Inclusive Leadership in Practice for Senior Teams Training Solution

In this flexible, hands-on workshop, participants explore inclusive leadership, workplace power dynamics, privilege, psychological safety, and your existing organisational culture. The option to include a complementary pre-workshop culture diagnostic provides the chance to generate meaningful data insights to ground the conversation.

Through experiential activities, facilitated discussion, and interactive scenarios (optionally enacted by professional actors), leaders will leave this workshop with a deep understanding of how to move beyond unconscious bias to become consciously inclusive. The workshop concludes with the development of personalised action plans, ensuring each leader is equipped to promote genuine, collective progress.

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this workshop, participants will:

Identify personal biases and their impact on relationships and decision-making in the workplace.
Understand the difference between equality and equity and how to apply this to create a fair and supportive environment.
Recognise the impact of micro-behaviours in the workplace and explore how to address them

Understand the roles of trust, communication, and emotional intelligence in leading an inclusive culture.
Analyse team dynamics and organisational culture to determine effective practices and obstacles to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Develop personalised action plans aimed at encouraging consciously inclusive and psychologically safe work environments.

Workshop Outline...

Bias in Communication, Relationships, and Decision-Making: Participants will explore the subtle yet powerful ways in which personal biases influence their communication, relationships, and decision-making within the workplace. The New World Rules activity highlight how social norms and stereotypes can affect the quality of our communication. We’ll highlight how biases shape perception, behaviour, and reactions towards others, often unconsciously. Participants will be challenged to Think Fast, reflecting on how they listen, who they pay attention to, and how bias affects their attitude, actions, and leadership practices.

How this looks with actors: A live-acted scenario will bring these concepts to life, showcasing how bias affects interactions and decision-making in real-world workplace settings. Participants will witness a situation where bias subtly skews behaviour, then engage with the actors, asking questions to explore the motivations and consequences behind the characters’ actions. This immersive experience will enable participants to connect the theoretical aspects of bias to tangible, lived experiences in the workplace.

Privilege, Systemic Inequality, and Equity: Participants will explore how privilege and systemic inequality manifest within workplace structures, often in unseen ways. The distinction between equality and equity will be discussed, with practical examples used to illustrate how equity requires different approaches based on individual needs. Participants will reflect on how privilege and inequality influence outcomes in their own teams and organisations, identifying steps they can take to promote fairness and inclusion. This reflection will feed directly into their action plans, ensuring a practical application of these concepts moving forward.

Micro behaviours and Lived Experiences: Participants will examine the nuances of micro-behaviours – subtle, often unconscious acts of bias. Real-world examples and stories of lived experiences will help illustrate how these behaviours, though small, can have significant impacts on workplace culture and individual wellbeing – either with a video scenario from our library, or with the use of actors to bring these experiences to life.

How this looks with actors: Participants will witness the effect of micro behaviours on team dynamics – the subtle and often unnoticed behaviours that can alienate or undermine colleagues. The actors will demonstrate how micro-inequities or microaggressions can erode trust and confidence, particularly in marginalised groups. Participants will have the chance to ask questions, exploring the characters’ perspectives and the emotional impact of the micro behaviours.

Power Dynamics, Trust, and Emotional Intelligence: We turn our attention to the critical role leaders play in shaping workplace environments. Participants will explore the concept of formal and informal power, as well as the nuances of relational power. They will examine how their use of power can either build or erode psychological safety within their teams. The session will also link the importance of emotional intelligence to trust-building, with an EQ Self-Assessment, enabling participants to reflect on how they can lead more empathetically and consciously, and an overview of Coveys Thirteen Trust Behaviours.

Team Dynamics and Organisational Culture: Participants will explore the core elements of an inclusive culture and why it is essential for the success of their organisation. Drawing on Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment principles, they will engage in a Thinking Dialogue activity, designed to encourage reflectiong on how they can create a culture that promotes psychological safety and inclusive team dynamics. Through this process, participants will identify the key skills and behaviours of inclusive leaders, equipping them to lead meaningful change across their teams.

Action Planning and Learning Transfer: The workshop will conclude with an “Inclusive Leadership Self-Audit,” where participants reflect on their leadership skills, values, and potential biases. They will develop a personalised action plan focused on embedding inclusive leadership capabilities in their teams. This action plan will guide their efforts to foster psychological safety, build trust, and drive continuous growth in creating inclusive workplace environments.

Let's Talk!

We’re advocates of crafting tailormade solutions that ensure you meet objectives and maximise budgets. Contact us to book a meeting to scope the right solution for your organisation, together.

What About Actors?

Through clever script writing, goosebump-inducing delivery and professional facilitation, we love to bring learning to life with actors…

We can select scripts from our library or write them specially for you, based on typical scenarios you see within in your organisation. For larger projects where budgets don’t allow for live acting, we can professionally film bespoke scenarios to create video content which can be used in the training as well as induction, toolkits, and beyond.

Using actors in workshop give delegates the opportunity to:

Test out alternative ways of approaching what can sometimes be difficult situations, without the pressure of role playing themselves!
Explore what is acceptable and what isn’t; intent versus impact; and both the subtle, and not so subtle, behaviours we see play out in the workplace
Be immersed in an interactive learning experience that engages hearts and minds, and sticks in the long-term memory

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Don't Just Take Our Word For It

Nina Darling

UoP SHCP Teaching Fellow, University of Portsmouth

“The course which Paula provided was really engaging and nicely presented. The use of the actors was particularly good and actually bought the whole thing to life and made it really valuable learning. Thank you very much – it was fantastic!”

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Inclusive Leadership in Practice For Senior Teams

In-House Training, Available As: