Leadership in a Culturally Diverse Environment The concept of effective leadership, in combination with culturally diverse organizations, continues to gain momentum and interests. The growing multicultural workforce environment offers the potential for unveiling cultural differences through communication avenues, leadership methods, and varying perspectives regarding assumptions such as time management (Yih-teen, & Yuan, 2015). Therefore, organizations endeavor to find ways to combat manageable differences and to capitalize on the multicultural talent by establishing tolerant, knowledgeable, and collaborative work environments. The purpose of this paper is to explore cultural diversity in the workplace in a manner that divulges effective tactics …show more content…
Moran et al. (2011) asserts some cultures prefer memorization while others prefer abstract thinking. Multicultural work environments must take into account disparages between organizational expectations for best learning practices. This may be especially significant during training endeavors.
Work Habits and Distribution Moran et al. (2011) describes how cultural prioritization of work has direct bearing on an individual’s career choice, preferred type of work, and the approach to division of work. Understanding cultural perspectives regarding work habits and distribution assists multicultural organizations in maximizing worker output.
Leadership in Multicultural Organizations To effective lead a multicultural organization may appear daunting, especially considering the number of foundationally differing philosophies. And, culturally diverse entities may confront barriers creating negative outcomes, or, may witness greater innovation by harnessing the strengths of multiple perspectives (Jager & Raich, 2011). Organizations able to embrace diversity foster an environment conducive to employees sharing of ideas, allotting the organization to benefit from the open exchange and collaboration of employees (Lambert, 2016). Bhasin and Kaushik (2013) identify the importance of recognizing cultural influence as more than just national heritage, but also religious, gender, ethnic, and regional
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The authors suggest the use of Human Resource tools, organizational development opportunities, and change management initiatives to promote intercultural sensitivity. Furthermore, Bhasin and Kaushik emphasize all units must participate, avoiding silos, and, performance reviews should incorporate intercultural skill assessments. Other ideas include providing multicultural training in multiple languages, offering access to diversity coaches, promoting greater cultural self-awareness through workshops run by experienced facilitators, and assigning specific projects involving the study of different demographics (Bhasin & Kaushik,
The modern world has experienced tremendous changes, which have contributed to changes in people living in the global world. These changes have mainly been brought by globalization, which is a major phenomenon in the 21st Century. Leaders across various professions, businesses, and governments need to cope with globalization since it forces them to cross borders more often and communicate or conduct business with people from other cultures. This process involves developing necessary skills for working effectively in the modern complex world. Actually, the ability of these leaders to work effectively not only requires the development of essential skills but the application of leadership principles in the global work environment. In essence, leaders must develop their ability to apply leadership principles across culturally diverse workforce in today’s global work environment.
Employees require exposure to and training of the different multicultural aspects such as appropriate greetings, celebrated holidays, and traditional customs. “Companies with a diverse multicultural workforce tend to rely on workshops to develop knowledge management skills among people from different backgrounds” (Maham, 2013, p. 1094). Training and education should comprise of universal internal and external awareness and sensitivity; along with individualized cultural needs of the
The workforce of America is more diverse than it has ever been. White male upper class men no longer solely dominate companies. Women, people of color, and other minority groups are now rising in the ranks and demanding change. How can one know all the ways to manage such a diverse group of employees? Through a variety of ideas, experiments, and attempts, leaders across the nation are looking for solutions to this answer. Not only are people coming from different ethnicities, we are also experiencing a great influx of workers from nations all across the globe. To keep the level of job satisfaction high, workers must be able to feel comfortable in their workplace environment. It is almost impossible for a person to know everything about all cultures and be aware of what may or may not offend a person from a different ethnic group. What must be done is to teach cultural awareness and diversity training. Basically what I have discovered in reading the journal articles is that there is no one right way to run a company but there are definitely ‘better’ ways when it comes to cultural sensitivity in the workplace. As I continue my research, I am looking to find what some of the most effective ways to manage a culturally diverse workplace. Some of the issues that I am coming across are related to gender, race/ethnicity, communication patterns, and power struggles. I feel this subject is very relevant to our course because as we focus on management and human relations, we must take into account the humans that we are managing. Even if we just look at the diversity of our class we see how different our perspectives can be. To be an effective manager in this day and age, cultural diversity issues must be given serious consider...
Hyun, Jane. “Leadership Principles for Capitalizing on Culturally Diverse Teams: The Bamboo Ceiling Revisited.” Leader to Leader. 16 Mar. 2012: 14-19. Web. 2 Apr. 2014 < http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ltl.20017/abstract >
Schein in his book “Organizational Culture and Leadership” explains how different believes and behaviors start to be logical when we understand their cultures by stating “When we learn to see the world through cultural lenses, all kinds of things begin to make sense that initially were mysterious, frustrating, or seemingly stupid” (2010, p. 13). This kind of foresight should be the starting point in order to manage the tremendously growing diversity in the workforce nowadays. Leaders and administrators of both public and private organizations through their influence are responsible to promote and manage diversity in an ethical manner.
