Active Inclusivity: A Skills-Based Model – Leadership Tools Showcase (Emma Sterrett-Hong)
The active inclusivity development model is a framework for identifying the skills a person needs to improve to increase their ability to demonstrate inclusivity. No one has perfectly mastered the practice of inclusivity, so these skills are useful for anyone seeking to grow their ability to act inclusively. The skills also can help us overcome obstacles or challenges we face in promoting inclusivity. These obstacles are often hard to overcome because they were embedded into our society’s implicit structures before we were born, because we are unaware of how these structures are influencing our behavior, and because change often involves losses as well as gains. Addressing these obstacles requires relatively sophisticated skills. Each of us possesses different pre-existing levels of each skill, which can guide us in selecting certain skills we want to prioritize in developing further. However, in general, we can all improve in each skill, and the skills all work together to mutually reinforce each other. Also, because implicit social structures influence each situation in different ways, some skills are necessary in some situations, but may not be needed in other situations.