Inclusive leadership starts with knowing your own biases

Executive overview

Most leaders support inclusion in principle but struggle to act on it moment to moment. The gap between intention and impact — not lack of commitment — is what holds inclusive cultures back.

The framework from Susan MacKenty Brady's work at Simmons University moves through three stages: becoming aware, becoming an ally, and becoming an upstander. Each stage builds the practical skills needed to act, not just intend.

The core insight: you cannot create an inclusive culture without first confronting biases you didn't know you had.

The three stages of inclusive leadership

• Becoming aware — understanding your own biases and what equity actually means in practice
• Becoming an ally — actively supporting people from different social identities
• Becoming an upstander — speaking or acting in the moment when something isn't right
• Awareness without action keeps leaders stuck; upstanding requires behavior change, not just good intentions
• Most leaders are comfortable identifying as allies; upstanding is the harder, less-practiced step

Why implicit bias tests matter

• Project Implicit offers free tests that surface biases leaders don't consciously hold
• Brady — raised by a single father, working in women's leadership — still tested with a moderate bias toward "women and family, men at work"
• The tests force an either/or choice that mirrors how the brain actually assigns associations
• A bias isn't a failing; it's data that can replace existing mental models when you catch it
• The question isn't whether you have bias — you do — it's which ones and how they show up

Seeing difference vs. ignoring it

• "I don't see color" or "gender doesn't matter to me" prevents leaders from seeing how society treats people differently
• Inclusion requires actively noticing difference, not erasing it
• Unearned privilege is often invisible to those who hold it — Brady's example: being tall meant she rarely felt physically unsafe, a reality many women don't share
• You can't value equity if you can't see inequity

Ally vs. upstander: the key distinction

• Ally: supports the advancement of someone from a different social identity — a disposition and identity
• Upstander: acts in the moment when someone is ignored, talked over, or misrepresented
• Upstanding example: if a colleague's idea gets credited to someone else, naming that in or after the meeting — without diminishing anyone — is upstanding
• Upstanding can happen privately ("hey, I noticed you talked over Sally a couple of times") or publicly, depending on context

How to start taking upstander action

• Begin one-on-one: ask colleagues with different identities what they see that you don't, and what enables or blocks their ability to thrive
• Take interpersonal risks from a grounded place — not shame, not grandiosity, but genuine respect for self and others
• Check in after you act: did your attempt at inclusion actually land that way?
• Brady's example: singling out a Puerto Rican team member to speak about Spanish as a first language — well-intentioned, but experienced as othering
• Find two or three truth-tellers who will tell you how you actually come across

Repairing when you miss the mark

• Relationships cycle through harmony, disharmony, and repair — repair is what returns you to harmony
• When you make someone uncomfortable, it is not their job to make you feel better afterward
• Self-talk matters: acknowledge the misstep, affirm you're learning, then focus on how to repair for the other person
• The quality of repair matters more than the misstep itself
• Fear of messing up is the main reason leaders never take inclusion risks in the first place — fast, humble repair removes most of that risk

The best self centering practice

• Before taking an interpersonal risk, check: am I coming from a place of respect — for myself and for the other person?
• Two failure modes to watch: shame (pulling back, staying silent) and grandiosity (assuming you've got it right)
• The practice is a return, not a permanent state — you will fall out of center; the skill is coming back
• Leading from this grounded place makes it possible to act, miss, repair, and keep going