Why is diversity of thought important for today’s organizations? Do you think an organization can have diversity of thought if all employees are

Chapter 11. Leading Diversity and Inclusion

Your Leadership Challenge

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

11-1

Apply an awareness of the dimensions of diversity and multicultural issues in your future leadership.

11-2

Understand and reduce the barriers and difficulties faced by underrepresented employees in organizations.

11-3

Describe the factors that affect women’s leadership, including interactive leadership and the first rung of the management ladder.

11-4

Break down your personal barriers that may stand in the way of becoming an inclusive leader.

11-5

Use mechanisms such as sponsorship and employee resource groups to support the participation and advancement of underrepresented employees.

Introduction

Early in Vivek Gupta’s leadership career, a young woman fresh out of college came into his office and told him she wanted to be in sales. Gupta had spent “a tough five years” in sales, traveling all over India. How could a young woman handle the rigors of such a job, he wondered. That evening, he told his wife about the conversation and said the applicant “didn’t fit the role” for a sales position. His wife’s response? Why not give her a chance? As it turned out, the young woman became the best salesperson in the company. The experience changed the way Gupta hires and leads people. He realized he was “a biased 25-year-old who grew up in a world that gave more status to men than to women.” Since that day, Gupta has been a strong advocate for giving all people equal opportunities. Now CEO of Mastech Digital, an IT staffing and digital transformation IT services company with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Gupta has been honored three times on the list of “100 Most Influential Leaders in the Staffing Industry” by Staffing Industry Analysts.

Leaders at most companies strive to avoid discriminatory policies and practices, but a Harvard Business Review survey found that 93 percent of female respondents and 92 percent of non-White respondents said they had been treated unfairly at work because of someone else’s bias. Today’s best leaders realize that diversity sparks innovation, leads to better decision making, and spurs growth. Yet subtle bias and hidden discrimination is still a significant problem in many organizations, and valuing and supporting diverse employees takes intentional effort.

The Black Lives Matter anti-racism movement, the MeToo movement fighting sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and other recent social justice movements have reawakened the attention to diversity and inclusion as key topics for leaders in all walks of life. Every leader needs to understand the complexity of diversity issues, learn to create an inclusive culture, and support the development of underrepresented employees for higher-level leadership positions.

This chapter explores the topic of diversity and inclusion and examines the challenge of creating diverse organizations with inclusive cultures. We first define diversity and inclusion, explain the importance of diversity of thought, explore changing attitudes toward diversity, and describe the value of diversity and inclusion for organizations. Next, the chapter looks at factors such as unconscious bias, prejudice, and stereotypes and the challenges they create for women, people of color, and other underrepresented employees in organizations. The chapter then examines a style of leadership that can support a more inclusive work environment, discusses the personal stages of leader diversity awareness, and describes some approaches leaders can take to support the career advancement of diverse people in the workplace. By the end of this chapter, we hope you will better understand some of the challenges, as well as some leadership strategies that can help make organizations more inclusive and provide a better working environment for all people.

11-1. Leading People Who Aren’t Like You

Put It Into Practice 11.1

Think of a time when you felt that some aspect of your unique traits, attributes, skills, experience, or background were not valued at school or work. Write down that aspect and what you felt at that time.

How does a Black manager lead an all-White workforce, or a female manager lead a workforce of mostly males? How do White male top executives interact effectively and supportively with female colleagues? What happens when a 29-year-old is promoted to a position of authority over a group of mostly 50- to 60-year-old middle managers? As organizations grow increasingly diverse, these questions are being asked more and more often. Consider Kenneth Frazier of Merck, one of only a handful of Black CEOs running Fortune 500 companies, or Cathy Lanier, the female former chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police, who is White and led a mostly black and male workforce. Lanier left that job to take over as chief of security for the NFL, where she also had to engender respect and admiration from men not generally accustomed to seeing a woman in charge. Complete the exercise in Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.1 to learn about the values you will bring to leading people who are diverse and not like you.

Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.1. Values Balancing

Instructions: For each of the following pairs of values, select the one that is more descriptive of you. Even if both qualities describe you, you must choose one.

1.

Analytical blank 1 Compassionate blank 2

2.

Collaborative blank 1 Decisive blank 2

3.

Competitive blank 1 Sociable blank 2

4.

Loyal blank 1 Ambitious blank 2

5.

Resourceful blank 1 Adaptable blank 2

6.

