Do you agree or disagree and why? Provide 1 journal reference.

Inclusiveness is all the rage in the media, politics, social media, universities, and the workforce, with some in support and some now trending against it. Initially, inclusiveness tended to mean race, color, gender, or religion, but current trends have blurred into sexuality as well. While inclusiveness sounds like a positive concept on the surface level, some negative aspects need to be considered. First, policies like affirmative action have led companies to select workers based on race and gender versus qualification. This potentially has led to a decrease in quality of workers just simply to meet standards of equality. If a candidate is selected simply because they are female or Hispanic, but not fully qualified can potentially put the company, employee, product, or customer at risk. A company must put a high priority on selecting the right candidates for their positions. According to Morris (2020), "Seeking out competent candidates for the role of diversity and inclusion manager, is the first step to supporting and developing a workable agenda around race equality". Secondly, direct leaders can find themselves with a mixed group of workers that have little in common and will be forced to really draw on their leadership skills to bring them together as a team.

I personally have mixed opinions on the current interest of inclusive management. I feel that some companies make an attempt to appear inclusive just simply for their public facing side and social media exposure, but become conflicted when they receive backlash and this makes inclusiveness simply look like something people do to "fit in". While some jobs will take time to become fully inclusive but, due to years of being dominated by certain profiled workers (white males), it will simply take time for women or persons of color to gain the experience and training of their white male counterparts and this is fair. There should be no shortcuts to the front. Unfortunately years of discrimination in certain industries have led us to this current situation. I feel that most businesses/leaders have complex social requirements that have been placed on them with the invention of social media/internet, like noted in Northhouse (2022) "the demand and need for inclusive leadership has come at a moment when leaders' plates are already full." I am hopeful that with time the movement will break away from "wokeness" and just become "oneness".