In today's pluralistic organization where there is strong concern for diversity, a high degree of bottom up (rather than top down) control and where employees desire opportunities for growth and creativity, there is a need for a new kind of leadership. Leaders need certain qualities in order to be able to deal effectively with a wide variety of employees and to give staff members the autonomy to take on responsibility and control. Catalytic leadership begins to emerge. Because leaders of dynamic ever-changing organizations operate in uncharted territory, the ability to live with the unknown is essential. Allowing employees to innovate and take charge requires a leap of faith. Diversity tests this ability further. Leading groups of staff made up of individuals from different backgrounds, with wide ranges in priorities, values, needs, and preferences, presents more questions than answers. Catalytic leaders are able to create new ways to respond to these exciting yet challenging situations, because they have the inner strength to tolerate the anxiety of not having an immediate answer. They can live in limbo and confusion without pushing for premature solutions. When the leader sees differences as an asset to the team, diversified staffs are well led. However, different is often viewed as substandard. The subtle, or sometimes not so subtle, assumption that differences equate to deficiencies forms a powerful stumbling block to anyone wanting to lead today's multi-faceted staffs. Catalytic leaders are those who build on differences and see them as providing options, not presenting obstacles. Change is both a stimulant and stressor, exciting and fear producing. Yet it is unlikely that the pace of change will decrease in the years ahead. Leaders that remain proactive will stay ahead of the game by looking forward, anticipating conditions and events, and preparing for the consequences. Not only do they prepare, they take the initiative to make these changes work for them and their organizations. Change is seen as presenting opportunities rather than problems, with each turn of the road offering a new chance. Leaders who are able to stimulate their groups to produce at an accelerated level have a fundamental belief in the ability of the team to do it. What we believe about others' capabilities has a great effect on the actual behavior and performance of those others. This belief keeps the leader from rescuing the group when it reaches a rough spot, or taking control to set things right. Catalytic leaders believe that the team ultimately can find its own answers and has the ability to push itself beyond its present limits. They know that both ends and means count. The two are inextricably tied, and the success of the team depends on an appropriate balance between them. Attention to product gives the team focus and a sense of accomplishment central to its existence. Yet, equally important, attention to process keeps the group from being hindered by human obstacles such as conflict and misunderstanding due to diversification. Pluralistic organizations and the diverse staff within them call for dynamic, flexible, and visionary leaders.
The consequences of handling diversity poorly can result in worker disengagement. The demographic shifts impacting the workforce add to the challenges managers face in creating the relationships that result in an engaging workplace. Subtle-to-broad differences in perspectives and interpretation of events can yield bigger communication and support challenges. For companies, this could result in huge losses or great opportunities. In the absence of managers developing effective skills to manage a diverse workforce, the results can be increased disengagement, burnout, and turnover. Recruiting dollars spent to attract and bring in
employees from under represented groups may increase as a result of hiring replacements in order to sustain, the representation numbers which can be a frustrating cycle. In the frustrating cycle, companies can spend ever-increasing amounts of money and experience diminishing productivity when the focus is only on creating greater representation.
For the general public it has become verbal shorthand for a workforce that is multiracial, multi cultural, and multiethnic - which means it comes pre-loaded with people's own individual perceptions and biases. For human resource managers, it has become a kind of semantic umbrella that encompasses an assortment of HR programs. Senior management and managers of other functions tend to use the word more generally, but they too are essentially referring to workforce demographics. I think it's time to look at diversity in a new light. Diversity applies not only to a company's people concerns, but too many other critical areas as well. It refers to any mixture of items characterized by differences and similarities. Simple enough, on the surface. But like many simple notions, its implications are significant. If we are to put it into operation, we must fully understand what it means. Diversity is not synonymous with differences, but encompasses differences and similarities. Because we are so accustomed to thinking of diversity in terms of workforce demographics, and equating it with the minority constituencies in the workforce, we tend to think diversity means the qualities that are different. Therefore, even when people expand the concept of diversity to include the whole range of strategic issues, people still tend to focus on the differences. But the definition includes not only differences but also similarities. This distinction is crucial. It means that when making managerial decisions you no longer have the option of dealing only with the differences or similarities present in the situation, instead, you must deal with both simultaneously. One way of looking at this is to think in terms of a macro-micro continuum. A micro perspective looks at the individual component and a macro perspective looks at the mixture. To get at the true nature of diversity (comprising differences and similarities) requires an ability to assume both perspectives simultaneously; the micro facilitates identification of differences, and the macro enhances the ability to see similarities.
