisational cohesiveness and success as a result.

Foreword ix

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction xiii

1 Why Inclusion and Why Now? 1

What Do We Mean by Inclusion? 3

To What Change Does Inclusion Owe Its Current Importance? 5

2 The Relationship Between the Concepts of Inclusion, Productivity, and Diversity 27

Performance and Productivity, and Inclusion 29

Diversity and Inclusion 32

Psychological Diversity 34

Diversity Fuelled by Our Backdrop Stories 38

3 Leadership and Inclusion 41

Leadership Paradigms 45

The Place of the Concept of Leadership in My Life 59

4 Factors Affecting Our Capacity for Inclusion 63

Making Our Emotions Functional 65

Empathy 75

Power and How We Use Our Own 89

Trusting and Feeling Safe 91

Unconscious Biases 101

Project Implicit: Unconscious Associations 103

Cognitive Dissonance 112

Our Privileges 126

What We Exclude 130

Belonging and Independence 132

Invisibility and Being Excluded 138

5 Inclusion in the Personal Development Journey 145

A Memory 148

Growth Mindset 151

Developing a Growth Mindset 153

Learned Optimism 161

6 Inclusion Development Model in the Institutional Context 167

Institutional Inclusion Barometer 173

Development Strategy for Institutional Inclusion Capacity 175

7 Final Words 195

So How Shall We Design Our Futures in Light of These Developments? 197

If We Were to Give Advice to Ourselves from the Future 199

8 Sources for Inspiration 203

From Japanese Culture 205

The Athena Doctrine 209

Resilience 212

Change Management, Gestalt, and Coaching 228

Mentoring 240

Situational Leadership 253

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 257

Advice for a Data Scientist 265

Index 275

RIZA KADILAR, PHD, MBA, is the President of EMCC Global (European Mentoring and Coaching Council). He has 30 years’ experience as a senior executive in the European banking sector, is a sought-after speaker, and has acted as a visiting professor at leading universities. Kadilar offers mentoring and coaching services for C-level management, founders, and investors at startups, corporates, and financial institutions. He focuses particularly on growth and compliance issues and the creation of high-performing, inclusive leadership teams.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are more than the fashionable and controversial subjects they’ve been made out to be. They’re a bedrock of business resilience and adaptability, and, when harnessed effectively, a source of durable competitive advantage for companies of all shapes and sizes.

In The Contemporary Leader: The Value of Inclusion in Successful Leadership, veteran mentor, coach, speaker, and executive, Dr. Riza Kadilar, delivers an insightful new take on how inclusion is an emotion that is achieved only through effective practice abilities. You’ll explore what inclusiveness promises us, its relationships to productivity and diversity, and how to increase our capacity for inclusion in the face of obstacles that stand in our way, including unconscious prejudices and biases.

The author demonstrates how to enable people to feel respected, valued, trusted, and safe, and how to ensure they feel they belong. You’ll also learn about the benefits enjoyed by organizations that achieve diversity perspectives among their stakeholders, and why it’s important for leaders to value the differences amongst their team members.

Perfect for coaches and mentors working with clients at any level of the corporate and business hierarchies, The Contemporary Leader is also a must-read for executives, managers, directors, founders, business owners, entrepreneurs, and HR leaders interested in improving the resilience of the organizations to which they belong and achieving an enduring competitive advantage.

Become a transformative leader by creating an inclusive environment at work

The Contemporary Leader: The Value of Inclusion in Successful Leadership explains how to create and maintain an atmosphere of inclusion at work so you and your organization can benefit from diversity among your internal and external stakeholders. In the book, you’ll learn why inclusion is best understood as an emotion that is achieved only with the right leadership, and how it is best realized when leaders recognize and celebrate the differences of perspectives that make us unique.

Author Riza Kadilar explores how inclusion is created when your team members feel respected, valued, trusted, and safe, and when they feel they belong and can bring their best selves to their business and private lives.

The Contemporary Leader is perfect for managers, executives, directors, entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders. It’s also a must-read for HR professionals, coaches, and mentors ready to reinvent their perspectives on inclusion and transform their companies to gain an enduring competitive advantage.