Valuing Diversity: an Important Leadership Requirement - Research Paper Example

Valuing diversity: An important leadership requirement Overview: Management of cultural diversity has become an important leadership requirement in the recent times due to the business developments of globalization and the growing gender and ethnic diversity in the workplace. The review of various management literatures has also suggested that in order to enhance organizational effectiveness, companies should encourage leadership to value diversity. However, to showcase the inter-dependence between managing cultural diversity and leadership quality, it is important to support the hypothesis with the help of research data. Thus, this paper attempts to address the hypothesis of why managing cultural diversity has become an important leadership requirement. It aims to provide an outline of results about leadership development for managing cultural diversity at workplace. Further, the research project investigates leadership qualities of eight professionals in leadership positions who are working in various companies that promote cultural diversity across multi-disciplinary groups. The study explores the meaning and importance of cultural diversity in today’s changing businesses environment, and investigates how a strong leader can manage cultural diversity effectively, by reviewing literature, conducting semi structured interviews as well as focus group discussions. The paper further observes that in order to manage cultural diversity in the workplace, leaders need to enhance their management skills and encourage collaborative teamwork for organizational development. Understanding Diversity: Today’s leaders come in all sizes and shapes. We no longer have a leadership that is white male dominated, which dictates the rules from behind a desk in a rigid way. In today’s changing business environment, diversity has become the focal point of an organization’s development. The meaning of diversity is to understand and value the differences in each other. In order to become a true global community, the leadership needs to value every aspect of diversity (Bazelais et al., p. 1-2). For achieving diversity, the leadership must be aware and have the ability to assess new as well as old information. Further, the manager should be aware of the constraints of biasness and gender issues. Therefore, the manager needs to have an open mind to learn about different people and culture. Also, the manager is required to evaluate new and old information to decide which information should be taken and which one should be discarded. In the recent decade, there has been a significant shift in the U.S. labor market demographics. In fact, the results of the 2000 Census report revealed that the organizations are required to increase their attention towards issues related to workplace diversity as well as building cohesive teams to work in harmony in a global corporation. The use of the terms culture and race are often associated with describing issues related to diversity. Therefore, even before understanding diversity, one needs to know about these two important aspects of diversity. While race is termed as a category according to which individuals are assigned their places in terms of physical features, general characteristics and stereotypes; culture is defined as the value and belief systems that impacts our practices, norms, culture and social institutions. Once race and culture are defined, it is easier to understand diversity, which put simply is to recognize an individual’s social identities which not just include gender, age, physical disabilities, sexual orientation, religious orientation and socio-economic status, but also his or her race and cultural beliefs (Aghazadeh, 2004, p. 521-524). However, one should also keep in mind that understanding these concepts would not solve all workplace issues. A capable manager needs to apply these concepts in real life situations and use them to promote an environment of inclusion, wherein an employee feels a sense of belonging in his or her workplace, is respected and valued for his or her contribution and receives the same level of support and commitment from the management as received by his or her colleagues (Barak, 2000, p. 339-342). Literature review: In today’s world, the workforce has become much more diverse and has seen several transformations in the employee’s demographics due to the impact of globalization and the professional and personal objectives of the diverse employees. The employees not only come from different ethnic and racial backgrounds but also bring with them a diverse set of priorities and drive in their workplace. It is interesting to note that over 15 per cent of the civilian labor force that are in the age group of 16 and over in the US in 2006 were foreign-born workers, as per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most of these foreign-born employees included refugees, legal and undocumented immigrants and temporary residents. Further, it has been predicted that people of color and women would consist of 57 per cent of the labor force by 2014 (NAS, 2005, p.2). Also, the decrease in general population as well as the labor