Diversity refers to the collective mixture of differences and similarities along a given dimension. When you are dealing with diversity you are focusing on the collective picture, not just pieces of it. Ex. (To highlight this notion of mixture, visualize a jar of red jelly beans; now imagine adding some green and purple jelly beans. Many would believe that the green and purple jelly beans represent diversity. I suggest that the diversity instead is represented by the resultant mixture of red, green, and purple jelly beans. It is easy to see these jelly beans as a metaphor for employees. Of course, it works equally well as a metaphor for any other aspect of the organization that you might be concerned with. It could as easily represent a mixture of product lines, functions, marketing strategies, operating philosophies and so on. The component elements in diversity mixtures can vary, and so a discussion of diversity must specify the dimensions in question. The components of a diversity mixture can be people, concepts, concrete items, or abstractions. If you are reflecting on the many ways your employees can vary (by race, gender, age, education, sexual orientation, geographic origin, or employment tenure), that's a mixture whose components are people, individuals categorized along multiple dimensions. In that mixture, the components are known as organizational units or functions. One may argue that functions are composed of individuals, which is true, but the general manager of multiple functions does not experience this as a mixture of people but rather as a mixture of organizational units.
The diversity management process is versatile enough to deal with many problems. It is also powerful enough to deal with more than one at the same time. Once a supervisor can master the use of the diversity management process he/she can quickly apply it to various situations. Within this process a supervisor should get a clear explanation of the problem, analyze the diversity mixture, check for diversity tension and review the action options. Once the supervisor has figured out the essence of the problem, they can choose one or more the available actions that seem to offer the best hope of solving the problem.
Suggestions for managing diversity in the workplace would be to make sure the organization’s policy on discrimination and harassment is posted in a prominent, visible place in the department or elsewhere, discuss diversity issues at department meeting with employees and provide examples of behaviors that are unacceptable and that will not be tolerated, as well as consequences of violations. Whenever an employee alleges discrimination or harassment, investigate the matter thoroughly and identify the appropriate course of action and also seek assistance from higher management or the director of human resources, if needed. If a matter cannot be resolved at the supervisory level, expeditiously report the case to the director of human resources or other such person who is designated to handle discrimination complaints at the company or corporate level, but in no way react negatively or adversely to an employee who has filed a discrimination or harassment charge. Last but least always supervise on a scrupulously fair and objective basis and with equitable performance standards and try to find ways by which all employees have the same or comparable opportunities at work assignments and training and development programs.
Diversity is big. It’s big everywhere. Schoolchildren are taught to celebrate it; high courts weight and scrutinize it; corporate personnel offices assiduously seek it out; unions that once feared it now robustly champion it; artists offer searching introspections of diversity in their own lives; museums exhibit it. Diversity is enunciated in the dolls we buy for our children (the American Girl collection), the fashions teenagers buy for themselves (think of the “United Colors of Benetton”, ads, featuring lots of contrasting flesh tones), and in the admissions brochures of the colleges and universities those teens hope to attend. It plays its part in every electoral campaign for every candidate and in the sales pitches for a great many products. The pursuit of diversity is held to be both practically good and personally redemptive; and diversity is depicted in the popular entertainment as both fun and there is no better word for it - virtuous. (Wood pp- 207-209)
Works Cited
Cox, T., & Beale, R. (1997) Devoloping Competency to Manage Diversity. California
Berret-Koehler
“Hottentot Race, A Bosjesman Lad.”From Charles Pickering, The Races of Man and Their
Geographical Distribution (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1850), pp. 226-27.
Greer, C., & Plunkett, W. (2003) Supervision, Diversity and Teams in the Workplace
New Jersey, Prentice Hall
Lancaster, L., & Stillman, D. (2002) When Generations Collide: Who they are.
Why they clash. How to solve the generalization puzzle at work. New York
HarperCollins
Wood P. (2003). Diversity: The Invention of a Concept. California
Encounter Books, pp. 207-09
Evnine, S. J. (2001). The universality of logic: On the connection
between rationality and logical ability [Electronic version].
Mind, 110, 335-367.
Holden, S. (2004, May 16). Diversity in the Workplace:
Adjusting to Differences. The Cincinnati Enquirer, pp. C1,
C22-C23.
Gawande, A. (2001, July 9). Beyond Race and Gender.
Time Magazine, 77, 66-75.
