Isabelle Jensen

Arizona State University

Diversity in a Leadership Position

Although I am currently a student, I am hoping to one day hold a leadership position in

the field of project management. There are many aspects of this role that require great leadership

in order to produce a great end result. As a project manager, you are essentially the team leader,

and you are required to be the leader for all those involved in the project. Within these projects

there will be lots of diversity seen in all sorts of different roles, this is why my new knowledge of

diversity will come in handy for my future career. Module six has taught me just how important

diversity in teams can be, it has also taught me the challenges and benefits that come with

leading others that may have different leadership styles.

As a project manager, there is no telling what projects or organization you will work for.

There are projects to be managed at any and all organizations. Although I am not quite sure what

type of organization I can see myself working for, I will use an overall business as the diverse

organization I may lead. Within these businesses, there are many different employees coming

from different backgrounds and cultures. While working on projects, it is essential that your team

is able to come up with ideas and solutions for every part of the project, this is where the

diversity of the team comes in. The diversity in my future team will produce better ideas and

solutions than a homogenous team would be able to produce because of their differing ways to

represent and solve problems. (Eagly, 2014)

Bringing my own identity to the diversity of the workplace is another important aspect to

diverse leadership. In my pie chart from module one, I mentioned many different parts of my

identity including female, athlete, student, liberal, white, and Christian. However, after taking

this class I believe that these descriptors have new meanings to myself and my leadership style.
 Isabelle Jensen
Arizona State University
Not only will I bring the aspects of my life that make me who I am, I will bring inclusion and

embrace the unique identities that my team members bring to our diverse team.

When I created the pie chart in module one, I felt as though the different parts of my

identity I had chosen didn’t accurately describe who I was. I also felt that simply saying I am a

white woman didn’t prove to be a unique characteristic to possess. However, I have learned that

no matter what race or culture you come from, you should be proud to share those parts of your

identity with the world and bring that uniqueness to the organization. I believe that being a

woman is one of the best parts of my identity I can bring to the workplace and my team. Women

are often underrepresented in the workplace, and studies found that having women as leaders

decreased the amount of sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and increased

organizational support. (Gotsis and Grimani, 2015)

Given what I have learned about leadership and diversity from this class, I can better

form the approach I will take when in a leadership role. First off, I will ensure that when we are

hiring candidates, we are hiring a diverse group of individuals. This is my top priority as it is

important to promote equal opportunities and ensure that our team is full of unique and diverse

identities in order to produce the best end results. Another approach is to gather a shared vision

throughout the team so that we may always be on the same page as we strive to reach our goals. I

also believe that when you have a shared vision, people understand the type of organization they

are working for and if they don’t agree with the diversity and inclusion values we stand for, they

may leave. In order to have an effective multicultural team, there is a need for cohesion and a

shared vision. (Williams, 2008)

The last part to my approach is to be inclusive and sensitive to all cultural differences that

may cause issues within the team. According to Effective Leadership for Multicultural teams,
 Isabelle Jensen
Arizona State University
there can be a resistance in leadership if the particular leadership style clashes with a team

member’s culture. With diverse teams, there is sure to be an issue like this every so often, but it

is how you respond to these issues that shows your true leadership values. In an instance like

this, I will have an open and honest conversation with the team member about how myself, and

the team, can be more inclusive towards their preferred leadership style. I will then be able to

assess the cultural make-up of the team and decide if I need to switch to a combination of

participative and authoritarian in order to suit the needs of my team. (Williams, 2008)

After taking the post-test, I can see so much improvement in my understanding of

cultures, however, that doesn’t mean I got a higher score. I found my score to be lower on the

post-test than the pre-test for many reasons. One reason is because I now have a better

understanding of my knowledge and unconscious bias’s I may hold. When I first took the pre-

test, I thought I knew a lot about other cultures, how to communicate with them, and what

leadership to them looked like. I quickly learned that I didn’t actually know much about how to

communicate or lead other cultures. This lower score shows me that the readings and

assignments we have done throughout this course taught me to recognize any ignorance I may

have towards other cultures and learn from it. I hope to continue to learn more about diversity

and how I can better lead others that may come from a different culture than my own. With my

new knowledge from this class, I believe that this goal is one that is achievable.

In module six, the main lesson to be learned was how diversity effects teams and

organizations. Although I already knew the many benefits to having a diverse team, I didn’t truly

understand the difficulties it could bring as well until this module. With different cultures comes

different preferred leadership styles, many prefer the style they grew up with in their own

culture. These differing preferences can cause issues when a leader is strongly influenced by a
 Isabelle Jensen
Arizona State University
certain style. As a leader, it is important to understand that your leadership style is for your

followers and not yourself, so becoming aware of cultural differences is important when these

issues do arise.

References

Eagly, Alice H. “Diversity and Leadership in a Changing World.” American Psychologist, edited
by Jean Lau Chin, 2014, pp. 216–224.

Gotsis, George, and Katerina Grimani. “Diversity as an Aspect of Effective Leadership:

Integrating and Moving Forward.” Emerald Group, 2015.

Williams, Ken. (2008). Effective Leadership for Multicultural Teams. 10.1007/978-1-4020-

6957-4_6.