Increasing attention has been placed on inclusive leadership practices that aim to foster psychological safety, belongingness, and authenticity among organizational members. However, according to optimal distinctiveness theory, inclusion involves a paradoxical tension between belongingness and uniqueness. This tension, which leaders of inclusion are struggling with, has received limited attention in the conceptualization of inclusive leadership, which constrains further theory development of its antecedents and outcomes. Taking on a paradox lens, we use interview data from 39 exemplary inclusive leaders to identify the main tension underlying inclusive leadership practices: diversification (focusing on encouraging divergence, providing differentiated support, and promoting subgrouping) and integration (focusing on finding similarities, providing equality, and building intersecting connections). We call the phenomenon of blending diversification and integration paradoxical inclusive leadership. We reveal three sub-tensions that manifest in the exemplars’ paradoxical inclusive practices: (1) seeking out divergent people and perspectives vs. seeking out similarities among people, (2) supporting people differently vs. supporting everyone equally, and (3) encouraging subgroupings vs. connecting across subgroups. We also found personal and contextual factors that relate to how these tensions show up. This research offers a novel, tension-centered perspective to inclusive leadership, which challenges a dominant, more simplistic, and overly optimistic depiction of it. Based on our findings, we suggest a fresh perspective to enrich the conceptualization of inclusive leadership and provide implications on how to develop inclusive leaders.
