A power-packed panel discussion on inclusive leadership as the key to high-performance workplaces took place at the Best of the Best Conference by Avtar & Seramount on November 13, 2025, in Chennai. The panel, moderated by Karthik Ekambaram, Chief Sales Officer, Avtar Group, boasted HR leaders such as Amit Vaish, Vice President, Human Capital & Head of HR, Optum India; Nisha Gopinath, Vice President – Human Resources, IBM – India South Asia; and Dr. Tooba Modassir, Chief Human Resource Officer, Citi India & Cluster HR Head, Indian Subcontinent, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh, Citi.
Nurturing the Inclusive Environment
The panel began with Karthik’s question on how each panellist would measure the intangible aspects of safety and inclusion while ensuring that tangible high-performing business metrics such as profitability and sales are not impacted, as balancing both aspects is essential for business. The panellists shared their views on how inclusion influences empathy, its impact on innovation, and the need to focus on both the process and behavioural aspects of completing a task.
The panel stressed that leaders must truly understand that psychologically safe workplaces and high-performance workplaces are two sides of the same coin. Recognizing the changes in businesses across industries with the advent of AI, Nisha said, “When leaders provide trust and respect to employees, performance accelerates,” as she detailed how open communication and inclusive workplaces impact performance in high-pressure scenarios.
Inclusion as a Strategic Asset
Acknowledging that creating psychologically safe, inclusive workplaces is hard to put into practice, Dr. Tooba impressed upon the audience the importance of behavioural metrics in addition to performance metrics to build inclusive workplaces. The panel agreed that the world is a global marketplace and that inclusion and compassion are integral to serving different audiences. Amit said, “Inclusion is a feeling enabled by both bonding and bridging,” adding the need to consciously foster inclusive cultures.
Key Takeaways
“Building psychologically safe workplaces by consciously seeking, fostering, and celebrating open communication is the means to building high-performance organizations” was the key takeaway from the discussion. Karthik stressed that in a dynamic environment, building trust and safety among team members is important to achieve organizational goals. In a highly productive conclusion to the discussion, the panel agreed that providing clarity amidst ambiguity, robust mechanisms for safe and open communication, and inspirational leadership are key pieces of the high-performance workplace puzzle.
