TEAL 7810:

Diversity for Leaders

Dalai Lama XIV:
 “Peace does not mean an absence of
conflicts; differences will always be there.
Peace means solving these differences
through peaceful means; through dialogue,
education, knowledge, and through humane
ways.”
Source:
 Information for this Power Point was taken from:
 Connerley, M. L., & Pedersen, P.B. (2005).
Leadership in a diverse and multicultural
environment: Developing awareness, knowledge,
and skills. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,
39 – 53.
Cultural Frameworks
 What is culture?
 “Culture has been defined as the source of ties that
bind members of societies through an elusive
“socially constructed constellation” consisting of
such things as practices, competencies, ideas,
schemas, symbols, values, norms, institutions,
goals, rules, artifacts, and modification of physical
environment” (Fiske, 2002, p. 85, in Connerley & Pederson,
2005).
Leaders and Culture
 Personal Culture:
 Shared combination of an individual’s traits, skills,
and personality formed within the context of his or
her ethnic, racial, familial, and educational
environments. Everyone has a unique personal
culture.
 Write a short description of your Personal
Culture.
Leaders and Culture
 National Culture:
 “National culture is a shared understanding that
comes from the combination of beliefs, values,
attitudes, and behaviors that have provided the
foundation for the heritage of a country.
Individuals within a nation have a very wide range
of beliefs about their nation.”
 Write a brief description of your national
culture.
Leaders and Culture
 Corporate Culture:
 Corporate culture is a combination of widely
shared institutional beliefs, values, and the
organization’s guiding philosophy that is usually
stated in its vision, mission, and values statements
(Gardenswartz, et al., 2003, in Connerly & Pederson, 2005).
 Write about your organizational culture.
Motivational Values Across Cultures:
 Power: Social status and prestige. Level of
dominance or control over people or resources that
is valued by culture.
 Achievement: Demonstrating competence
according to social standards of the culture.
 Stimulation: Challenge, excitement, and novelty
in life as valued by the culture.
Motivational Values Across Cultures:
 Self-Direction: Level of independent thought and
action that is valued by the culture.
 Hedonism: Level of pleasure and self-
gratification that is valued by the culture.
 Security: Level of harmony, stability, and safety
of society, relationships, and self that is valued by
the culture.
Motivational Values Across Cultures:
 Conformity: Accepted level of restraining
actions or impulses that would likely upset or
harm others and violate social expectations.
 Tradition: Accepted level of commitment,
respect, and acceptance of the ideas and customs
that traditional culture and religion provide.
Motivational Values Across Cultures:
 Benevolence: Accepted level of the importance of
preserving and enhancing the welfare of all people
with whom one is frequently in contact.
 Universalism: Accepted level of the importance
of being broadminded and having and
appreciation, understanding, and tolerance for the
welfare of all people and for nature.
Motivational Values Across Cultures:
Values Self Nation Organization
Power
Achievement
Stimulation
Self-Direction
Hedonism
Security
Conformity
Tradition
Benevolence
Universalism
Globe Research: Five National
Cultural Dimensions
 Assertiveness: Extent to which a society
encourages individuals to be tough, assertive, and
competitive vs. modest and tender.
 Future Orientation: Level of importance a
society attaches to future-oriented behaviors such
as planning, investing, and delaying gratification.
Globe Research: Five National
Cultural Dimensions
 Performance Orientation: Degree to which a
society encourages and rewards groups members
for performance improvement and excellence.
 Humane Orientation: Extent to which a society
encourages and rewards people for being fair,
caring, generous, altruistic, and kind.
Globe Research: Five National
Cultural Dimensions
 Gender Differentiation: Extent to which a
society maximized gender role differences.

 Why does this matter?

 How would this knowledge affect leadership
behavior?
 Examples?
Culture and Context: Hall (1976)
 Cultures vary in terms of how contextual
information is viewed and interpreted. The
context of a situation is crucial to communication,
often heavily influencing not only what is said and
how it is said, and how the information is
perceived.
 Ex: In some cultures, what is unsaid is more
important than what is said. Other examples?
Levels of Intercultural Sensitivity
 Ethnocentric: One’s own culture is experienced as
central to reality.
 Level 1: Denial of Differences: One’s own culture
is experienced as the only real one. May act
aggressively to eliminate differences.
 Level 2: Defense against Difference: One’s own
culture is experienced as the only viable one. Other
cultures are viewed negatively.
‘Us vs. them.’
Levels of Intercultural Sensitivity
 Ethnocentric (cont.)
 Minimization of Differences: Acceptance of
superficial cultural differences. People are viewed
as similar biologically, philosophically, etc.
Universal absolutes may obscure or trivialize
deeper cultural differences. For those from
dominant culture, minimization masks recognition
of institutional privilege it provides to its
members.
Levels of Intercultural Sensitivity
 Ethnorelative: One’s own culture is experienced
as just one of a number of equally viable
alternatives. Different but equal.
 Acceptance of Difference: One’s own culture is
experienced as just one of a number of equally
viable alternatives. Different cultures are viewed
as different but equal.
Levels of Intercultural Sensitivity
 Ethnorelative (cont.)
 Adaptation to Difference: Develop communications
skills to allow interaction with those who are culturally
different from ourselves. Empathy. Ability to shift
frame of reference to understand and be understood
across cultures.
 Integration of Differences: Internalization of
bicultural or multicultural frames of references.
Individuals construe their identities at the margins of two
or more cultures.
Three Stage Model:
(Sue, teal., 1982).

 Awareness, Knowledge and Skills:

 Awareness: This stage emphasis increased
awareness about assumptions about cultural
differences and similarities in behavior, attitudes
and values. Increased awareness provides more
freedom of choice to those who become more
aware of their own multiculturalism.
Three Stage Model:
 Knowledge: Expands the amount of facts and
information about culturally learned assumptions.

 Skills: Applies effective and efficient action with

people of different cultures based on the
participants’ clarified assumptions and accurate
knowledge.
Case Study:
 Whose holiday is it anyway?
References
 Connerley, M. L., & Pedersen, P.B. (2005). Leadership in a
diverse and multicultural environment: Developing awareness,
knowledge, and skills. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications,
39 – 53.
 Fiske, A. P. (2002). Using individualism and collectivism to
compare culture: A critique of the validity of measurement of
the constructs: Comment on Oyserman et. Al, (2002).
Psychological Bulletin, 128, 78 – 88.
 Gardenswartz, L., Rowe, A., Digh, P., & Bennett, M. F. (2003).
The global diversity desk reference: Managing an
international workforce. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
References
 Hall,E.T., (1976). Beyond culture. Garden City,
NY: Anchor.
 Sue, D.W., Berneir, J. E., Durran, A., Feinberg, L.,
Pedersen, P., Smith, E. J., & Vasquez-Nuttall, E.
(1982). Cross-cultural counseling competencies.
Counseling Psychologist, 19 (2), 45 – 52.