You Can't Talk About Inclusion While Managing People Through Fear

We talk about psychological safety, empowerment and belonging. But what happens when the people responsible for creating an inclusive workplace are the ones making employees afraid to speak up, question decisions, or do their jobs?

We spend a lot of time talking about workplace inclusion.

We talk about representation, diversity targets, inclusive recruitment, unconscious bias and the importance of making people feel that they belong. Organisations publish values statements, introduce policies and encourage employees to bring their whole selves to work.

But we don't always ask a more uncomfortable question.

What does inclusion actually look like when someone manages you?

It doesn't matter how many inclusion statements an organisation publishes if employees spend their working lives feeling mistrusted, undermined, excessively monitored or afraid to make a mistake. It doesn't matter how diverse a team looks if only certain people are trusted to make decisions, challenge the status quo or influence the direction of their work.

Inclusion is about what happens inside once you get through the door.

When accountability turns into control

There is a difference between a manager who sets clear expectations, provides constructive feedback and holds people accountable, and one who feels the urge to control every detail of their work.

Most people understand that management involves oversight. Deadlines matter. Budgets need to be managed. Quality standards exist for a reason. In the business events industry, where people manage significant budgets, complex logistics, and the experiences of thousands of delegates, accountability is essential.

But micromanagement is something different.

It's constantly checking work that's already been completed. The unnecessary approval process for decisions someone should be trusted to make. Changing expectations, second-guessing, and the feeling that no matter how well you perform, you will never quite be trusted to get on with your job.

Sometimes it is obvious. Sometimes it is presented as attention to detail, high standards or simply the manager's way of working.

The impact can be the same: employees become focused on avoiding criticism rather than doing their best work.

Research published in the European Management Journal in 2024 examined how managers decide whether to delegate authority. It found that delegation is affected by factors including employees' expertise and managers' ability to monitor their work. The research shows a tension organisations must manage: the desire for control can shape how much autonomy employees receive. Read the research.

A manager may believe they are protecting quality. But if their approach leaves experienced employees unable to exercise their judgement, the organisation may be losing precisely the expertise it hired them to deliver.

The connection to inclusion

So what does this have to do with diversity, equity and inclusion?

More than we might think.

A welcoming workplace is not simply one in which people from different backgrounds are present. It is one in which people have a meaningful opportunity to contribute, influence decisions, and develop their potential.

That requires trust. It requires people to feel able to ask questions, present different perspectives and admit when something has gone wrong.

Research supports the significance of inclusive leadership in creating those conditions. A 2022 meta-analysis of 184 independent studies found positive relationships between inclusive leadership and employee voice, task performance, and innovative behaviour. Read the research.

In other words, how leaders behave matters to whether people contribute and whether organisations benefit from their contributions.

A manager who welcomes challenge and gives people room to work can help create the conditions for different perspectives to be heard. A manager who reacts badly to disagreement or insists on controlling every decision may have the opposite effect.

And that raises an important question: whose voices are we losing when people decide it is safer to stay quiet?

Who gets trusted, and who has to prove themselves?

This is where micromanagement is especially relevant to DEI.

Not every manager who micromanages is biased, and not every employee experiences excessive supervision in the same way. But organisations should examine whether they apply expectations of trust, competence, and professionalism consistently.

Who gets the benefit of the doubt when something goes wrong?

Who is trusted to represent the organisation in a senior meeting?

Who gets to decide without seeking permission?

Whose mistakes are treated as opportunities to learn, and whose are used as evidence that they aren't ready for greater responsibility?

Who is described as confident and assertive, and who is labelled challenging for behaving in much the same way?

These are questions about the distribution of power and opportunity.

If some employees are routinely given less autonomy, more scrutiny or fewer opportunities to demonstrate their abilities, the consequences can go beyond day-to-day frustration. They may affect confidence, visibility, development and career progression.

This is not an argument for assuming discrimination whenever a manager checks someone's work. It is an argument for looking at patterns rather than treating every management decision in isolation.

If the same people repeatedly have to prove their competence while others are trusted by default, organisations should be asking why.

When people stop speaking up

Psychological safety is often discussed as an essential ingredient of good teamwork. But it can be difficult to create when employees believe that disagreeing with their manager could damage their standing, affect their opportunities or make their working life more difficult.

People adapt to the environments in which they work.

If raising a concern leads to defensiveness, if mistakes are met with disproportionate criticism, or if disputing a decision is treated as disloyalty, employees may learn to keep their opinions to themselves.

They may stop suggesting improvements. They may avoid challenging an unrealistic deadline. They may decide not to flag a problem until it becomes impossible to ignore.

For people who already feel like outsiders, the perceived cost of speaking up may be even greater.

