2026 Theses Doctoral

The Skill and Will to Lead Inclusively: Exploring Antecedents and Outcomes of Inclusive Leadership

Forgang, Molly B.

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine how leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) and diversity attitudes (DA) shape subordinates’ attitudes and behavioral intentions through inclusive leadership (IL) behaviors. Although IL has been increasingly positioned as critical for managing diverse workforces, limited empirical work has identified leader-level antecedents of IL or tested their potential impact on key subordinate outcomes.

Drawing on the Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model, this study conceptualized EI as a leader’s ability to recognize and manage emotions and DA as a leader’s motivational orientation toward valuing identity differences. It investigated how these factors jointly inform IL behavior and three downstream subordinate outcomes: perceptions of leadership effectiveness, commitment to the leader, and turnover intentions. Data were collected from 139 actual manager–subordinate dyads using a secure platform designed to minimize fraudulent responses.

Hierarchical regression analyses showed that IL positively predicted leadership effectiveness and commitment and negatively predicted turnover intentions. EI and DA both positively predicted IL, although EI had a stronger and more consistent effect. A series of analyses using PROCESS and SEM were then conducted to assess the extent to which IL mediated the effects of EI and DA on the outcome variables. Across both approaches, IL mediated the effects of EI on perceived leadership effectiveness and commitment.

While there was no evidence that IL mediated the effect of DA on any of the outcome variables, both analyses revealed that DA directly predicted subordinate turnover intentions, above and beyond leaders’ inclusive behaviors, consistent with signaling and social information processing theories. Overall, the research findings support a view of inclusive leadership as a dynamic behavioral pathway through which leaders’ skills and attitudes impact their subordinates’ perceptions and behavioral intentions.