11.

DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY

Diversity is a fact of life in today's world and leaders can create change in organizations to keep up
with the changing environment. Leaders face significant challenges leading people who are
different from themselves. However, strong, culturally sensitive leadership is the only way
organizations can become inclusive and be the best they can be.

11.1. Leading people who aren't you

Although many people know about diversity, the cultural values and organizational systems in any
companies do not genuinely support and value it (yet).

As more women and minorities move up the management hierarchy, they’re often finding it a lonely
road to travel. Racism and sexism in the workplace often show up in subtle ways and many minority
leaders struggle daily with the problem of delegating authority and responsibility to employees who
show them little respect. Although many people know about diversity, the cultural values and
organizational systems in any companies do not genuinely support and value it (yet).

11.2. Diversity today

The goal for today’s leaders is to recognize that each person can bring value and strengths to the
workplace based on his or her own combination of diverse characteristics. Diversity adds value to
organizations and can contribute to a firm’s competitive advantage

The goal for today’s leaders is to recognize that each person can bring value and strengths to the
workplace based on his or her own combination of diverse characteristics. Organizations establish
workforce diversity programs to promote the hiring, inclusion, and career advancement of diverse
employees and to ensure that differences are accepted and respected. Workforce diversity means a
workforce made up of people with different human qualities or who belong to various cultural
groups. From the perspective of individuals, diversity refers to all the ways in which people differ,
including dimensions such as age, race, marital status, physical ability, income level, and lifestyle.
Today’s organizations are embracing a much more inclusive approach than decades ago.
Traditionally, there were only the dimensions that were immediately observable. However, the
inclusive model includes all the ways in which people differ.

Attitudes towards diversity are changing partly because they have to as leaders respond to
significant changes in our society, including demographic changes and globalization. However, there
are other reasons leaders want to incorporate diversity. Diversity adds value to organizations and
can contribute to a firm’s competitive advantage. Leaders can use internal diversity to meet the
need of diverse customers and build stronger connections with them. When diversity is supported,
people feel valued for what they can bring to the organization, which leads to higher morale.
Diversity contributes to greater organizational learning and flexibility and leads to stronger
performance as well. A diverse workforce contributes to diversity of thought, which is a critical
element for high performance. It means there is a broader and deeper base of ideas, opinions, and
experiences for problem solving, creativity, and other innovation.
 11.3. Challenges minorities face

The combination of ethnocentric viewpoints, the natural force toward separation, and a standard
set of cultural assumptions and practices creates a number of challenges for minority employees
and leaders: prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination, unequal expectations, the glass ceiling
and the opportunity gap.

Creating an inclusive organizational environment is difficult, because most people have a natural
tendency toward ethnocentrism, which refers to the belief that one’s own culture and subculture
are inherently superior to other cultures. The combination of ethnocentric viewpoints, the natural
force toward separation, and a standard set of cultural assumptions and practices creates a number
of challenges for minority employees and leaders.

Prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination. One significant problem in many organizations is

prejudice, which is an adverse feeling or opinion formed without regard for the facts. An aspect of
prejudice is stereotyping, which is a rigid, exaggerated, irrational, and typically negative belief or
image associated with a particular group of people. When a leader and company act out prejudicial
attitudes toward people, discrimination has occurred. Paying a woman less than a man for the same
work is gender discrimination. Refusing to hire someone because he or she has a different ethnicity
is ethnic discrimination. Leaders should be aware that there are a number of laws that prohibit
various types of discrimination.

Unequal expectations. Many minority mangers have to deal with a racially motivated double
standard or with having to prove themselves over and over again. No matter how qualified they
actually are, they are never considered to ‘have the right stuff’. Women trying to advance in their
careers often find themselves in a double blind. They have learned that they need to act and think
like men to succeed, but they are criticized when they do so. The band of acceptable behaviour is
much narrower for women than for men.

The glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that separates women and minorities from
top leadership positions. They can look up through the ceiling, but prevailing attitudes are invisible
obstacles to their own advancement. Some women get of the fast track before they ever encounter
the glass ceiling, which has been referred to as the opt-out trend. Women have made significant
strides in recent years, but they still represent only a small percentage of top executives. Women
leaders sometimes feel that the cost of climbing the corporate ladder is too high.

The opportunity gap. A final challenge is the lack of opportunities for many minorities. People fail to
advance to higher levels in organizations because they haven’t had the chance to acquire the
necessary education and skills.

11.4. Ways women lead

Women’s leadership styles differ from men’s. Generally, men are more assertive and competitive,
whereas women are more caring and inclusive.

Women’s leadership styles differ from men’s. Women often use a style that is highly effective in
today’s turbulent, culturally diverse environment and their participation in U.S. workforces has
steadily increased since the mid-1950s, whereas men’s participation has slowly but steadily declined.
According to James Gabarino, women are better able to deliver in terms of what modern society
requires of people – paying attention, abiding by rules, being verbally competent, and dealing with
interpersonal relationships. This is supported by the fact that female managers are typically rated
higher by subordinates on interpersonal skills as well as on factors such as task behaviour,
communication, ability to motivate others, and goal accomplishment.

One survey of followers rated women leaders significantly higher than men on several characteristics
that are crucial for developing fast, flexible, adaptive organizations. Female leaders were rated as
having more idealized influence, providing more inspirational motivating, being more individually
considerate, and offering more intellectual stimulation. Idealized influence means that followers
identify with and want to emulate the leader; the leader is trusted and respected, maintains high
standards, and is considered to have power because of who she is rather than what position she
holds. Inspirational motivation is derived from the leader who appeals emotionally and symbolically
to employees’ desire to do a god job and help achieve organizational goals. Individual consideration
means each follower is treated as an individual but all are treated equitably; individuals needs are
recognized, and assignments are delegated to followers to provide learning opportunities.
Intellectual simulation means questioning current methods and challenging employees to think in
new ways. In addition to these qualities, women leaders were judged by subordinates as more
effective and satisfying to work for and were considered able to generate extra levels of effort from
employees.

