Leading Through Bias: 5 Essentials Skills to Reduce Bias and Improve Inclusion at Work

Bias is everywhere. While we cannot completely eliminate it, we can make efforts to become more aware of them, work hard to reduce them, and to minimise the impact they have on our organisations and the people who work within them.

By identifying 7 essential skills - conviction, clarity, accountability, authenticity, allyship, strength, and vulnerability - the book offers an all-in-one resource to help you explore the topics of inclusive leadership and the role of leaders in addressing bias within a global context. Chapters are grounded in theoretical frameworks while mini-case studies and self-reflective exercises are presented throughout, making this ideal reading for anyone in a position of leadership, leadership development or those in DEI initiatives. Likewise, this is a comprehensive resource for executive students, particularly as it enables students to reflect on their individual and organisational journeys towards inclusion along with key features such as additional reading, a glossary of essential terms and practical take-aways and learning points.

This is not a book about ’fixing the minority’ or asking people to ’lean in.’ This book is about addressing the structure, culture and practices through inclusive leadership - not just to achieve the outcome of a more diverse workforce, but also for leadership development; a leader who is more inclusive is also a better leader.

Dr. Poornima Luthra is the founder and CEO of TalentED Consultancy ApS as well as Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. She has spent the last fifteen years researching and teaching university courses in the field of talent management, with a focus on Diversity and Inclusion. Poornima’s work in DEI focuses on expanding the dimensions of diversity we address with an emphasis on intersectionality, empowering individuals to be active allies of inclusion and enabling inclusive leadership. Poornima is the recipient of the Professional Women of Colour Denmark 2021 Impact award, and a finalist in the Trailblazer category of the Nordic Blaze Inclusion Awards.

Sara Louise Muhr is Professor at Copenhagen Business School. She is also Academic Director of the CBS Business in Society Platform ’Diversity and Difference’ and serves on the board of directors of Copenhagen Business School. Her research focuses on critical perspectives on managerial identity, leadership and HRM, especially in relation to issues around coping with diversity and expectations to employees and leaders in modern, flexible ways of working. Following this broader aim, she has worked with various empirical settings such as management consultancy, prisons, the military and police force, pole dance studios and executive networks where she has engaged with issues such as power, culture, emotional labor, gender, ethnicity, migration, and work-life balance. Sara’s work has materialized in several published books and has appeared in journals such as Organization Studies; Human Relations; Organization;Gender, Work and Organization; Human Resource Management Review, Culture & Organization as well as Leadership.