Inclusive by Design: Practical Leadership for Local Governments in Changing Times
Joanie B. Connell, PhD, president of Flexible Work Solutions, is an organizational consultant, author, speaker, and leadership coach who is passionate about helping people maximize their leadership and personal potential. Joanie works especially well with both technical leaders and other leaders who need to interface with them to develop people strategies and to better manage teams and build stronger relationships across functions.
Bernardo M. Ferdman, PhD, principal and founder of Ferdman Consulting, is a globally recognized expert in inclusive leadership and organization development and an executive coach. With over four decades of experience, he helps organizations transform diversity into strategic advantages and cultivate workplaces where everyone can fully contribute.
Imagine a city-hall counter at 8:30 am: residents speaking English, Spanish, Somali, and ASL stand in line waiting to get vital records, while a Gen Z staffer behind the plexiglass searches for a workaround to a paper-only form and another staffer struggles with the new AI-enhanced computer interface. These everyday moments show why inclusive leadership isn’t just a trend or a political stance—it’s the very essence of effective governance.
In 2025, public agencies are navigating a shifting landscape. Federal policy changes have placed new constraints on how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are framed. Yet the core values behind such efforts—especially respect, fairness, participation, and service to all—remain essential to public service.
As one of us put it, inclusion means “creating and embedding … practices that result in a sense of safety, full belonging, participation, and voice”[1]. It’s about enabling everyone to flourish and to contribute at their best, for their own growth and for the success of the organization.
Inclusive leadership isn’t about labels or checking boxes. It’s about how we engage with our communities, support our teams, and create workplaces where everyone can thrive and do their best.
Meeting the Moment with Constructive Leadership
Local and regional governments are uniquely positioned to lead inclusively. They operate closest to the people, delivering services that shape daily life. That proximity offers both opportunity and responsibility.
Rather than getting caught up in debates over terminology, leaders can focus on what matters most: building cultures that value all employees and delivering services that equitably meet community needs, with staff prepared to work with all stakeholders.
Inclusive Leadership in Practice
From this perspective, even without using the term “DEI”, leaders can:
- Foster psychological safety by creating space for open dialogue and mutual respect. This can include practices such as meeting “check-ins” and “check-outs,” inviting feedback on processes, and exploring multiple possibilities when discussing issues and plans.
- Engage in equitable decision-making by including a range of perspectives in planning and problem-solving. This can include asking whose needs are being met and whose are not, as well as regularly involving community voices in planning and problem solving.
- Expand perspectives and frames of reference by staying curious, listening actively, and being open to learning. For example, a city manager might shadow frontline staff or host listening sessions with a range of community groups.
- Support talent development by ensuring that access to mentorship and advancement opportunities is available to all, as well as by casting wide nets in recruitment processes. For example, a county or city can create a rotational leadership program to help staff from all departments gain cross-functional experience.
These leadership practices are rooted in research and experience, and they help to create workplaces that are truly inclusive and serve everyone. They aren’t just good leadership; they are good governance and lead to more effective public service.
Paragraph 4 in Ferdman, B. M. (2016). Diversity and organizational change/performance. In J. Stone, R. Dennis, P. Rizova, & A. D. Smith (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118663202.wberen680
Page 7 in Ferdman, B. M. (2021). Inclusive leadership: The fulcrum of inclusion. In B. M. Ferdman, J. Prime, & R. E. Riggio (Eds.), Inclusive Leadership: Transforming Diverse Lives, Workplaces, and Societies (pp. 3-24). Routledge.
Regardless of political shifts, the fundamental role of government remains: to serve all people with integrity, empathy, and effectiveness.
JOANIE CONNELL & BERNARDO FERDMAN
The Role of Local and Regional Governments
Across the country in our consulting work, we’ve seen local leaders embed inclusion into their work by focusing on shared values like fairness, trust, and effectiveness, in ways that reflect the values of their constituents. Here are a few examples:
- Community engagement: Facilitating multilingual public input sessions and collaborating with a range of local partners using techniques that involve dialogue, listening, and bridging across differences as well as consensus building. Creating and publicizing opportunities for input via multiple channels, such as “pop-up” town halls at popular venues (such as county fairs or farmers markets) and online surveys or pulse polls at public buildings to reach more voices.
- Inclusive meeting design: Sharing agendas in advance, using check-ins to enhance engagement and participation, incorporating remote and hybrid-options for meetings, creating space and time for staff voices, and using tools like auto-caption, transcripts, and meeting summaries.
- Leadership development: Offering training in communication, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and collaboration to build skills for working effectively and productively across differences.
- Service audits: Regularly reviewing programs to ensure they are accessible and effective for residents.
These strategies help leaders move forward without triggering division by focusing on outcomes, belonging, community, and respect.
A Call to Values-Based Leadership
This is a moment for reflection and recommitment. Regardless of political shifts, the fundamental role of government remains: to serve all people with integrity, empathy, and effectiveness.
To stay centered in this way, ask yourself:
- What would full belonging look like for the next person who walks into our agency? Who in my community might need a clearer pathway to participation or service?
- Whose voice is missing from our decisions, and how can we invite it in?
- How can I strengthen trust and collaboration in my team? What can I do this week to show that every voice matters?
- What can I do to work better with people who are different from me, and how can I support others around me to do that, in ways that benefit all of us?
We don’t need a label to lead inclusively. We need courage, compassion, and a clear sense of purpose, focused on building stronger communities and serving the public, together.
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