Inclusive Leadership as a Site of Struggle: Resistance and Mitigation Strategies for Sustaining Inclusion for Historically Marginalized Employees

ABSTRACT Scholars emphasize inclusive leadership's benefits for leaders and employees, yet existing theory largely overlooks the challenges leaders face when addressing disparities experienced by historically marginalized employees. Drawing on an inductive study of 47 historically marginalized STEM employees and 14 leaders they identified as inclusive, we model inclusive leadership as a three‐part process: (1) leaders’ inclusion efforts (attentive learning, talent amplification, and structural debiasing); (2) resistance to these efforts (skepticism, gatekeeping, fit critiques, and non‐compliance); and (3) leader strategies to mitigate resistance and protect inclusion (explaining value, co‐crafting strategies, evaluating fit critiques, and managing change momentum). We triangulate findings and test our theory's boundary conditions using qualitative data from three additional STEM samples: racial minority men, lower‐ranking women, and White males. The first two samples replicate our model; the third reveals that White men may perceive inclusive leadership differently than historically marginalized employees. By centering the perspectives of those most affected by bias, our study extends inclusive leadership theory. We offer a processual view that moves beyond detailing inclusive behaviors to highlight the challenges leaders face enacting them.