Want your employees to feel safe and welcome at work? Inclusion starts with leadership

I’ve spent nearly a decade establishing a career in the beauty industry — an industry that is lacking diversity and has traditionally highlighted a very specific aesthetic as it relates to leadership, whether at a massive company or an indie brand.

But I don’t fit that mold. I’m a woman of color and a member of the LGBTQ community. And now that I’m building my own brand within the world of beauty — a sustainable, luxury skincare line called Common Heir — I’m hyper-focused on creating an inclusive operation. Not because optically it looks good, but because it’s crucial to the success of our business — and of any brand hoping to stand the test of time.

I’m certainly not a perfect leader. Nobody is! But I’ve found that the truest indicator of your skills as a leader is the team you build around you. Common Heir is a young company, one that launched in April 2021 and was ideated and built in 2020, throughout the pandemic. We are just now beginning to grow our team, and to do this in a way that will guarantee a lasting future, we have to think, look and breathe outside of the box, especially when it comes to finding diverse talent.

Read more: Even the smallest change can create a welcoming environment for LGBTQ employees

Fortunately, this isn’t my first time building a business. I spent over seven years playing an instrumental role in the growth of an operation called Texas Beauty Labs (now Goodkind Co), and I know that team-building requires leaders and managers to be brutally honest with themselves. Look at the team you have in front of you, and if everyone looks exactly the same as you and thinks exactly the same as you, then you have a real opportunity to make a positive and impactful change. No successful business is a homogenous kind of beast, and diversity isn’t just about making your team feel comfortable — it’s about building a strong operation that is full of folks that will challenge and push you in valuable ways.

Once you’ve laid the foundation for your dream team, it’s crucial to create a management team and a culture that feels safe and allows for consistent and open dialogue with management. That idea that “the door’s always open” as a company policy is so significant, because it leads to conversations that inform management if and when things should be done differently.

As important as it is to explore, hire, and recruit outside of your own network, reach out to the friends and colleagues in your inner circle for guidance when you need help recruiting and building with intention. Do you know anyone who’s pulled together great diversity and inclusion training? What has your experience been building that into your own brand? Following that funnel up and having even a 30-minute conversation can help employers find a way to address potential concerns or pain points head-on and build a workplace that feels holistically inclusive.

Read more: Calling all HR and benefit leaders! Are you supporting your LGBTQ workforce?

The nuances that are front and center today haven’t been faced with intention before, but now we’re seeing that employers are expected to participate in tough conversations and be held accountable for how they treat their teams. This could mean rethinking outdated ideas about maternity and parental leave for your LGBTQ employees so that those benefits are inclusive and not “difficult” conversations to approach management about. As we focus on creating an inclusive workplace at Common Heir, we’re making sure that our entire team, from tip to tail, is educated on issues of diversity — beginning with the onboarding process, so as not to place the burden of education on their colleagues.

Any step within a company is a step in the right direction (simply ask new hires what their preferred pronouns are, for example), but there’s always room to improve. There’s no longer a disconnect between the workplace and the broader social conversation happening at home. When employers realize that these two worlds are going to merge and are going to overlap, we can all be more cognizant of creating safe spaces for our teams.