Sensitive to others blank 1 Independent blank 2

7.

Self-reliant blank 1 Uniting blank 2

8.

Helpful blank 1 Persistent blank 2

9.

Risk-taker blank 1 Contented blank 2

10.

Interested blank 1 Knowledgeable blank 2

11.

Responsible blank 1 Encouraging blank 2

12.

Tactful blank 1 Driven blank 2

13.

Forceful blank 1 Gentle blank 2

14.

Participating blank 1 Achievement oriented blank 2

15.

Action oriented blank 1 Accepting blank 2

Scoring and Interpretation

The listed words represent two leadership values: “capacity for collaboration” and “personal initiative.” Personal initiative is represented by the first word in the odd-numbered rows and the second word in the even-numbered rows. Capacity for collaboration is represented by the first word in the even-numbered rows and by the second word in the odd-numbered rows. Add the number of words selected that represent each value and record the number:

Personal Initiative: blank 1

Capacity for Collaboration: blank 1

Everyone has the capacity for both feminine and masculine ways of thinking and acting. Capacity for collaboration represents feminine values in our culture, and if you selected more of these terms, you may be undervaluing your personal initiative. Personal initiative represents masculine values, and more selected words here may mean you are undervaluing your capacity for collaboration. How balanced are your values? How will you lead someone with values very different from yours?

How prevalent in organizations are feminine and masculine values? Read the rest of this chapter to learn which values are associated with successful leadership.

Sources: Based on Donald J. Minnick and R. Duane Ireland, “Inside the New Organization: A Blueprint for Surviving Restructuring, Downsizing, Acquisitions and Outsourcing.” Journal of Business Strategy 26 (2005), pp. 18–25; and A. B. Heilbrun, “Measurement of Masculine and Feminine Sex Role Identities as Independent Dimensions,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 44 (1976), pp. 183–190.

11-1a. Definition of Diversity

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, and income level. Decades ago, most companies defined diversity in terms of a very limited set of dimensions, but today’s organizations are embracing a much more inclusive definition that recognizes a spectrum of differences that influence how people approach work, interact with each other, derive satisfaction from their work, and define who they are as people in the workplace.

‘We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003), creator and host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

Exhibit 11.1 illustrates the difference between the traditional model and a more inclusive model of diversity. The dimensions of diversity shown in the traditional model reflect primarily inborn differences that are immediately observable, such as race, gender, age, and physical ability. However, the inclusive model of diversity includes all of the ways in which people differ, including dimensions of diversity that can be acquired or changed throughout one’s lifetime. These dimensions may have less impact than those in the traditional model but nevertheless affect a person’s self-definition and worldview and influence the way the person is viewed by others.

Exhibit 11.1 Traditional vs. Inclusive Models of Diversity

Details

Source: Based on Anthony Oshiotse and Richard O’Leary, “Corning Creates an Inclusive Culture to Drive Technology Innovation and Performance,” Global Business and Organizational Excellence 26, no. 3 (March/April 2007), pp. 7–21.

For example, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have been profoundly affected by their military experience and may be perceived differently from other people. Women with children are perceived differently in the work environment than those without children. An employee living in a public housing project will be perceived differently from one who lives in an affluent part of town. Moreover, a person’s social class origins may leave a culture imprint on the person that is as important as race or gender. Secondary dimensions such as work style and skill level are also relevant in the organizational setting.

One of the challenges of managing a diverse workforce is creating an environment where all employees feel accepted as members of the team and where their unique talents are appreciated. When leaders create a feeling of inclusiveness, employees display more loyalty, cooperation, and trustworthiness. Inclusion is the degree to which an employee feels like an esteemed member of a group in which their uniqueness is highly appreciated. Inclusion creates a strong sense of belonging and a trust that all people can have their voices heard and appreciated. The Leader’s Bookshelf offers some insight into the importance of leaders embracing both uniqueness and belonging.

11-1 b. Diversity of Thought

When researchers asked teams to solve a complex, unfamiliar problem under time constraints, they found some interesting results. The team with the greatest diversity of thought solved the problem in just 22.5 minutes, whereas the team with the least diversity of thought took 60 minutes to complete the challenge. Diversity of thought refers to different ideas, different viewpoints, different skill sets, and different ways of thinking and reasoning.

