Why are inclusive leaders necessary for organizational success?

• The desired end state is increased lethality, military efficiency and overall mission effectiveness.

• Cohesion is a critical driver of an organization’s effectiveness.

• Treating each Marine, despite DIVERSE backgrounds, with care and respect are fundamental to cohesion.

• EQUITY and INCLUSION are inalienable components of care and respect.

• Marine leaders are responsible for learning to leveraging the talents of our diverse force. Leaders who commit to creating inclusive organizations that treat each Marine with care and respect are able to leverage the full array of their Marines’ talents to accomplish missions.
   

How should i THINK ABOUT EQuity & inclusion?

Today and the future are characterized by increasingly diverse populations and complex rapidly changing problem-sets. Success in this environment requires leaders to take EQUITABLE and INCLUSIVE actions to create INCLUSIVE organizational cultures that can access the full potential their people and organizations to confront these challenges and be effective.

How can I be an inclusive leader?

Use an intentional systematic approach of CALIBRATION, CONNECTION and COHESION to build and maintain an inclusive organization.

CALIBRATION

• Become aware of your personal biases through self-reflection and self-structure​

  • ​Take the Harvard Implicit Association Test

• Obtain cultural intelligence about others especially those in your organization from different backgrounds.​ Read the following:

  • One Tribe Requires Inclusion, Colonel Chris Shaw, USMC

Issues for Consideration:

• Recognize that different members of your unit may have different views of the Marine Corps, Marine Corps policies, your unit and your unit policies due to filters derived from different backgrounds. Understand different Marines may require different methods to develop common understandings of unit goals.

• Learn the backgrounds of Marines in your unit. Examples of backgrounds include: race, gender, sexual orientation, marital/parental status, education, language proficiency, other skills, whether they hail from urban, suburban, or rural areas, and other personal attributes developed from varying cognitive, experiential, and demographic dimensions.​

  • Set organization culture by establishing acceptable and unacceptable behaviors

  • Obtain awareness of subcultures within your organization 

  • Establish your organization’s punishment and reward policy and determine how and if those policies will account for Marines with different circumstances.

  • Review the definitions of the following terms:

    • ​​DIVERSITY – All the different characteristics and attributes of individuals that complement our core values, contribute to our warfighting capabilities, and ensure our connectedness to the American public.​

    • EQUITY – The fair and equal treatment, access, advancement, and opportunity for all Marines, Sailors, and civilian Marines based on individual skills, abilities, aptitude, performance, and merit.

    • INCLUSION – The integration of each individual’s differences into the way an organization functions and makes decisions.

    • CALIBRATION – A leader’s process determining, checking, or rectifying his/her biases, stereotypes and views as it pertains to the people that they lead and with whom they serve. Leaders can direct their team members to also complete such a “calibration” process.

    • CONNECTION – closeness to a group and satisfaction with one’s relationship to others in the group. Higher connectedness is linked to improved readiness, higher retention.

    • COHESION – Whether individuals in a workplace care about each other, share the same mission and goals, and work together effectively. Cohesive organizations are linked to improved readiness and retention. Distinguish between offensive and defensive methodologies; and then use both in a complimentary manner.

    • DEFENSIVE actions are focused on compliance, tolerance, preserving, and required remedial responses that punish disruptive behaviors in order to minimize poor command climate.

    • OFFENSIVE actions are focused on lethality, commitment, acceptance, leveraging, and preventative actions that incentivize positive behaviors in order to create a culture of inclusion.

• To win in this space we must shift from a defensive culture of reluctant compliance to an offensive culture of committed inclusion.​

COHESION

• Make an overt visible commitment to care for and respect all your Marines regardless of background. 

• Allow effective and deeper collaboration through trust.

• Recognize teams solve problems faster when they are more cognitively diverse.

• Recognize because of diverse thinking the team is greater than a sum of its parts.

• Actively work to ensure all Marines feel that they belong.

• Accept each Marine for their unique characteristics and abilities.

  • Assess the level of cohesion in your organization.

• Review Command Climate Surveys with an eye towards whether your organization is inclusive and cohesive.

• Create and use an assessment methodology that best fits your organization

• Your assessment should include at least the following areas:

  • Horizontal Bonding:

    • ​​Do team members (Junior Enlisted, NCOs, SNCOs, and Officers) have confidence in their peers?

