Inclusive Leadership: A closer look at the DE&I Leadership Certification Program

At Delivery Hero, we recently piloted our DE&I Leadership Certification Program. In this post, we reflect on the importance of fostering inclusive leadership behaviours and the impact such a program can have.

What sparked this program?

We know that leading inclusively is vital when it comes to shaping a dynamic organizational culture where everyone can thrive, do their best work, and have a true sense of belonging. This program is a vehicle in which we continuously seek to realize this aspiration by anchoring DE&I within core leadership responsibilities at Delivery Hero.

Micah Lasseter, Director of Learning & Leadership Development, further explains: “What we see is that leaders are passionate regarding allyship and their willingness to champion inclusion. Many have mentioned that having a space to connect, share, and learn about DE&I topics collectively is extremely valuable in doing so.”

The Aim

By ingraining DE&I topics within core leadership responsibilities, the program aims to empower managers and leaders to foster and shape an inclusive culture, through allyship, and by ultimately making people decisions that impact underrepresented groups. 

18 senior leaders across the Tech, Product, and People & Culture departments at Delivery Hero Central took part in the pilot, which was completed in April 2024. 

How did we get there?

The pilot of the DE&I Leadership Certification program took place across 1.5 months, divided into sections centered around our Delivery Hero values - We are Heroes because we care, We deliver solutions and We always aim higher.

We started with a half-day in-person kick-off session, followed by virtual sessions and e-learning modules for the participants to complete. The program ended with a virtual graduation session, where participants shared their key learnings and reflected on the program experience.

To deliver the program, we partnered with MindGym - an organization that supports ambitious companies to enable behavioural change. They supported by co-designing the program journey to cover sessions centered around inclusive leadership, psychological safety, inclusive hiring, belonging, unconscious biases and allyship. 

Reflecting on their experience with one of the sessions, one leader expressed: “I loved that the workshop involved the topics of inclusion and exclusion on various dimensions, such as  age, disability, nationality, gender, and many more.

I also loved that the workshop fostered an empathetic approach toward people, acknowledging and explaining that it is normal and natural to have biases as our brain is geared towards efficiency and taking shortcuts. The workshop fostered a culture of learning and openness and not having negative judgments on those natural mechanisms themselves.”

What’s next?

Initial evaluation of the program suggests that the program helped leaders reinforce practices of inclusion, such as focusing on team connection and using different methods to gather feedback from people to ensure all voices are heard. 

Leaders also recognised opportunities to apply their learnings in key moments of the employee lifecycle, such as hiring and performance management. As we look ahead, we are seeking to expand this program to the rest of our leaders at Delivery Hero as we continue our aspiration to lead inclusively.