Heterogeneous teams and organizations—those made up of individuals from different racial and ethnic groups, lifestyles, genders, ages, backgrounds, and other diverse qualities shown in Exhibit 11.1—increase the chances of achieving a diversity of thought, which provides a broader and deeper base of ideas, opinions, and experiences for problem solving, creativity, and innovation. By tapping into the strengths of diversity, teams are more likely to experience higher efficiency, better quality, less duplication of effort among team members, and increased innovation and creativity.

Leader’s Bookshelf Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams

by Stefanie K. Johnson

The longing to feel authentic and express who we are is a deeply felt human need. But the desire to belong with others is just as deeply felt and can sometimes cause people to hide who they really are. In Inclusify, Stefanie Johnson says balancing the tension between these two human needs is the biggest challenge for organizations seeking to create inclusive cultures. Her research reveals two common problems. Some leaders encourage people to be themselves, but they underestimate the importance of group cohesiveness, often ending up with employees who have no sense of belonging and purpose. Others strive to make everyone fit in, but by ignoring the benefits of listening to diverse perspectives, they leave some people feeling like they cannot be their authentic selves.

To build inclusive organizations requires inclusifyers—people at all levels who “live and lead in a way that recognizes and celebrates unique and dissenting perspectives while creating a collaborative and open-minded environment where everyone feels they truly belong.”

Become an Inclusifyer

Johnson reminds us that “although few people are born inclusifyers, there are specific steps that leaders can take to become one.” Her book offers a range of tools leaders can use to build inclusive cultures. Here are a few of the specific behaviors inclusifyers use to encourage both uniqueness and belonging:

Behaviors That Encourage Uniqueness. Inclusifying leaders publicly support diversity. Rather than ignoring difference, they recognize and embrace different perspectives and backgrounds. They get to know people on an individual basis so they can begin to understand the needs of their team members, and they show a hunger to learn from others’ unique perspectives. These leaders strive to treat everyone equitably so that people feel they are treated fairly.

Behaviors That Create Belonging. Inclusifyers are aggressively transparent about their practices, so that people know how things work in the organization. They provide people with a shared purpose and empower team members to make their own decisions. Inclusifying leaders actively work to build team spirit and to infuse diversity, inclusion, and belonging into the organization’s values.

The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging

Johnson asserts that it is possible to have an organization where everyone can both be their true selves and feel a powerful sense of belonging, but it requires a continuous sustained effort so that inclusive practices become the norm. People don’t experience inclusion simply because top leaders proclaim the organization is committed to an inclusive culture. Johnson points out that even in organizations where the CEO has made inclusion a benchmark of success, fewer than 40 percent of employees believe their direct managers share this value.

Source: Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams, by Stefanie K. Johnson, is published by Harpercollins.

According to the results of one study, companies that rate high on creativity and innovation have a higher percentage of women and non-White employees than less innovative companies. Another study showed that a team’s collective intelligence increases when there are more women members on the team, and yet another research team found that having even a single woman added to an all-male team helps the team perform better with more complex tasks. “This is not because her voice is inherently better-suited or superior for addressing complex tasks, but because [diversity] contributes to divergent thinking in the team and deeper information processing,” the research team wrote. Diverse groups benefit from listening to different viewpoints and considering diverse perspectives.

Companies can capitalize on diversity by including more diverse employees in business decisions at all levels. As shown in Exhibit 11.2, an analysis of 600 decisions made by 200 different business teams over a two-year period found that gender-diverse teams made better decisions 73 percent of the time, while teams with the widest range of diversity made better decisions 87 percent of the time. Moreover, the diverse teams made decisions twice as fast as those that were not diverse.

Exhibit 11.2 Diverse Teams Make Better Decisions

Details

Source: Erik Larson, “Research Shows Diversity + Inclusion = Better Decision Making At Work,” Cloverpop (September 25, 2017), www.cloverpop.com/blog/research-shows-diversity-inclusion-better-decision-making-at-work (accessed June 25, 2021). Used with permission.

One reason that diverse groups often make better decisions than homogeneous groups is that diversity pushes people to work harder cognitively to bridge differences and understand one another’s ideas and viewpoints. Hala Moddelmog, who has served as president of Arby’s Restaurant Group and recently stepped down after six years as the first female president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, likes to surround herself with colleagues of different races, socioeconomic classes, and personality styles. “You really don’t need another you,” Moddelmog says. Cindy Holland, vice president for original content at Netflix, also says she tries to hire for diversity of thought and diversity of experience on her team because it leads to better ideas and solutions.