Someone new to an organisation, working in a precarious role, or concerned about being stereotyped may feel they have less room to challenge a manager. Employees from underrepresented groups may also be particularly alert to the possibility that their behaviour will be judged against different expectations.

That does not mean everyone in these circumstances will have the same experience. It means organisations should not assume that everyone feels equally able to speak freely.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's 2024 research into workplace conflict found that one in four employees had experienced conflict or abuse at work in the previous year. Among employees who had experienced conflict, 47% said they had let it go. Only 36% said the conflict had been fully resolved. The research also identified a gap between employers' confidence in their procedures and employees' experiences of pursuing resolution. Read the CIPD report.

These figures cover workplace conflict and abuse more broadly, not micromanagement specifically. But they raise a significant question for employers: having a policy is not the same as creating an environment in which people feel able to use it.

The manager who delivers results

There is another uncomfortable issue.

What happens when the person creating the problem is also considered a high performer?

Perhaps they deliver results, maintain important client relationships or consistently hit their targets. Perhaps they are technically excellent and know the organisation inside out.

Their behaviour may be excused because they are valuable to the business.

Employees are told that the manager is demanding but effective, that they need to develop a thicker skin, or that this is simply what working at a senior level looks like.

But performance should not give anyone a free pass to undermine their colleagues.

The CIPD's research stresses the importance of managers in preventing and handling unhealthy workplace conflict. Its findings also show why organisations should not rely solely on their own confidence in existing procedures when evaluating whether those procedures are working.

A manager's performance should be assessed not only by what they deliver, but also by how they lead people to deliver it.

If someone consistently achieves their aims while damaging trust, silencing colleagues or creating an environment in which people struggle to thrive, the organisation needs to consider the full picture.

Otherwise, it risks rewarding the outcomes while ignoring the human cost.

What inclusive management should look like

The answer is not to remove accountability or suggest that managers should never question an employee's work. Good management calls for clear expectations, feedback, support and appropriate oversight.

The distinction rests in how those things are delivered.

Inclusive management means:

• Trusting people to do their jobs. Agreeing on explicit outcomes and expectations, then giving employees appropriate autonomy over how they achieve them.

• Applying standards consistently. Examine whether people receive comparable levels of trust, feedback, scrutiny plus access to opportunities.

• Making challenge possible. Encourage employees to disagree respectfully, raise concerns and suggest better ways of working without fear of retaliation.

• Recognising different needs. Deliver clarity, reasonable flexibility and appropriate adjustments rather than assuming everyone works best in the same way.

• Taking behaviour seriously. Evaluate managers on how they treat people, not just on whether they meet targets.

• Making accountability meaningful. Ensure employees can raise concerns with processes that are accessible, credible and capable of addressing problems.

  
  

These are not radical demands. They are basic conditions for creating a workplace in which people can contribute efficiently.

And they should not be left solely to a DEI team. They belong in management training, performance reviews, leadership development and the everyday decisions organisations make about who gets promoted and rewarded.

Inclusion starts with how we use power.

We talk about inclusion in terms of belonging, participation, and having a voice for a reason.

People need more than a place in the organisation chart. They need the opportunity to use their skills, exercise judgement and influence the work they do.

Managers play an important role in shaping whether those opportunities exist.

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2024 report cites research estimating that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. That figure concerns engagement, not inclusion or micromanagement, but it underlines the influence managers can have on the everyday experience of work. Read the report.

Organisations cannot credibly claim to empower employees while creating management cultures built around distrust. They cannot expect people to bring different viewpoints to the table if those perspectives are unwelcome. And they cannot talk about psychological safety while ignoring the behaviour that makes people afraid to speak.

This is ultimately a question of leadership and organisational responsibility.

If a manager's behaviour undermines people's capability to contribute, the answer cannot always be to tell those people to become more resilient, communicate better, or learn to manage upwards.

Sometimes the manager needs to change. Sometimes the organisation needs to intervene. And sometimes leaders need to examine why they have allowed the situation to continue.

We cannot build inclusive workplaces simply by changing whom we recruit. We have to examine how we treat the people we already have.

Because inclusion is not just about who gets a seat at the table.

It's about who is trusted to speak, who is allowed to make decisions, who is given room to grow, and what happens when they disagree with the person in charge.

If we want people to feel that they belong, we need to create workplaces where they can do their jobs without being managed through fear.

And if we are serious about inclusion, that responsibility starts with leadership.

---

The uncomfortable conversations don't stop here.

New Intent challenges the ideas, decisions and systems shaping the business events industry.

Get our latest articles, thought-provoking perspectives, research and practical resources on human rights, inclusion and accountability, delivered straight to your inbox.

Independent thinking. Difficult questions. Ideas for change. Sign up now for the New Intent Briefing