“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.” —Margaret Mead
The 21st century has thrown several challenges to mankind. Which, managing a diversified workforce is one of them for corporate leaders. With the changing times and technologies and with the rising aspirations and expectations of the people, businesses find it tough to meet their demands. Innovation and creativity are one of the solutions to meet the growing expectations of the customers and to have the same it is essential to have a diversified workforce who can add value to organizations by bringing their diversified ideas and insights across the table.
What is Diversity?
"Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another's uniqueness." —Ola Joseph
As people are different they have different attitudes, behaviors, personalities, gifts, talents, abilities feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and appearances at the workplace. Diversity brings various individuals with diversified backgrounds such as culture, religion, region, ethnicity, and education working under one roof to achieve organizational goals and objectives. Diversity does not talk of the dilution of an individual's uniqueness, but it talks about recognizing and respecting others' uniqueness in terms of religions, regions, languages, creeds, caste, color, gender, cultures, and communities. Diversity clearly defines that individuals are not alike. It portrays knowing the differences among the employees and respecting them accordingly.
Cornell University defines, "Diversity is about learning from others who are not the same, about dignity and respect for all, and about creating workplace environments and practices that encourage learning from others and capture the advantage of diverse perspectives."
Diversity Management
Diversity management is all about fostering a conducive workplace ambiance by recognizing and respecting the differences among the employees. It is aimed at looking at the similarities rather than differences among the employees to promote organizational fraternity and prosperity. It is about appreciating the differences in gender, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation of the employees working under the same roof.
It is essential to attract, retain, and train a diverse workforce as it enhances creativity and innovation. Although it has several challenges arising out of diversity it has several strategic advantages as well for the organizations.
It is a great asset where people across the globe bring in their diversified thoughts, ideas, insights, and cultures to the corporate world leading to cultural assimilation and tolerance.
There is variety in diversity where people have different and divergent characteristics.
Diversity helps in capitalizing on all the strengths of each employee.
It promotes innovation and competition.
It furthers flexibility and tolerance towards other communities and cultures.
The workforce realizes where they stand in their performance vis-à-vis others in the organization.
It enhances production, productivity, performance, innovation, creativity, and corporate democracy.
A diversified workforce brings in diversified talent across the table in the organization resulting in the proliferation of ideas and innovation resulting in new products and services as per the needs and requirements of customers. It promotes out-of-the-box thinking thus adding value to the organization.
Here are some challenges.
Diversity has multiple challenges in the workplace such as communication, and cultural differences at the workplace.
Individuals may have less energy to contribute as they spend most of their energies in coping with an alien environment.
They may look at the differences but not the similarities.
What is Diversity Leadership?
“Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.” —Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
The leaders who lead a diversified team successfully by recognizing, respecting, and appreciating the cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and other backgrounds at the workplace and by connecting them with a common thread are known as diversity leaders. The 21st century demands diverse leaders who can lead from the front with openness, trust, confidence, and magnanimity.
To put it precisely, diversity leadership is the process of setting the vision, influencing the people, building teams with a diversified workforce, motivating them through trust, and confidence with a global mindset, and aligning their energies and efforts towards organizational goals and objectives.
Dr. Martin Luther King demonstrated diversity leadership by championing for equality of blacks on par with whites where people need to live together with diversity. It is a diversity but with a limited perspective i.e. from a color perspective.
Characteristics of Diversity Leaders
Diversity leaders must set a practical example among their employees.
They must build trust and confidence among their employees.
They must walk their talk. That means there should not be any gap between their words and deeds.
They must have an open mind with a global mindset.
Above all, they must have a passion for diversity.
How to Excel as Diversity Leaders?
If you want to become a diversity leader you must wed truly to the principles and values of diversity. You must also check whether you have flair for it. You must be free and fair and should have respect towards others. You must demonstrate impeccable integrity and character.
Take the initiative to grab opportunities to coach and mentor employees. You must know how to give sandwich feedback and must learn to accept criticism gracefully. You must be a visionary. You must build trust and confidence amongst your employees. Above all, you must be a good listener and problem solver.
Challenges for Diversified Leaders
“Diversity without unity makes about as much sense as dishing up flour, sugar, water, eggs, shortening and baking powder on a plate and calling it a cake.” —C. William Pollard
Diversity is a gift from God without which our lives would be boring. God created people differently to add excitement and enthusiasm among the people. We shall now look at a few of the challenges for diversified leaders. It is very tough to please all as people belong to diversified categories. Conflicts are bound to erupt due to differences and it is a Herculean task for leaders. They need to reinvent themselves regularly in a dynamic global environment. They have to provide diversity training to the employees regularly. And to enable the same the leaders must have rich experience in diversity to make the diversity process effective.
Action for Diversity Leaders
Diversity leaders must stay ahead of times and technologies. They must stay ahead of the game as well which is possible through continuous learning and growing. They must
Never look at people with specific lenses. Sometimes they need to change your lenses. Therefore, flexibility in holding the lenses is essential.
Always look at the big picture.
Encourage second-rung leaders within the organization by bringing awareness about diversity.
Manage the anti-diversity employees constantly continuously and creatively because a bad apple can ruin the entire lot of good apples.
Praise the people who support diversity in public and correct them in private to ensure a successful diversity program.
Is Developing Diversity a Soft Skill?
Developing diversity is like developing soft skills among employees. It is easy to cultivate hard skills such as technical knowledge domain knowledge or core knowledge. However, it is highly challenging to develop soft skills as it depends on the personality, attitude, and behavior of the employees. It calls for the involvement of both formal and informal leadership as well.
One of the ways to develop diversity is to ask the employees to bring their own foods like potluck lunch to share at the workplace as it connects them emotionally as one family.
Educational institutions must foster diversity on the campus itself. For instance, business schools want to have the right mix of students globally in the classroom so that the students get to know one another and learn to appreciate the differences globally. They not only develop a global mindset but also develop tolerance and assimilation. People with different backgrounds think differently resulting in many more ideas and insights into the issues resulting in meaningful and realistic ideas.
Conclusion
“Love your mother but don't hate others' mother. Love your religion, region, community, culture, and creed but don't hate others' religion, region, community, culture, and creed." —Prof.M.S.Rao, Chief Consultant, MSR Leadership Consultants, India.
Technology and times have brought people together under one roof. Therefore, it is essential to gel well with others to ensure workplace survival and success. It is time to recognize, learn, understand, and appreciate others' cultures, languages, ethnicities, and races in the larger interests of individuals as well as institutions.
The days of looking from the lens of cultural racial regional or national background are over. Now these are the days of ‘perform or perish’. Businesses never look at your cultural, racial, linguistic, regional, or national background. They fundamentally look at your work and performance and the value you add to them.
To conclude in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr,
“Men hate each other because they fear each other,
and they fear each other because they don't know each other,
and they don't know each other
because they are often separated from each other."
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“Things You Don’t Know about Professor M. S. Rao” http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.com/2015/10/things-you-dont-know-about-professor-m.html
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Professor M.S. Rao, Ph.D.
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants, India
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