Male leaders tend to be competitive and individualistic and prefer working in vertical hierarchies.
They rely on formal authority and position in their dealings with subordinates. Some women also
reflect these characteristics, of course, but research has found that, in general, women prefer less
competitive environments, tend to be more collaborative, and are more concerned with relationship
building, inclusiveness, participation, and caring. Female leaders are often more willing to share
power and information, to encourage employee development, and to strive to enhance others’
feelings or self-worth.

Judy B. Rosener has called women’s approach to leadership interactive leadership. The differences
between the relationship orientations of men and women has sometimes been used to suggest that
women cannot lead effectively, because they fail to exercise power. However, whereas male leaders
may associate effective leadership with a top-down command-and-control process, women’s
interactive leadership seems appropriate for the future of diversity, globalization, and learning
organizations.

11.5. Global diversity

In a multicultural environment, leaders will be most successful if they are culturally flexible and
able to easily adapt to new situations and ways of doing things.

Social and cultural differences may provide more potential for difficulties and conflicts than any
other source. Research done by Geert Hofstede discovered that mind-set and cultural values vary
widely among cultures. He created four dimensions:
  Power distance. High power distance means people accept inequality in power among
institutions, organizations, and individuals. Low power distance meanspeople expect
equality in power.
 Uncertainty avoidance. High uncertainty avoidance means that members of a society feel
uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity and thus support beliefs and behaviours that
promise certainty and conformity. Low uncertainty avoidance means that people have high
tolerance for the unstructured, unclear, and unpredictable.
 Individualism and collectivism. Individualism reflects a value for a loosely knit social
framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves. Collectivism is a
preference for a tightly knit social framework in which people look out of one another and
organizations protect their members’ interest.
 Masculinity and femininity. Masculinity reflects a preference for achievement, heroism,
assertiveness, work centrality, and material success. Femininity reflects the values of
relationships, cooperation, group decision making, and quality of life.

How leaders handle cultural differences can have tremendous impact on the satisfaction and
effectiveness of diverse employees.

In a multicultural environment, leaders will be most successful if they are culturally flexible and able
to easily adapt to new situations and ways of doing things. They need cultural intelligence (CQ),
which refers to a person’s ability to use reasoning and observation skills to interpret unfamiliar
gestures and situations and devise appropriate behavioural responses. CQ includes three
components that work together: cognitive, emotional, and physical.

 The cognitive component involves a person’s observational and learning skills and the ability
to pick up on clues to understanding.
 The emotional component concerns one’s self-confidence and self-motivation.
 The physical component refers to a person’s ability to shift speech patterns, expressions,
and body language to be in tune with people from a different culture.

Most people aren’t equally strong in all areas, but maximizing cultural intelligence requires that they
draw upon all three aspects. To be effective in a diverse global environment, leaders should be
aware of cultural and subcultural differences. It is important for leaders to recognize that culture
affects both style and the leadership situation, because how behaviour is perceived differs from
culture to culture.

11.6. Becoming an inclusive leader

Strong, culturally sensitive leadership can move organizations toward a more inclusive culture.
However, leaders vary in their sensitivity and openness to other cultures, attitudes, values, and
ways of doing things. There are five stages of individual diversity awareness and actions.

One goal for today’s organizations is to ensure that all people are given equal opportunities and
treated with fairness and respect. Strong, culturally sensitive leadership can move organizations
toward a more inclusive culture. However, leaders vary in their sensitivity and openness to other
cultures, attitudes, values, and ways of doing things. There are five stages of individual diversity
awareness and actions. The continuum ranges from a defensive, ethnocentric attitude to a complete
understanding and acceptance of people’s differences.

 People at stage one see differences as a great threat against their own comfortable world
view and frequently use negative stereotyping or express prejudicial attitudes. They consider
their own culture to be superior.
 At stage two, people attempt to minimize differences and focus on the similarities among all
people. Unconscious and subtle bias becomes evident and leader don’t adequately
recognize or respond to challenges minorities and women face
 In stage three, an individual accepts cultural differences and recognizes the validity of other
ways of thinking and doing things. More women and minorities make it to high-level
positions, and leaders begin providing diversity training to all employees.
 When people reach stage four, they are able to empathize with people who are different
from themselves and can comfortably shift from one cultural perspective to another.
Leaders make a strong commitment to bread equalityand community.
 At stage five, people are capable of integrating differences and adapting both cognitively
and behaviourally. Leaders can create organizations that are gender- and colour-blind. All
employees are judged on the competence.

Many organizations provide diversity training to help people identify cultural boundaries, prejudices,
and stereotypes and develop the skills for managing and working in a diverse workplace. Leaders can
also seek training to improve their diversity awareness and skills.

11.7. Personal qualities for leading diverse people

Four characteristics have been identified as important for inclusive leadership: a personal, long-
range vision that recognizes and supports a diverse organizational community, a broad knowledge
of the dimensions of diversity and awareness of multicultural issues, an openness to change
themselves, and mentoring and empowerment of diverse employees.

Four characteristics have been identified as important for inclusive leadership:

1. A personal, long-range vision that recognizes and supports a diverse organizational

community.
2. A broad knowledge of the dimensions of diversity and awareness of multicultural issues.
3. An openness to change themselves.
4. Mentoring and empowerment of diverse employees