Inclusive leadership is not something we turn on when there’s a meeting on the calendar or a parent sitting across the table from us. It’s not situational. It’s systemic.

If we are truly leading schools that serve all students well, then inclusion has to live in the way we think, plan, allocate resources, and make decisions every single day, not just when something goes wrong.

At the most basic level, inclusive leadership starts with knowing your students.

No, I don’t mean having every detail memorized about every child on your campus. That’s unrealistic. But I do mean knowing your data in a way that reflects responsibility and care. As a school leader, you should know how many students are enrolled in your building. You should know how many students have IEPs. How many are second language learners. How many are academically at risk. How many are showing early signs of disengagement.

Those numbers matter because behind every number is a child, and the systems we build are only as strong as our understanding of who they are designed to serve.

When teachers come to you to talk about students, they should never feel like they are educating you for the first time. Leaders lose credibility quickly when they’re internally scrambling, thinking, I don’t know this student. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Inclusive leadership means being able to engage in those conversations with confidence, clarity, and context.

It also means being visible.

When I walked classrooms, I knew which students I needed to keep a closer eye on…not in a punitive way, but in a protective one. Students who were at risk of failing, disengaging, or struggling behaviorally needed adults who noticed them before they slipped through the cracks. That awareness doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because leaders intentionally stay connected to their students, not just their spreadsheets.

Nowhere is this more important than in how leaders support students with IEPs.

Even when I had an assistant principal, I personally covered the majority of IEP meetings each year. That was a deliberate leadership decision, not a control issue. First, as the principal, I was ultimately responsible for allocating resources. If decisions were being made in those meetings and I wasn’t fully aware of the conversations happening, I couldn’t ensure follow-through. Second, I needed to understand where we had flexibility and where we didn’t.

Parents often come to IEP meetings asking for specific accommodations or supports. When you’re present and informed, you can navigate those conversations with honesty and empathy. You know where compromises can be made, where solutions can be created, and where you need to pause and say, “That’s not an option, but let’s figure out what is.”

And here’s something we don’t talk about enough: presence matters.

When parents walked into meetings and saw me sitting at the table, they knew their child mattered. They knew I was prioritizing them. That alone changes the tone of a meeting. I always made it a point to warm things up before diving into the heavy conversations, especially when families came in guarded, frustrated, or with past negative experiences.

We also have to be honest with ourselves about the language we use. Educational jargon confuses parents. It intimidates them. Many parents of students with IEPs don’t fully understand the terminology, and too often they’re afraid to ask for clarification. That creates mistrust and misalignment. My goal was always for parents to leave meetings knowing exactly what would happen next, feeling confident in the plan, and comfortable enough to ask questions later.

Inclusive leadership doesn’t stop at meetings.

Once plans are in place, leaders must ensure that staff have the systems, training, and support to actually implement them. If you have a program on your campus, that program is a system. Everyone should know how it works, not just special education staff, but general education teachers as well. Schedules need to be tight. Roles need to be clear. Accountability needs to be shared.

And when staff don’t yet have the skill set? We train them. We support them. We don’t shame them or ignore the gaps. Systems don’t run on good intentions; they run on clarity and capacity.

That’s why I believe so strongly that inclusive leadership is about systems, not heroics.

If this is work you’re still trying to get your arms around, this is exactly the kind of leadership thinking we go deeper into inside the UNCOMMON platform, where systems, not surface-level strategies, are the focus.

And as a quick preview: my chapter in the upcoming book Daring to Belong, releasing in April, shares how I built systems to support students with autism, but the truth is, those systems strengthened support for all students. Because when leaders lead inclusively, everyone benefits.

Inclusive leadership isn’t about doing more.
It’s about leading smarter, with intention, clarity, and heart.

Cheri