Inclusion Is More Than Just A Target, It’s A Leadership Responsibility

At Odgers’ recent Women in Finance lunch event, Nimesh Patel, CEO of Spirax Group plc and Co-Chair of the FTSE Women Leaders Review, shared key leadership lessons shaped by his career and personal experience. 

He emphasised that inclusion is not simply a tick-box exercise but a cultural and strategic imperative requiring advocacy, intentionality, and openness. The events were founded by Odgers’ Julia van den Bosch Wazen to assist the advancement of women in leadership. 

Below are the key leadership lessons and takeaways. 

Anchor Diversity in Purpose and Values

Diversity and inclusion are not compliance exercises; they are moral, cultural, and strategic imperatives. Driving inclusion, leaders should frame diversity within a bigger purpose: improving lives, strengthening communities, and building sustainable organisations.  

This means communicating that diversity is about impact beyond the individual or business, not just hitting targets. 

Foster Psychological Safety and Authenticity 

People contribute most when they can bring their best professional selves to work; strengths, vulnerabilities, differences. Inclusion starts when leaders show humility, curiosity, and humanity but it is enabled by a level playing field. 

Leaders should demonstrate emotional connection by listening deeply, asking questions, and showing empathy, while encouraging respectful curiosity so that learning and understanding others’ perspectives becomes the norm. 

Move from “Impact as Individuals” to “Impact Through and With Others” 

Leadership is not just about personal intellect; it’s about enabling others, building trust and empowering teams with diverse capabilities.  

This means shifting behaviours from control to collaboration and empowerment, celebrating diversity of behaving, thinking, and encouraging teams to challenge constructs respectfully. Leaders should create environments where teams, not just individuals, solve problems together. 

Be Intentional: Diversity Requires Design, Not Chance 

Progress happens only with intentionality; clarity of commitments, visible action, and structural support. They should broaden talent pipelines by bringing people in to add to culture rather than conform to it, and embed supportive policies such as parental leave, caregiver leave, menopause and pregnancy loss provisions, so inclusivity is felt, not just stated. Leaders must set clear ambitions for leadership diversity, as Spirax Group did under Nimesh Patel’s leadership, achieving gender balance in both the executive leadership team and the Board. 

Advocate and Sponsor, Don’t Just Support 

True inclusion is about advocacy: using your platform to create opportunities for others as others once did for you. Leaders should actively sponsor emerging talent, especially women and minorities, by creating visibility and opportunities.

Participation in initiatives like the FTSE Women Leaders Review, the 30% Club, and 25x25 signals commitment beyond your own organisation. 

Culture Change Is a Shared Responsibility Which Must Be Led from the Top 

Minority groups should not bear the burden of changing culture. Leaders must create the environment where inclusion is expected and enabled.  

This means holding senior leaders accountable for creating and sustaining inclusive culture, which is a collective responsibility. Protect what’s special in your culture but invite others to add to it, and encourage peer advocacy and allyship by creating spaces for shared experience, support, and learning. 

Keep Listening, Learning and Evolving 

Inclusion is a journey, not a destination. Leaders must listen, adapt and stay open to learning.  

Ask employees simple but powerful questions: Where do you see opportunity? What do you love about your job? What gets in your way? How can we help? Seek feedback from emerging talent and underrepresented voices, and recognise that progress can be fragile, like a dam, so momentum must be reinforced continuously. 

Leaders who embed advocacy, intentionality and openness create environments where everyone can flourish, delivering leadership for lasting inclusion. If your organisation is ready to make the right impact, Odgers partners with boards and executive teams to build the leadership teams that makes this possible. 

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