    • Do team members have a sense of loyalty and commitment to their peers?

  • ​Vertical Bonding:

    • Do the organization’s members have a sense of loyalty or commitment to their NCOs, SNCOs, and Officers? Do the NCOs, SNCOs, and Officers have similar feelings of loyalty and commitment to their Marines?

    • Do the organization’s members have confidence in their NCOs, SNCOs, and Officers? Similarly, do the Officers, SNCOs, and NCOs have confidence in each other and in their Marines?

  • Commitment to Unit:

    • Do organization members (all ranks) know what commander’s values and priorities are?

    • Do the members of his or her unit act as if they shared them?

    •   Has an environment of learning been established in the organization?

• After assessment re-CALIBRATE, re-CONNECT and re- evaluate levels of COHESION because this is an Iterative process due to the continuous inflow/outflow of leaders and Marines.

Connection​

• Obligation to provide consistent appropriate care for all your Marines with a recognition that different Marines may need different types of care to make the organization and Marine successful.

  • Read The Relations Between Officers and Men, LtGen John A. Lejeune

  • ​Read MCDP-6, Command and Control, Pages 39-55

connection:

• Learn what is going on within your organization.

  • ​Develop and maintain a keen curiosity about others in your unit.

  • Establish an organization social media presence.

  • Walk the perimeter as often as possible

  • Maintain an open-door policy

  • Hold periodic town halls.

  • Establish listening groups within the unit to provide you with feedback. Meet with these groups periodically and allow them to bring issues to your command team. For example, the listening groups can be made up of SNCOs, NCOs, LCpls and below, women, and racially underrepresented groups.

  • Develop greater mutual understanding of each other.

  • Use the Commander's Guide for Uncomfortable Conversations Inclusion Advisory Group to assist you in having dialogue regarding race, gender, and service in your organization.

  • Provide your organization a Constitutional Law class that discusses the Oath of Office, the Constitution and what it means to each of your Marines. Such a class should reveal the views of your Marines on these topics.

  • When time permits, explain your actions and policies.

  • Mentor broadly and support mentorship throughout the organization.

  • Mentor beyond only those who you share a similar background with and those who you consider strong Marines.

  • Create distinctive and memorable experiences that all members of the team can bond around. 

HOW SHOULD I THINK ABOUT EQUITY AND INCLUSION?

• Warfighting remains a clash of human wills and susceptible to the complexities, inconsistencies and peculiarities of human behavior. Throughout the competition continuum and within combat and non-combat formations human factors can increase or deplete organizational cohesion which is key to its mission accomplishment and individual Marine fulfilment. All Marine leaders are responsible for maintaining and building cohesive organizations by protecting and building trust in individual Marines and their teams. Unit commanders have a critical role in establishing command environments that set the conditions for cohesion. Cohesion can be created, maintained and increased by using Equity and Inclusion strategies that help you protect Marines and harvest their talents.

• The necessity for equitable inclusive leadership has always existed. Yet, today and into the future, the Corps must commit to using inclusive leadership because the Marine Corps is the most diverse it has ever been and will only increase in its diversity. Further, the Corps must utilize immerging technologies in garrison and on battlefields. Our time calls for inclusive leaders at all levels to cultivate innovative learning environments that aid our Marines in leveraging immerging technologies to maintain and increase our competitive edge.  Conversely, leaders who ignore the diverse elements within their units may, at best, stagnate progress by not tapping into unknown strengths and knowledge at worst, they may make their organization obsolete or ineffective due to discord, dissent and lack of cohesion.
   

• Read:

• Commandant of the Marine Corps Policy Statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

• ​MCDP 1, Warfighting pages 1-12 to 1-15, 1-18

• MCWP 6-11, Leading Marines pages 31 (values), 58-59 (moral courage), 81-82  (fighting power), 97-98 (military leadership/mentorship), 101-105 (core values, leadership traits and principles, and honor).

• Commandant's Planning Guidance, 2019 pages 21-22

• Talent Management 2030 page 5

• USMC Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Strategic Plan

• 'Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion: Why this is important to the Corps as a warfighting organization' LtGen David Ottignon & BGen Jason Woodworth, Marine Corps Gazette, Jul 21 (20-min read).