27. The Inner Work of Inclusive Leadership with Rose Cartolari

The Inner Work of Inclusive Leadership “We need to be able to be so attuned to what’s going out around you. And the only way to do that in a stable way is by being rooted in the way you are. In really understanding…OK, is this me? This constant evaluating.” In Episode 27, I am joined by Rose Cartolari, Founder and Director of RC Consulting, which specialises in Leadership Advisory and Executive Coaching, to discuss the inner work of inclusive leadership, primarily focusing on the importance of self-reflection and flexibility as a leader, and the dissonance between being a successful leader and an inclusive leader. Rose’s interest in DEI is evident through her 30-year career journey. Rose has had experiences in management roles for large organisations such as American Express and UNICEF, and experiences teaching at elite business schools in the US and Italy, as well as co-founding and serving as COO of Scharper Pharmaceuticals SpA. Rose’s experiences has empowered her to embark on a mission to bring diverse voices into all spaces where decisions are made. To accomplish her mission in promoting DEI, she is a TedX speaker, a co-author of Winning Mindset and she serves on the Executive Committee of European Women on Boards. She also sits on the Advisory Board of DiverCity magazine and is a member of the invitation-only Forbes Coaches Council. Upon exploring what DEI means to her, we speak about the importance of being an inclusive leader, such as the difficulties in balancing the intellectual friction between creating a culture of psychological safety and a culture that promotes freedom of speech, and the challenges technology and global ways of working bring to leaders in the DEI space. As we explore in our conversation, there seems to be a disconnect in what is required from leaders - as an inclusive leader, it is important to show humanity and vulnerability to your employees, but as a successful leader, it is important to show competence. The difficulties in balancing these intellectual frictions are what is dampening the efforts of leaders to fully embrace diversity, equity and inclusion.Rose mentions that in order to help them overcome these difficulties, it is imperative that there is a renewed focus on empowering leaders, not on fixing them in the DEI space. To finish our conversation, I ask Rose about how leaders can learn to embrace the inner work of inclusion. She believes it lies greatly on self-reflection, having that courage to take that step towards inclusion, receiving support and encouragement from others and leading with empathy. As such, leaders can then become someone who is reliable, trustworthy and influential, but it takes courage to make that step towards diversity, equity and inclusion. She finishes insightfully by saying that we should focus on ‘not carrying leaders but really coaching them, not fixing them but empowering them’. By doing this, we are taking a step further in promoting and perfecting the inner work of inclusive leadership. Links: Rose can be found on: · LinkedIn at Rose Cartolari · Twitter at @Rosecartolari · Facebook at Rose Cartolari For more from RC Consulting, you can visit their website at: https://rosecartolari.com/ To hear Why Care? episodes first, sign up to our newsletter here, and you can find more from us at Avenir via our LinkTree here.