force due to the retiring of aged employees, would make it imperative for countries like the US to utilize foreign labor. Additionally, many of the US-based companies have offices abroad, or have outsourcing business or are acquiring or merging international companies in different parts of the world. All these factors are necessitating for the creation of new skill sets that can promote proficient communication between different cultures (Heet, 2003, p.2). In order to create strategies to retain and develop organizational talent, it is imperative to focus and understand the diverse priorities and motivations of the modern day employees. According to a study by Storke, et al. (2005), workers from culturally and racially different backgrounds place greater emphasis on learning and advancement then the general employees. In fact, the study found that the employees from the culturally diverse groups focused on learning new skill sets, career advancement and working for a company that provided good training and educational opportunities as key factors for selecting an ‘ideal job’. Also, the study found these employees listed promotion, undertaking more challenging work, advancing their professional growth and continuing their training and education as their priorities for the next 3-5 years, more often than the White employees (p. 9-14). The issue of cultural diversity and managing it through effective leadership has been an age-old one. For instance, Copeland (1988) in a paper describes that the managers in the late 80’s were mostly white males who did not have much exposure to culturally diverse people. Further, the management training they got were mostly been based on the theory that supervision means managing an identical, white male workforce. The paper further emphasized that even the management theories of those days did not address the issue of cultural diversity, which is an essential element for the multi-cultural environment. Copeland also gives an example of an audio cassette that recommended managers to touch their employees. However, this cassette failed to address the issue of cultural diversity and did not consider the beliefs of Asians and women who do not want to be touched by their supervisors. Thus, many of the training materials and programmes that talked about how to encourage and promote employee motivation, failed to touch upon the topics of cultural diversity and gave generalized recommendations directed towards the white male employees. In the paper, Copeland also presents the best practices adopted by companies such as Procter & Gamble, Xerox, Honeywell, Mobil and Hughes Aircraft to manage cultural diversity in their companies through effective leadership (p. 45). Shipp and Davison (2001) describe that to succeed in a competitive business scenario, it is critical for the leaders of an organization to recognize and employ every available resource to the maximum advantage of the company. This also includes effective utilization of employees by understanding the dynamic nature of their diverse characters. There is no doubt about the fact that diversity in the workplace has increased dramatically over the past decade as most organizations have been able to create a diverse environment due to the changing demographics. However, it has been observed that most leaders consider diversity as a problem, an issue that requires constant monitoring instead of thinking it as a strength. Further, most of the leaders deal with the issue of diversity in terms of reactive efforts rather than proactive efforts. Also, even while taking a decision to manage diversity, most of these leaders rely only on the common knowledge and generalized statements rather than conducting new research. This results in creating initiatives which might not be suitable to the needs of the employees from diverse background (Shipp & Davison, 2001, p. 1). Shipp and Davison also discuss the creation of Diversity Resource System (DRS), which is described as a flexible and dynamic system that the companies may want to utilize for maximizing the talents of their employees. Further, this system would also help the leaders in bridging the gap between people from diverse cultures with the general employees, and would aid in aligning such employees with the business goals and culture of the organization (p. 2). Methodology This research has been undertaken as part of a Masters Degree programme and investigates the role of leadership in managing cultural diversity at workplace by conducting an interview of eight professionals in leadership positions who are working in various companies that promote cultural diversity across multi-disciplinary groups. Further, the paper explores the meaning of cultural diversity and investigates how a strong leader can manage cultural diversity effectively, through the means of literature review, semi structured interviews as well as focus group discussions. Some of the key questions that my research attempted to answer are: What are the supposed skills and understandings identified by these eight leaders about managing cultural diversity in an organization? What are the techniques used by these leaders to manage workplace diversity? And how effective