11-1c. Changing Attitudes Toward Diversity

Attitudes toward diversity are expanding in today’s organizations partly because leaders are responding to significant changes in our society. In recent years, the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements and the growing strength of LGBTQ+ rights activists have brought issues of diversity and inclusion to the forefront.

For example, in mid-2020, as widespread protests against institutional racism raged across the United States, activists toppled statues of historic figures who were slaveholders around the country, NASCAR banned the use of the Confederate flag at car races and venues, and musical groups such as the Dixie Chicks and Lady Antebellum changed their names to drop associations with the Confederate-era South. A year later, U.S. President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation making June 19 (Juneteenth) a federal holiday to commemorate the day in 1865 when news of the end of slavery in the United States reached the last slaves in Texas.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created a task force to revise rules and procedures to expand diversity and inclusion within the filmmaking industry. The organization had been criticized for years for its lack of diverse representation. In 2020, the Academy elected several women and people of color, including Whoopi Goldberg and Ava DuVernay, to the board of governors; implemented a requirement that all Academy governors, branch executive committee members, and staff attend unconscious bias training; and revised rules to require that Oscar nominees meet certain diversity and inclusion requirements. At the 2020 awards, the South Korean film Parasite became the first non-English language film to win a Best Picture Oscar and its director, Bong Joon-ho, also picked up awards for best director and best original screenplay.

Just as movie studios and NASCAR face growing pressure to change, so do leaders in other types of organizations. In 2019, there were 28.4 million foreign-born employees in the U.S. workforce, making up 17.4 percent of all U.S. workers. Of the total number of foreign-born employees, nearly half are Hispanic, and 25 percent are Asian. The percentage of U.S. employees who are not White is expected to increase to around 23 percent by 2024. Women are a growing part of the workforce and are demanding more fair and equitable treatment. Women now outnumber men in the U.S. workforce, and their numbers are projected to grow slightly faster than those of their male counterparts.

Another factor contributing to increased attention to diversity and inclusion is globalization. Leaders are emphasizing cross-cultural understanding so that people can work smoothly across borders. “The speed of global business is accelerating diversity,” says Pauline Ning Brody, a Shanghai-born diversity consultant and former director of global sales for Colgate-Palmolive. Employees with global experience and cultural sensitivity are in high demand because at least some aspect of almost every business today cuts across national boundaries.

11-1d. The Value of Organizational Diversity

Put It Into Practice 11.2

What type of person or behavior annoys you? Your annoyance signals a dislike for certain qualities in others. Contemplate how your annoyance might be similar or different from dislike that is based on race, skin color, gender identity, or religion.

Reckitt Benckiser, a U.K.-based producer of home, health, and personal care products, believes in the power of diversity. The executive committee includes people of four nationalities, and 14 percent of team members are non-male; the group leadership team includes people representing 13 nationalities, with 11 percent of the team non-male; and among the senior management team, there are 54 nationalities and 25 percent non-male. Top executives believe the diversity of the company’s leadership and workforce is one reason income increased 17 percent annually, on average, over a recent 10-year period. Retired CEO Bart Becht once said, “It doesn’t matter whether I have a Pakistani, a Chinese person, a Brit, or a Turk, man or woman, sitting in the same room… so long as I have people with different experiences—because the chance for new ideas is much greater when you have people with different backgrounds.”

Leaders in other companies also recognize that building diverse and inclusive organizations provides clear benefits, including the following:

Better use of employee talent. Companies with the best talent are the ones with the best competitive advantage. Attracting a diverse workforce is not enough; leaders must also provide career opportunities and advancement for women, people of color, and other employees from underrepresented groups to retain them.

Increased understanding of the marketplace. A diverse workforce is better able to anticipate and respond to changing consumer needs. Ford Motor Company realized it could reach its business objectives only if it created a workforce that reflected the diverse face of the country. So, Ford worked to increase the percentage of its workforce from underrepresented groups to at least 25 percent and to foster a culture of inclusion; subsequently, the company won a spot on Black Enterprise’s “40 Best Companies for Diversity.”

Enhanced breadth of understanding in leadership positions. Homogeneous top leadership teams tend to be myopic in their perspectives. According to Niall FitzGerald of Unilever, “It is important for any business operating in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing environment to deploy a broad range of talents. That provides a breadth of understanding of the world and environment and a fusion of the very best values and different perspectives which make up that world.”

