Radical Inclusion: What the Post-9/11 World Should Have Taught Us About Leadership

by Martin E. Dempsey

1. Belonging isn’t optional: give them memories. We will argue that the first step in building a team is developing in its members a sense of belonging. Consider the alternative: if leaders don’t make those who follow feel a sense of belonging, someone or something else will. And the ubiquitous presence of the digital echo makes this not only possible but likely. 2. Connect effort with meaning: make it matter. We will show that persuading members of the team that their contributions matter is crucial to team success. We all want to believe we make a difference. Leaders help their followers understand what that takes. 3. Think about what you’re not thinking about: learn to imagine. We will encourage leaders to develop mindfulness, awareness, and imagination through a lifelong commitment to learning. We believe and will convince all who aspire to lead that imagination is a learned attribute. 4. Prevent decision paralysis: develop a bias for action. We will demonstrate that, when presented with a problem, leaders must look for what they can do in the moment. They must avoid information paralysis. They must act to change the environment and to learn, and then act again, in a deliberate pattern of persistent learning and proactive leadership. 5. Collaborate at every level of the organization: co-create context. We will discuss how the most effective leaders harvest knowledge and empower the organization from bottom to top. We will show the benefits of concentrating the “what” w...

The alternative is to rebalance the relationship among leadership, power, and control with an emphasis on inclusion, to selectively and purposefully relinquish control to enhance power, to define success less in terms of power and control and more in the ability to achieve optimal, enduring, and affordable outcomes.

But as the digital echo spreads, as complex issues multiply, as uncertainty increases, as technology exponentially changes, and as risk rises, it seems reasonable that we should seek to lead by sharing our challenges rather than owning them outright.

There soon will come a time when, despite using all the resources available to us, we will simply not be able to tell what is actually true.

At some point during the night, a heat lamp fell down and caught fire. There were no Molotov cocktails. These kids didn’t know how to make one. But when the media reported that firebombs had been thrown, the UC Police thought the campus was actually under paramilitary attack. Instead of making arrests, they retreated in the face of what they believed to be a superior force. The situation therefore wasn’t contained and continued to spiral out of control. In other words, the digital echo affected real-time police action, which allowed the situation to escalate.

they responded in a rational manner to the information presented to them.

More specifically, the world is moving from debates about facts to battles of narratives.

Facts are by definition grounded in logic. Narratives, however, are based on emotions.

Facts need to be verified in order to have utility. But narratives gain power merely by spreading.

Facts depend on expert validation to persist, while narratives simply need to be retold. That means that you can’t win a narrative battle by simply proving that the opposing narrative is in some way inaccurate. A narrative battle is won by drowning out the countermessage.

First, not including—exerting control—comes at an economic cost, one that is increasingly difficult to bear and harder still to justify. Second, the way to thrive in the age of the digital echo is to bring a cause to a preexisting community. That is, rather than trying to build a community around a specific idea or belief, identify existing communities with whom the cause will likely resonate. Third, and most important, although much has been written about diversity and the importance of inviting more people— and more voices—to the table, many of us have been viewing inclusion through the wrong lens. Inclusion isn’t necessarily the opposite of exclusion. Real inclusion isn’t about letting just anyone in; it’s about understanding the pillars of participation, personalization, and purpose.

Think about the Army captain and his desire to effectively participate in helping his country’s efforts in Afghanistan. And now consider the people in your organization—they need not be a part of every meeting, but are you enabling them to participate in furthering the organization’s overall goals?

Applications for the card skyrocketed because now consumers were receiving a personalized message, one that was tailored to them by people who were part of their community.

Inclusion is about concentrating the what (i.e., the directive, the goal) and distributing the how. After meeting the young captain in Afghanistan and speaking with the Berkeley guru in his office, Dempsey introduced into army training and education a concept called Mission Command: tell your subordinates what you want accomplished, and loosen control to allow them to develop strategies to achieve the desired outcome.

A surgeon might have passed the garbage cans dozens of times without ever picking up on the anomaly. And including him in the conversation allowed the “brain” (hospital administration) to receive his message. We can use such organizational “neurons” to avoid the pitfalls of bad intel within our organizations. We need to have as many Jaspers around us as possible—people who will notice and be surprised by different things than we will. And we need to delegate to them the task of being surprised.

Research has shown that the predictable ways in which we operate as individuals in groups play out entirely differently online.

Rather than focus on the characteristics of the individual, members of the group double down on a common social identity. Research suggests that in online groups, individuals feel stronger attachment to the group’s identity than to their own personal identities; in fact, personal identity is all but erased due to the lack of nonverbal cues highlighting individual differences.16

Feeling that we matter to our organization and are safe within it reaffirms and strengthens our sense of belonging. When people feel they belong, they engage more and are more productive. Belonging helps us achieve understanding, and the feeling that we understand those around us, and that they understand us, strengthens the positive bonds among the members of the team and its leaders and enhances our feelings of self-worth.

