“Nobody wins unless everybody wins”. Leadership and the paradoxes of inclusion

Purpose To use sport as effective catalyst for social change, leaders must understand how individual diversity, organizational norms and societal processes intertwine to structure inclusive practices in specific contexts. Because of this complex backdrop, leaders are likely to find themselves in contradictory situations, where the preference of one inclusion consideration clashes with another. Drawing on B.M. Ferdman’s “paradoxes of inclusion”, this paper aims to advocate a new approach to manage these situations. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on multi-sited, collaborative fieldwork in five riding clubs. These clubs are involved in a national project for social inclusion through sport aimed at people with a history of substance disorder. Findings The present paper suggests that living with paradoxes require two leadership strategies: (1) the management of trade-off between the collective and the individual, and (2) balancing between emotional intelligence and pragmatism. Originality/value By using the leadership-as-practice (LAP) perspective in a domain traditionally dominated by conventional leadership theories, this study offers significant academic insights into inclusive leadership practices. It highlights the potential benefits of embracing inclusion paradoxes rather than seeking their resolution.