People who earn this online leadership badge will:

  • Gain a comprehensive understanding of workforce diversity and how the quality of a leader’s inclusive/exclusive conduct affects employees’ self-confidence, quality of effort, achievement, motivation, and job performance
  • Become more conscious of hidden biases, and learn how to diminish or eliminate them from their leadership behaviors
  • Understand the knowledge, skills, and competencies needed to develop as an inclusive leader
  • Identify specific strategies to increase inclusive leadership competencies and organizational effectiveness
  • Apply inclusive leadership concepts to self, teams, and the organization

Integrated curriculum for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

The Kelley School of Business is nationally recognized for its innovative online programs. This 6-week program is delivered by full-time faculty members from the #1–ranked Kelley Direct Online MBA Program (U.S. News & World Report, 2023; Princeton Review, 2023; Poets&Quants, 2023).

This digital badge will require six to eight hours of work per week, mostly comprised of two, two hour live synchronous sessions per week. The program is designed to have maximum career impact and does not end with the last day of class.

In this course, you will learn about the business case for diversity and inclusion, the dimensions of diversity, and the traits of an inclusive leader. You will be asked to assess your own openness and unconscious biases and gain insights into your strengths and opportunities for targeted growth on selected inclusive leadership skill dimensions. You’ll learn to value differences, challenge false assumptions, and begin to exercise moral courage.

In this course, you will learn to develop skills for one-on-one inclusion strategies, including emotional intelligence, emphatic listening, and how to conduct positive, crucial conversations. You’ll learn about the roles that mentoring and sponsoring play, and how to become an ally by utilizing the four pillars of allyship. You’ll also learn how to identify and respond to microaggressions and about the role that trust, fairness, and consistency play in an inclusive mindset.

In this course, you will learn to lead high-performing inclusive teams, relying on principles such as empowerment, accountability, and collaboration. You’ll learn why team members engage and how to recognize patterns of disengagement. You’ll formulate strategies to create and enhance team psychological safety, understand personal conflict management styles and choices, and be able to diagnose interpersonal conflict to determine the underlying causes and best strategies for a given situation.

In this course, you will learn to identify systemic and unconscious bias in employee selection programs, embrace strategies for inclusive recruitment and selection, minimize bias in performance reviews. You’ll also learn about strategies to reduce the gender pay gap, and how to create and implement diversity scorecard specific to your organization. You’ll also present the results of your Action Learning Project.

Meet the instructor

Carolyn Goerner

Dr. Carolyn Goerner is the Aldi, Inc. Distinguished I-Core Clinical Professor in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University-Bloomington. She joined the Kelley faculty in 2000 after receiving her PhD in Management and Human Resources at The Ohio State University. Carolyn was a Human Resource Management consultant for 10 years prior to graduate school.

Dr. Goerner designed the new Leading Diverse and Inclusive Organizations co-major within the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Program. She created the Strategic Human Resources course within the co-major focused on organizational-level practices that enhance Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB). In addition to Influence and Negotiation courses, Carolyn teaches Leadership, Teams & Inclusion and Inclusive Leadership in the Kelley Direct MBA Program. Her research on sexual orientation in the workplace and female-focused mentoring programs has been published in leading academic journals. Dr. Goerner co-founded the Kelley Women’s Initiative and serves on the Kelley School of Business DEIB Task Force.

Carolyn is passionate about live theatre, IU Football, IU Women’s Basketball, Indy Car Racing, and the Green Bay Packers. She lives in Greenwood, Indiana with her husband Peter and their dogs Charlotte and Etta.

Contact us

Questions about this program? Call us at 812-855-0229.