The most important responsibility of leaders—no matter how busy they are and how many other priorities demand their attention—is to make their people feel like they belong. Opportunities to make our followers feel they belong are all around us, opportunities to “give them memories” so that they know we care about them by investing in them our scarcest resource: time.

Providing team members with a sense of belonging is an admirable goal, but as a leader, you may find yourself asking how exactly you can accomplish that. Following the principle “Give them memories” is a tangible, practical way to create a sense of belonging within your organization.

To “give them memories” is provide your people with the experiences, lessons, and tools they need in order to make a positive impact on the group and its operations.

One of a leader’s responsibilities is to make sense of things for their followers. As “sense makers,” leaders help those around them understand how their contributions fit into the organization’s accomplishments. They help them appreciate how they matter. The best leaders do this deliberately and the very best do it often. It’s worth noting that the responsibility to “make it matter” is shared by leader and follower. Each of us should recognize that our life can and should matter. Each of us should embrace the fact that we can make a difference—sometimes in big ways, more often in small ways, so that the aggregate of our lives ultimately matters. However, like most things in leadership, making it matter is an unequal responsibility. Most of the responsibility is on the leader: to explain, to encourage, and to inspire.

Define and allow others to understand who you are. Leaders at every level must understand who they are individually and within the larger vision of the organization. In describing this, Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of Duke University’s men’s basketball team, notes that he doesn’t want his talented athletes to “leave their egos at the door of the gymnasium.” He wants them to bring their egos in and learn to use them not just for themselves but for the team. Coach K is right. As leaders we should blend egos, not eliminate them. The knowledge of where you fit in the organization gives you strength, aligns your values, and encourages you to lead. The drive, passion, and energy you feel should be worn on your sleeve each day to model desirable behavior and as evidence of how one’s individual purpose can coexist with the overall vision of the organization. 2. Make each individual feel that they have the potential to be a better person. By allowing your subordinates room to grow and fostering collaboration among team members, you encourage the entire team to use their work as a vehicle to the benefit of themselves and the organization. Moreover, if you can be a leader whom others want to emulate, your subordinates will understand what it means to be better people. General Dempsey was fond of telling his colonels, “If your subordinates don’t want to grow up to be you someday, you’re not doing your job.” 3. Make sense of things for the team. It is the leader’s responsibility to inst...

Imagination is a learned attribute. It’s some combination of training, experience, and eventually instinct that produces creativity in complex environments at the speed of teamwork.

When our organizations are presented with the issues that we are most prepared to solve, those duties for which we have long trained and prepared, for which we have documented processes and rule books and methodologies, our experience guides us toward resolution. We rely on carefully developed sets of tried and true procedures as we move forward in handling the issue. Conversely, when our organizations are faced with challenges for which we have no training or preparation, we may feel paralyzed by our lack of existing processes. It may be difficult to know even where to begin to bring the problem to its solution. Further, there are times when we feel somewhat prepared to handle an issue but are aware that gaps in our abilities and procedures could have a great and negative effect on the outcome. We can have all the preparation in the world, but regardless of the robustness of existing processes, the high level of confidence we may have in our team’s capabilities, or the assuredness we may have that a process that led to success in the past will continue to prove successful in the future—and especially if none of these are present—leaders in the new environment should begin by utilizing our third leadership principle: “Learn to imagine.”

And lastly it means that instead of executing tasks as experts in our fields, we will be asked to solve problems that we may feel only somewhat able to handle. We will be responsible for carrying out tasks and completing missions for which we have no experience whatsoever, and with a lot at stake.

The solution is that when faced with any task, whether routine or extreme crisis, we must first imagine the possibilities, or “learn to imagine,” in order to determine exactly what our team’s goal should be in order to solve the problem.

As leaders we must avoid assuming that the first answer is the best answer. We cannot blindly follow existing procedures simply because they have worked in the past. Our environment is changing too quickly and our challenges are becoming too complex. We must reach beyond our regular lines of thinking and acting, rethink the ways in which we can apply our teams’ abilities, and empower our people to help us define the paths to success.

A bias for action is a leadership instinct based on the belief that in order to decide, you must learn, and in order to learn, you must alter the status quo. A bias for action is a leadership instinct that mitigates decision paralysis and helps you avoid the endless pursuit of that one exquisite piece of information that seems to be all that stands between you and clarity. A bias for action is the recognition that, in our complex world, learning is active and iterative. We act, we assess, and we act again.

