Why Inclusive Leadership Falls Flat Without an Intercultural Lens

Cappadocia, Turkey

The desire to feel included is universal, but how inclusion is experienced depends as much on how it is practiced as on what is intended. For leaders operating across borders and cultures, ignoring this reality is no longer an option.

My Path Into Inclusion: Research, Practice, and Lived Experience

My journey began in academia. In my undergraduate and Master’s studies, I explored how states and political actors include—or exclude—certain groups through policy, political discourse, and national narratives. My doctoral research examined how we prepare future history teachers to create inclusive classrooms, focusing on how marginalized histories have been taught—or erased—and tracing the evolution of DEI training in teacher education programs across North America and the UK. This work grounded my understanding of inclusion in theory, evidence, and policy, while also surfacing the nuanced differences in how inclusion takes shape even in seemingly similar English-speaking contexts—highlighting both the promise and the limits of structural and overarching approaches.

Alongside research, applied experiences brought these questions to life. Teaching, working and volunteering in culturally diverse classrooms, organizations and communities both in Canada and internationally illuminated the structural, organizational and cultural factors that shape whether inclusive intentions translate into inclusive impact.

Later, as a Foreign Service Officer, I shifted focus from classrooms and communities to global workplaces and organizational leadership, and it was here that culture really emerged as my focal point of interest. Leading IRCC’s Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ARDEI) strategy for its Foreign Service allowed me to apply both research and practice to support colleagues across more than 60 missions worldwide. 

With research, policy, and lived experience woven together, patterns became clear: inclusion is aspirationally universal, but its experience is deeply contextual. Leaders play a decisive role in shaping that experience, and without deliberate attention to context, even well-intentioned initiatives can fall short.

What Doesn’t Work in Inclusion (Even When Well-Intentioned)

Across research and practice, the same pitfalls appear again and again:

❌ One-off DEI trainings They feel performative, not transformative.

❌ “Preached” inclusion with no structural change Words without alignment erode trust.

❌ Burdening marginalized groups with the work of inclusion Often through unpaid committees or “volunteer” roles, with limited to no power or influence.

❌ Measuring success by attendance instead of impact Exposure is not the same as changed behaviour.

❌ Exporting North American models globally Leaders often assume inclusion practices developed in one cultural context will automatically succeed in another—they won’t.

Many excellent practitioners, shapers and thinkers in the inclusion space have addressed the first four of these pitfalls and provided alternative approaches that are far more effective and sustainable.

Yet the fifth—exporting North American–centric models across cultural contexts—has received far less attention. While there are some efforts bridging intercultural competence and inclusion, the two fields largely operate in parallel, guided by separate groups of practitioners and thinkers rather than intentionally integrated. This represents a missed opportunity: as long as they remain mostly separate, they fail to reinforce one another. To achieve true inclusion in global or multicultural environments, inclusion efforts must be designed and implemented with intercultural awareness at their core. Some argue that leaders who are interculturally competent are inherently inclusive, but I see a clear need to formalize the partnership between the two, ensuring that intention translates to impact across contexts.

Culture: The Critical Context for Inclusion

Before I continue, I should preface this by acknowledging a common critique in the study of culture: the tendency to treat it as static or tied rigidly to nationhood. On the contrary, cultures are dynamic, contested, and internally diverse, shaped by intersecting social, historical, and institutional forces. That said, broad cultural tendencies—reflected in norms, expectations, and shared practices—can still provide useful guidance for understanding how behaviours are interpreted across workplace contexts. A leadership approach that fosters trust and engagement in one setting may unintentionally unsettle or alienate individuals in another if these contextual nuances are ignored. Leaders who pay attention to these patterns and adapt their practices thoughtfully are better able to translate inclusive intent into meaningful experience.

This nuance is especially relevant for leaders operating in global environments. For example, encouraging open feedback may be critical to inclusion in some contexts, but without understanding local cultural norms, such initiatives can create discomfort or resistance rather than engagement. Similarly, demonstrating vulnerability—a widely celebrated leadership trait in many Western frameworks—does not always resonate, or may be misinterpreted, in hierarchical or collectivist settings.

Exceptional leaders observe, listen, and calibrate their practices to the realities of the environments they lead. They bridge aspiration and experience, ensuring that inclusion is not just a principle but a lived reality of their teams. By consciously integrating intercultural competence into inclusion efforts, leaders can create spaces where policies, practices, and behaviours align to produce tangible, positive outcomes for all members of their teams.

Why This Matters Now

Teams now span time zones and cultures, and hybrid work has made diversity a daily reality. Organizations need leaders who can navigate these intercultural dynamics while younger generations demand genuine inclusion, fairness, and representation. Inclusive leadership is no longer optional—but neither is cultural attunement. The most effective leaders today combine both: inclusion intentionally grounded in intercultural competence, responsive to the norms and tendencies of the contexts in which teams operate.

What’s Coming: A 4-Part Series on Inclusion Across Cultures

Inclusion doesn’t always translate across cultures. Why? How? And what actually works? I’m breaking it down in a four-part weekly series:

• Looking through a cultural lens: How seemingly “neutral” organizational frameworks are culturally embedded

• Inclusive leadership pitfalls: What research and experience reveal about the need for cultural attunement

• Making inclusion stick globally: How to design practices that truly resonate across contexts

For leaders—or aspiring leaders—of global teams, this series delivers practical guidance informed by research, enriched by lived experience across cultures, and honed through leading a global inclusion strategy spanning 60 offices worldwide.

A Final Note

This article kicks off my next chapter as a leadership coach and intercultural consultant. I’m excited to share insights, learn from others, and connect with leaders who know today’s leadership demands both courage and cultural attunement.

More to come…

(This article was originally published on my LinkedIn on December 1, 2025)