Harrington 1

Meghan Harrington

OGL 350

Professor Zembruski

October 3, 2020

Paper 7

One of my greatest professional dreams in life, is to open a non-profit organization for

handicapped and underprivileged youth in America. I once worked for and volunteered at a

foundation called Bridges, with a similar vision and hope for the future. The organization I

would want to open would have an incredibly diverse clientele and employee/volunteer team.

Including having a wide variety of mentally and emotionally handicapped people, children from

various socioeconomic backgrounds, and the staff to support it all, would very much qualify as a

diverse organization. Disability does not see race, gender, financial stability, etc. Often times in

these types of organizations, you have people from all over the county and even state, coming for

help and support from the organization. The purpose of this organization would be to connect

people with resources, give a place that handicapped and underprivileged children can go to for

support or employment/job coaching and opportunities, and provide the community with more

opportunities to support and become comfortable with the underserved population they often

forget about.

I think that I have the ability to be a great leader in this type of organization, based on life

experience, skills, and passions I have. My pie chart helped me visualize how much my identity

helps me to understand and relate to others around me. Many of my slices are fairly even, and I
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realize now how much my chart is lacking. I have a strong understanding of who I am and the

things I identify with. According to chapter 6 titled “Effective Leadership for Multicultural

Teams” discusses a leadership theory I identify with and would plan to use in my position for

this organization. “Distributed leadership works through relationships, with team members

assuming leadership in different circumstances depending on their expertise and with the focus

on participation by all members.” One of the biggest things I hope this organization would

achieve, is teaching and guiding clients to long term success (whatever that may look like to the

individual). I realize now that this goal would be extended to employees as well. I want to see

people succeed and find happiness in their life. I know that leaders have the capacity to do that if

they share their responsibility and allow their team members to display skills and grow their

talents. One of the biggest challenges within this organizations diversity would be

communication. According to “Diversity and Leadership in a Changing World”; Communication

is often one of the biggest struggles that diverse teams face. “The challenge for organizations is

to leverage this potential by lessening the conflict, communication barriers, and lack of mutual

respect that can develop in identity-diverse groups.” This is obviously a very hard struggle to

overcome, but I think with the proper culture and leadership, unnecessary conflict caused by

poor communication can be mitigated. One of the ways I would try to help with communication

and understanding is holding cultural events, so people can learn and better understand different

cultures within their communities. According to “Intercultural Competence in Multicultural

Teams”, “Members of multicultural professional teams need to learn about one another’s cultural

differences because it improves communication by reducing perceptual distortion and the

tendency to rely on stereotypes”. Having cultural nights won’t solve all of the problems, but it is
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one way that we can have fun, celebrate, and learn about the importance of diversity and sharing

cultures with one another.

In the CQ cultural intelligence test, I was not very surprised with my original score. I was

however surprised to see it had grown by a few points. My pre-test score was 108, while my post

test score was 115. Day-to-day I do not feel like many of my feelings, perspectives, or actions

have changed much. After spending some time reflecting on the last few weeks, I can see how I

missed the progress I had made. Even though I see small differences in the ways I think and feel,

I believe that these changes will greatly help and support me on my journey to becoming the

leader I now know I can become.