Faced with a sea of data, ever-multiplying technologies, and the digital echo, we have a tendency to halt all motion so that we may back away from situations and try to understand all their moving parts. We develop insatiable appetites for information and sometimes absurd desires for more (read: better) options to present themselves so we can be certain of our decisions. We mobilize our teams to cultivate more and more information, hoping that the perfect solution exists among the clutter.

But leaders cannot allow themselves to become paralyzed by a search for the perfect answer while information flows and technology updates at ever-increasing speeds. Leaders are now facing scenarios that require action in the moment, before significant changes can occur in the environment and before we can possibly fully analyze the problem. The longer we take to respond to catalysts, the more our environment adapts, and the less we understand about the issue and how to solve it. So we must act quickly but intelligently.

“Keep me informed, let me know if you need something that only I can provide, and I’ll do the same for you.

The immediate actions we take in response to catalysts need not always be dramatic, but some action is almost always required.

We need to act based on the information we have, not remain immobile waiting for “better” options to emerge. If we adopt a mind-set whereby we act, assess, and then act again, we can steadily work toward conquering the challenges we face.

But we would be more effective as leaders if individuals within the organization were organized and encouraged to tell us not just what we say we want to know but also what they think we need to know.

Our challenge as leaders is to empower the entire organization to take part in understanding the problem the team is facing and to encourage individuals at all levels to suggest potential ways to reach our desired outcomes.

General Dempsey realized that often—perhaps even usually—the most important piece of information that a senior leader needs is one that comes from the edge of the organization, not from its center. And we can be sure we’re accomplishing what we set out to accomplish only if we insist upon and enable the co-creation of context throughout the organization.

This leadership principle highlights the leader’s responsibility to harvest the knowledge that exists throughout the organization and to build a broader understanding of the ways the team’s abilities can be aligned to solve the problem. Rather than the leader bearing the immense responsibility of discovering solutions unilaterally or alone, solving the problem becomes a matter of narrowing down a diverse list of creative solutions proposed by the team. The leader’s expertise is applied to decision making and directing, rather than controlling and dictating.

In these times, we can choose to see the world as a perpetually competitive arena where interactions result in winner-take-all outcomes, or we can see the world as an increasingly and inevitably collaborative space where common benefits accrue through common costs.

While power remains necessary for effective leadership, the path to sustainable power is no longer through control.

Control is seductive because it creates the perception of power.

Real power, the kind of power that yields optimum, enduring, and affordable outcomes, is not a liability. But in order to build and sustain that kind of power, leaders need to develop the instinct for seeking opportunities to share control. Simply put, relinquishing control yields better, longer-lasting solutions that will preserve and enhance your power as a leader and your power as an organization.

Leaders must understand, however, that relinquishing control works only when there is an ethos in place that supports it. The workforce or members of the team must feel a genuine commitment to the organization and its vision if we are to trust our subordinates to think and act appropriately when afforded the opportunity to take more powerful roles within the organization.

‘When is the last time you allowed a subordinate to change your mind about something?’ I want you to remember this as you leave here today and rejoin the regular Army: be a good listener.”

Listen to learn. Listen to make it clear to those who follow that you value their insights, their judgments, and their advice. Listen to understand the organization and to become mindful of opportunities and vulnerabilities. Listen because it is most often “weak signals” that portend success or failure. Amplify to establish expectations. Amplify the best ideas, the best recommendations, the best practices, and do so in a manner that encourages teamwork at every level of the organization. Amplify the organization’s values to strengthen the inner voice that reminds us what’s right, a voice that can sometimes be drowned out by digital echoes. Amplify because the best leaders establish a drumbeat of emphasis on values within their organization. Amplify because everyone benefits when there is a common vocabulary about what’s expected of them. Include to empower. Go wide and deep in including members of the organization to share knowledge, to create a common understanding of problems, and to encourage ownership of solutions. Include to inspire loyalty. Include as the first step in developing a climate of trust. Include because if you don’t, who will?

We must discover efficient, realistic ways to listen to members of our organizations at every level so that we may (a) better understand the problems our people are facing, (b) recognize the potential solutions our team members have thought of, and (c) provide our team members with their own opportunities to lead.

Good leaders share credit and accept blame. Good leaders don’t simply proclaim an interest in initiative and innovation but articulate how much risk they are willing to take to enable initiative and innovation. They define the “white lines” on the road they expect their subordinates to travel. Even more important than establishing limits, they champion success.

Henderson told him not to worry about making general but simply to earn the trust of his soldiers, as Dempsey had earned his trust.

The stronger partner in the relationship bears more of the responsibility for sustaining and enhancing the relationship. That is true in individual relationships, and it is true in the relationships among nation-states.

One of the leadership attributes he highlights in his discussions with students is “sense-making.” That is, it is the responsibility of leaders at all levels to “make sense” of what’s going on for their employees or, in the case of the military, for their junior leaders.