Inclusive Leadership: The New Normal Style for Diverse and Dynamic Organisations

Abstract

Workforces have become more demographically varied, more geographically dispersed, and more frequently reorganised than at any point in the recent history of management scholarship. Against this backdrop, inclusive leadership has emerged as a leadership style oriented towards helping people feel that they belong while still being recognised for what makes them distinct. This review draws together the empirical and conceptual literature on inclusive leadership to clarify what the construct means, where it comes from, how it operates, and where it still falls short. The review traces the construct from its origins in healthcare team research through its development into a relational leadership style studied across hospitality, technology, nursing, higher education, and remote work settings. It examines the personal and organisational conditions that give rise to inclusive leadership, the psychological mechanisms — chiefly psychological safety, voice, and a sense of being valued — through which it shapes employee behaviour, and the measurement tools used to capture it empirically. The review also considers boundary conditions that complicate a simple "more is better" reading of the evidence, including curvilinear effects on team innovation and unresolved questions about cross-cultural transportability. The discussion closes by identifying gaps that limit confident application of the construct in practice, principally a continued reliance on cross-sectional, self-report designs and an underdeveloped account of how inclusive leadership functions in fully remote and artificial-intelligence-mediated work. The review is intended for organisational scholars, human resource practitioners, and leadership development specialists seeking an integrated account of a literature that has grown rapidly but unevenly.