are these techniques? Whether the management support or neglect their views and ideas on workplace diversity? What are the ways through which diversity can be leveraged in a better manner to generate profits for the organization? For this study, I have also interviewed some of the direct reportees and employees from diverse background working under these leaders. This helped me in gauging whether the leaders were truthful in their assumptions. Also, I could measure the success of their initiatives by discussing their impacts on the employees. I used purposive sampling technique to choose the participants. These participants were respected leaders in their respective field of work and had around a decade’s experience in working in a multi-disciplinary team environment. All the participants presently are in leadership positions in the local and some in multi-national companies, and have a team size of 15 to 350 members. Findings and Discussion As propagated by Shipp and Davison (2001), “leveraging diversity has become a business imperative” (p. 1), and “Accomplishing it brings many benefits to an organization: it increases productivity, efficiency, and quality; boosts morale and reduces grievances; and enhances problem-solving and decision-making abilities through the inclusion of multiple perspectives” (p. 1). However, it has also been found that most companies are not able to take full advantage of their diversity due to the lack of time, conflicting priorities, erroneous approaches towards diversity training, and confusion about dealing with diversity. This leads to lack of creativity in an organization, which is a critical for the development of any organization. Therefore, one of the main issues that the organizations and their leaders are facing these days is to “undergo long-term, systemic change that establishes functional diversity: respecting, valuing, and maximizing the differences that people bring to the workplace” (p. 5). In case an organization is able to leverage diversity to its advantage, it would be able to harness the creative abilities of its employees and thereby gain a competitive edge over its competitors. Copeland’s (1988) study of the pioneering companies such as Xerox, Procter & Gamble, Honeywell, Mobil and Hughes Aircraft that managed cultural diversity in their companies through effective leadership, established the theory that effective leaders are needed to manage and leverage cultural diversity to the maximum advantage of the company. It also established that although these companies realized that their methods were different and new, they still implemented these initiatives as they understood the importance of leveraging workplace diversity (p. 49). Further, the research with eight professionals in leadership positions in different companies that supports cultural diversity at the workplace, also established the fact that for companies to survive and succeed in today’s changing business dynamics, it is imperative for them to address the issue of cultural diversity through an effective leadership. References: Aghazadeh, S. (2004). Managing workforce diversity as an essential resource for improving organizational performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 53 (6), 521-524. Barak, M.E.M. (2000). The inclusive workplace: An ecosystems approach to diversity management. Social Work, 45(4), 339-342. Bazelais, Kisha N., Page, Konjit V. & Weintraub, Sarah. Exploring Diversity: Race and Culture in the Inclusive Workplace. Boston College Center for Work & Family. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from the Boston College Web site: http://www.bc.edu/centers/cwf/meta-elements/pdf/EBS_Diversity_Bibliography.pdf Copeland, Lennie (1988, July). Valuing Diversity, Part 2: Pioneers and Champions of Change. Personnel, 44-49. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from the Web page: http://library.ncrtm.org/pdf/710.006B.pdf. Heet, J.A. (2003). Beyond workforce 2020: The coming (and present) international market for labour. Hudson Institute, Indianapolis, IN. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from the Web page: http://kms1.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/28569/ipublicationdocument_singledocument/379AEFAD-DA5D-4E15-A55A-F7FE357EEF00/en/Beyond_Workforce_International_Labor_Market.pdf. NAS Recruitment Communications (2005) Diversity Recruitment. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from the NAS Recruitment Communications Web site: http://www.nasrecruitment.com/docs/white_papers/Diversity-Recruitment.pdf Shipp, Pamela L., & Davison, Carl J. (2001, January/February). Leveraging Diversity: It Takes a System. Leadership in Action, Volume 20, Number 6, 1-5, Retrieved January 24, 2010, from the Web page: http://media.wiley.com/assets/51/56/jrnls_jb_lia_shipp.pdf. Storke, D., Wilson, F., Bowles, A.W., Sproull, J. & Vena, J. (2005, January). The new workforce reality: Insight for today, implications for tomorrow. Report from a Collaborative Study with Simmons School of Management and Bright Horizons Family Solutions. Boston, MA. Retrieved January 24, 2010, from the Simmons College Web site: www.simmons.edu/som/docs/centers/workforce_reality_study.pdf. Read More