Today’s management in the workforce is composed of all types of people verses thirty years ago when white males held a majority of upper-management positions in companies. These positions are now held by a mixture of ethnic back grounds and women who hold just as many if not more management positions then men. Just by looking at the changes in management demographics shows how important it is for people to understand cultural competency in the workplace. Dr. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. (1999) stated, “Diversity is the collective mixture of whomever we have in our workforce characterized by their differences and similarities” (p.11). Managers and supervisors must understand the characteristics of a diversity mature individual; they also need to be able to articulate the differences between affirmative action, managing diversity, understanding and valuing diversity to build skills that transforms awareness into productive and supportive workplace behaviors.
Brett, J., Behfar, K. & Kern, M. (2006) ‘Managing multicultural teams’, Harvard Business Review, 84 (11), pp.84-91, Business Source Premier [online].
Culture can be defined as the beliefs, values and the pattern of behavior of an individual within designated areas. The culture of organizations defines shared values and behavioral expectations. Cultural issues are especially basic issues all around the globe. These issues can happen in various routes relying upon the size, area and the custom culture of that institution. Social issues happen even because of the states of mind and how each individual comprehend in diverse business environment. Today, the corporate administrations and rising business firms have chosen to give the essential attention on trainings and classes at the multicultural working environment that will help them to understand and create
According to Kinicki, diversity represents the multitude of individual’s differences and similarities that exist among people. When developing a cultural diversity training program, one has to manage diversity with a new approach of inclusion and recognition. Managing diversity enables people to perform up to their maximum potential (Kinicki p. 111). As we analyze diversity, we will evaluate some common barriers and challenges in managing diversity. In developing a diversity program, we will analyze methods and procedures that will be apart of the program. Kinicki (p.*) says an important first step in overcoming these obstacles is for leaders to convey to their employees why the organization values diversity.
Culture is about a set of values, beliefs, and norms that affect the behaviors of large groups of people. Whereas, diversity is more than skin color or ethnic heritage. Diversity within a group is about the quality of being different. The differences between values, traits, attitudes, status is what diversity entails. Engleberg and Wynn state that these “characteristics include age, occupation, physical ability, marital status, personality preferences, and much more.” We must remember to avoid stereotyping individuals and learn to accept that diversity in groups is the skillset that individuals bring to the group. The knowledge that individuals bring to the group is the diversity that most businesses are
In the workplace, it is common to encounter individuals of different cultures, ethnicities, and genders. This diversity can either lead to an introduction of new work methods, or it can lead to conflict between coworkers. In order to avoid conflict, and have all employees work as a cohesive team, managers must educate themselves, and their employees on the topic of cultural diversity. In order for your practices to be considered effective, you must not only respect and recognize an employee’s diversity, you must use their difference to benefit them.
Within an organization, there are always people that think and behave differently, all dependent on their personal values and cultures. Efficient managing of the human resources is an art, and it is hard to find a perfect solution/combination. It is important that management recognize and understand that people work differently. This is why it is important to have strong cultural foundations that also guides how employees are expected to behave and work. Thereby it should be easier for management to utilize the work force diversity to something meaningful.
In today’s globalized world, multicultural teams accomplish a significant proportion of organizational work. Multicultural teams are formed because they improve organizational effectiveness in the global business environment. As such, multicultural teams offer huge potential to organizations. The most critical and practical challenge multicultural teams face is managing conflicts across members’ national cultural boundaries. Other cultural challenges in multicultural teams include dealing with coordination and control issues, maintaining communication richness, and developing and maintaining team cohesiveness. For multicultural teams to be effective, members must learn to address the challenges that arise from team members’ differing nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
The military service spends a lot of time training soldiers to become leaders, while teaching skills to increase the knowledge aimed to transform smart, young people into effective leaders. Basic Training, Noncommissioned schools and Officers program pick up where the civilian schools leave off. Think about programs on workplace diversity, with their stress on communication and team building. An important component of team building is cultural change, because if teams do not work effectively all employees must understand and embrace cultural change. There is no doubt that today's leader’s success depends on how they mold and develop cultural change
people who are different from each other to diverse the company culture to find different viewpoints and ideas to gain Competitive advantage (Simmons, 1996). Organizations that are lacking diversification and which are also being exposed to the general approach of minimizing the discrimination and injustice will unfavorably affect both customer and employee while diminishing the relationships with both parties (Kundu, 2001). Peters et al. (1982) conveyed that OC should create a diverse body of employees, customers and stakeholders that are being valued and integrated in to all dimensions of the work where that particular company may learn from the people they serve, by listening internally and externally to them.