Under pressure, inclusion often stays at the level of intention. This program makes it solid — not as a value to uphold, but as a practice that holds when it matters most.
Research confirms it: under time pressure, even moderate, judgment defaults to the familiar. The kind of presence, connection, courage and clarity that make difference useful in a room — those require more than good intentions.
No commitment. 30 minutes . video call
Download the Short Guide: The Inclusive Leadership Compass
Studies confirm what you already know: under cognitive load or time pressure, judgment defaults to what is familiar — at the expense of what falls outside our usual patterns, including a person’s background or identity.
Van Knippenberg, A., Dijksterhuis, A., & Vermeulen, D. (1999). Judgement and memory of a criminal act: The effects of stereotypes and cognitive load. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 191-201.
Stepanikova, I. (2012). Racial-ethnic biases, time pressure, and medical decisions. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 53(3), 329-343.
A new management tool is announced for next quarter. You hold the line: a composed, clear message in the meeting.
The workload eliminates informal conversations. Three weeks later, two people who brought a different reading of the situation have gone quiet.
The organisation has a stated diversity goal at leadership level. Every talent review reaffirms it.
Yet the same profiles reach the committee, cycle after cycle. No one decides it: the informal criteria of “recognised leadership” consistently favour those who resemble the people already there.
A team member does not shake hands with his female colleagues for cultural reasons. In the name of respecting diversity, the practice becomes established without anyone intervening.
Yet discomfort grows across the teams.
Capacities
Diversity policies are shifting. What does not shift: the need for every person to feel recognized and contribute fully. That is where your impact as an inclusive leader rests.
The program works on this precisely: the quality of your conversations, in ordinary situations and under the pressure you know well. At your level, that quality also depends on the conversations you make possible for others — and the ones you let go dark without noticing.
Steadiness is built on the Inclusive Leadership Compass — four directions, two axes. You work first on the axis of Receptivity:
Presence – Connection
Sensing what is at stake before pressure decides for you. Hearing what dominates, who pulls back, what stays unspoken.
Then the axis of Conviction:
Courage – Clarity
Saying what needs to be said, or holding back to make room. Naming what is decided, aligning what remains to be built.
Density and realism
1 daily prompt – 1 individual coaching session every two weeks – 1 consolidation session at the end of the program
Clarify your situation, your priorities and the conversations that matter.
You leave with a shared diagnosis and a clear focus.
Sensing what is at stake before pressure decides for you. Hearing what dominates, who pulls back, what stays unspoken.
Taking stock of what has already shifted and what is in motion.
Saying what needs to be said, or holding back to make room. Naming what is decided, aligning what remains to be built.
Validating what has changed in your real situations, and tightening your Field Journal.
Measuring what holds over time, and adjusting your Field Journal.
Personalization
Five prompts a week, across the sixteen active weeks of the program — 5 to 30 minutes, at your own pace.
Personalized to your preferences and the content of your sessions, they feed your Field Journal throughout the program.
Sample prompts :
Before a meeting you are already dreading, where do you feel the pressure in your body? What does that signal tell you about what is at stake?
In a recent meeting, someone took up more space than others — not because they had more to say. What gave them that space?
A decision was made this week. Who in your organization knows exactly what was settled, what remains open, and what still needs to be arbitrated? And who is still doing the work of interpretation?
A personal and reflective object — not just a practical one — built week by week: your observations, what each direction reveals about your way of leading, your own operating principles, your personal lexicon for naming what is really happening.
To measure what has shifted in your real situations and, where needed, adjust your approach. A core element of the program.
Three leaders, three situations. One common thread: staying genuine and inclusive precisely when the stakes are highest.
A new management tool is announced for the next quarter. The workload eliminates informal conversations and ground-level feedback.
She opens a weekly touchpoint to surface what her team does not say in formal settings and to identify blind spots.
The organisation has had a stated diversity goal at leadership level for two years. Every talent review reaffirms it. Yet the same profiles reach the committee, cycle after cycle.
He makes his own succession criteria explicit, rather than relying on intuition. Two profiles he would not have retained spontaneously enter the pipeline.
No one intervened. The practice was accepted as a cultural difference to respect. Discomfort grew across the teams.
He names what happened: an inequitable drift in practice. He proposes one that respects both culture and equity — no handshake with women, no handshake with men.
Catherine Macquart-Martin
Inclusive leadership coach, ACC-certified by the International Coaching Federation. 25 years of international experience — diplomacy, education, leadership, entrepreneurship.
That path taught me to read what operates beneath the surface: cultural codes, power dynamics, what is said and what is not — and how much harder that reading becomes, not easier, when the stakes rise.
My approach combines analytical rigor with attention to the body. Our sessions do not deliver an outside method to apply. They surface what you already sense, and ground it in your reality.
Coaching in English and French · Online · International clients
Investment
4600,- €
A quote can be provided upon request for coverage through your organization's training or development budget.
Limited to 3 places per quarter.
Still have doubts?
Neither, exactly. It is a structured program — personalised prompts, coaching sessions, a Field Journal, evaluation and integration milestones — without generic content or set modules to follow.
Every element starts from what you are actually living, and works on what resists in your conversations under pressure.
Standard leadership coaching starts from broad goals.
This program starts from a specific mechanism: what happens to inclusion when the stakes rise, and how to sustain it, situation after situation.
It does not repeat your leadership work. It deepens one specific area: the steadiness of inclusion when pressure rises.
You can run it alongside another engagement.
Yes. Senior independents and entrepreneurs carry the same relational complexity as leaders within organisations, often with less of a safety net and greater direct exposure. The program adapts to your specific context.
Yes. A quote and a program description can be provided on request for coverage through your organisation’s training or development budget.
The program adapts. The intake session sets the initial frame, but each session starts from where you actually are.
The intermediate review at mid-program allows the terms of the second axis to be adjusted if needed.