Increased quality of team problem solving. Teams with diverse backgrounds bring different perspectives to a discussion, which then result in more creative ideas and better solutions. One research project found that when people participated in diverse teams, their answers to problems were 58 percent more accurate than those of people participating in homogenous teams. Moreover, performance improved over time as people worked within a diverse group, while performance of the homogenous groups tended to go in the opposite direction as people began to copy one another or agree to solutions without debate.

Reduced costs associated with high turnover, absenteeism, and lawsuits. Companies that foster diversity and inclusion reduce turnover, absenteeism, and the risk of lawsuits. Because family responsibilities contribute to turnover and absenteeism, many companies now offer child-care and elder-care benefits, flexible work arrangements, remote work options, and part-time employment to accommodate employees’ responsibilities at home. Discrimination lawsuits are also a costly side effect of a discriminatory work environment.

Remember This

Every leader needs to understand the complexity of diversity issues, learn to create an inclusive culture, and support the development of underrepresented employees for higher-level leadership positions.

Workforce diversity is a workforce made up of people with different human qualities or who belong to various cultural groups. The broader term diversity refers to differences among people in terms of age, ethnicity, gender, race, or other dimensions. This definition has been broadened in recent years to be more inclusive and to recognize a broad spectrum of characteristics, such as work style, nationality, social class, and income level.

Inclusion is the degree to which an employee feels like an esteemed member of a group in which their uniqueness is highly appreciated. Inclusion creates a strong sense of belonging and a trust that all people can have their voices heard and appreciated.

In 2019, there were 28.4 million foreign-born employees in the U.S. workforce, making up 17.4 percent of all U.S. workers. The percentage of U.S. employees who are not White is expected to increase to around 23 percent by 2024.

In 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences elected several women and people of color to the board of governors; implemented a requirement that all Academy governors, branch executive committee members, and staff attend unconscious bias training; and revised rules to require that Oscar nominees meet certain diversity and inclusion requirements.

Diversity of thought is achieved when a leader creates a heterogeneous team made up of individuals with diverse characteristics who bring different ideas, different viewpoints, different skill sets, and different ways of thinking and reasoning.

Creating diverse and inclusive organizations provides clear benefits, including better use of employee talent, greater understanding of the marketplace, enhanced breadth of understanding in leadership positions, higher quality of team problem solving, and reduced costs associated with employee turnover, absenteeism, and discrimination lawsuits.

1-2. Factors Shaping Personal Bias

Creating an inclusive environment where every individual feels respected, valued, and able to develop their unique talents is difficult. Most people, including leaders, have a natural tendency toward ethnocentrism, which refers to the belief that one’s own culture and subculture are inherently superior to other cultures. Research by Harvard psychology professor Mahzarin Banaji indicates that the human brain seems to be wired to categorize people by race in the first one-fifth of a second after seeing a face. Banaji’s studies suggest that all people have an ingrained propensity to racial bias, even if they are unaware of and even disapprove of such bias. Other studies by social psychologists also suggest that there is a natural tendency among humans to identify themselves with a particular group and to feel somewhat antagonistic and discriminatory toward other groups. In high school, the jocks often are aligned against the geeks, for instance. In hospital cafeterias, the surgeons sit in one area and the medical residents in another. In newspaper and magazine offices, the editorial folks are antagonistic toward the advertising people. The combination of this natural force toward separation, ethnocentric viewpoints, and a standard set of cultural assumptions and practices creates a number of challenges for leaders and employees from underrepresented groups.

11-2a. Unconscious Bias

Starbucks leaders became embroiled in a public relations nightmare after two Black men were arrested on suspicion of trespassing as they waited for a friend in a Philadelphia store. Reports indicate that the men had asked to use the restroom but employees refused because they had not made a purchase. The two were eventually asked to leave. When they declined, saying they were waiting for a friend, the manager called the cops. “What did [the police] get called for?” asked Andrew Yaffe, the White friend. “Because there are two Black guys sitting here meeting me?”

Would two White men who did not order while waiting for a friend have received the same treatment from the manager and employees? Probably not. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said this was an example of unconscious bias on the part of employees. The CEO quickly offered an apology and proclaimed the arrests of the men “reprehensible.” Starbucks later closed most company-owned stores in the United States for a da

Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.

Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS

Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?

Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.

We write plagiarism Free Content

Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.

Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.