Developing Leadership Diversity

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Developing Leadership Diversity

• Individual and Organizational
• Approaches

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What is meant by diversity?

• Racial
• Ethnic
• Gender
• Disability
• Religious/spiritual

• Age
• Family stage
• Cross-cultural
• Sexual orientation
• Socio-economic status

all the ways we are different -- Pillsbury
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Why do we need to focus on workforce diversity?

• Demographic changes
• Changing legal definitions and laws
• Employment problems of certain groups
• Global expansion of business

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The U.S. Population (2000 Census)
Gender Males 49 Females 51
Racial Background White 69.1 Hispanic
12.5 Black 12.3 Asian 3.6 American
Indian/Alaska Native .9 Hawaiian/Pacific
Islander .1
Age Under 30 42 30 over 58
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Changing legal definitions and laws

• Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1991
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act

• American with Disabilities Act
• Family and Medical Leave Act

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Employment Problems

• Productivity losses from family care-giving needs
  is estimated at 11 billion per year
• High unemployment among young blacks (35 vs. 15
  for whites)
• 40 of GLBT employees report hostile treatment at
  work
• 75 of disabled persons who want to work are not
  working (2 ½ times more likely to be unemployed)
• 50 of the available American Indian workforce is
  unemployed
• Low wage employees have extreme difficulty in
  work-family balance

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Global expansion of business

• Transnational HR management issues
• Deployment
• Knowledge and information dissemination
• Identifying and developing talent globally
• Roberts, Kossek, Ozeki, 1998

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Differences between Affirmative Action and
Diversity Management

• Affirmative Action
• Focus on recruitment and hiring goals
• Equality and fairness are motivations
• Encourages assimilation

• Diversity Management
• Focus on bottom line results
• Increased business success is motivation
• Encourages appreciating and valuing differences

Affirmative Action gets the new fuel into the
tank, while diversity management gets women,
minorities, disabled, etc.in the drivers seat
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Arguments for Diversity Management

• Cost savings in turnover, absenteeism, and
  lawsuits
• Need talent that is increasingly scarce
• Increase business growth and markets
• Reduce economic inequality in society

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Arguments Against Diversity Management

• Disagreement on the meaning of diversity
• Too many diversities to manage
• Lip service is paid to this aspect of management

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Arguments Against Diversity Management

• Communication problems between employees
• Backlash from traditional employees
• Are there valid data that diversity actually
  improves bottom line performance of companies?

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Stages of Personal Diversity Awareness
Highest Level of Awareness
Integration Multicultural attitude enables one
to integrate differences and adapt both
cognitively and behaviorally

• Adaptation
• Able to empathize with those of other cultures
• Able to shift from one cultural perspective to
  another

• Acceptance
• Accepts behavioral differences and underlying
  differences in values
• Recognizes validity of other ways of thinking and
  perceiving the world

• Minimizing Differences
• Hides or trivializes cultural differences
• Focuses on similarities among all peoples

Defense Perceives threat against ones
comfortable worldview Uses negative
stereotyping Assumes own culture superior
Lowest Level of Awareness
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What have been typical company responses to
managing diversity?

• There are different strategic perspectives
  (philosophies) and different operational
  approaches
• Top managers plan the strategic approach while
  lower and middle level managers must implement
  plans
• Dass Parker (1999)

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Evolution of Organizational Strategies toward
Diversity Awareness and Action
Stage 5 Diversity is inherent in the
culture Gender and color-blind
Stage 4 Diversity as Moral Imperative Top-level
commitment to valuing diversity
Stage 3 Diversity as a competitive weapon Effort
to recruit/retain minorities
Stage 2 We need to react Recognition of
barriers minorities face
Stage 1 Meet legal requirements Diversity as a
problem
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Developing the Business Case for Diversity
Management

• Develop specific business objectives related to
  diversity
• Identify the actions required for each objective
• Conduct cost/benefit analyses
• Develop tracking mechanisms to assess progress
  and financial impact
• Robinson Dechant (1997)

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Cross cultural leadership

• Values Broad preferences that guide our actions
  (terminal and instrumental)
• Different value orientations across cultures
• Value differences affect behaviors

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Values that differ across cultures
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Rank Orderings of Ten Countries Along Four
Dimensions of National Value Systems
1 higher rank, 10 lower rank
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Other Values that Affect Work Behavior

• Universalism vs. particularism principles vs.
  relationships guide decisions/actions
• Monochronicity vs. polychronicity sense of
  time linearity vs. multi-tasking
• High vs. low context context gives meaning or
  not

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Limitations of Reliance on Cultural Values

• These are generalizations---inaccurate and
  sometimes dangerous to apply to any one
  individual
• They are first best guesses prior to learning
  more about the culture
• They should be consciously held to allow for
  learning and modification to occur
• Despite globalization, differences between
  cultures are not disappearing quickly

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Implications for Leadership

• Skills and attitudes to relate effectively to and
  motivate people across race, gender, age, social
  attitudes, and lifestyles
• Cultivate cultural sensitivity Willing to
  acquire knowledge about local customs and values
• Willing to learn to speak the language and become
  proficient in it
• Patient, adaptable, flexible, and willing to
  listen and learn
• Culturally adventurous willing to try foods,
  engage in customs and celebrations, take on new
  assignments in new locations

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Four strategies for meeting global challenges

• Encourage a-spatial careers (spend working
  lives in multiple cultures)
• Awareness building assignments (3-12 month
  assignments)
• SWAT Teams (short term deployment of experts to
  solve problems)
• Virtual solutions and global human resource
  information systems

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Women and Leadership

• What is the profile of women leaders?
• How are womens leadership styles viewed?
• What accounts for the progress (or lack thereof)
  for women leaders?
• Strategies for building leadership opportunities
  for women

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Labor Force Participation Rates for Women and Men

• Labor force participation of women has increased
  substantially over the past 30 years
• Labor force participation of men has decreased
  slightly.
• Source Dept. of Labor

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Women in Management Positions in Early 2000s

• Over 50 of all full-time management/
  professional, and related occupations are filled
  by women (BLS, 2003)
• 37 of all full-time managers are women (BLS,
  2003)
• Women account for about 23 of top executive
  positions (BLS, 2003)
• Women hold about 14 of all corporate board
  seats
• There are 7 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies

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Some Differences between Men and Women Managers

• About 41 of all MBA degrees are awarded to women
• One in three women with MBA degrees are working
  part-time compared to one in 20 men with MBAs
• Women managers earn only 73 cents on the dollar
  that men managers make (overall wage gap is about
  76 cents)
• Greater percentages of women managers have never
  been married, and are separated, divorced, and
  widowed than men managers

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Stereotypical Styles of Womens Leadership
Monsters
Mothers
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Stereotypical Perceptions of Women Leaders
Mothers

• Accessible to all
• Nurturant to others
• Focus on social and emotional needs, rather than
  on task
• Protective of peers and subordinates
• Take care of details organizational wives

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Stereotypical Perceptions of Women Leaders
Monsters

• Micro-management
• Failure to delegate
• Autocratic decision making
• Use of negative influence strategies
• Exploitative
• Queen Bees
• Suspicious of and threatened by others

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What leads to these perceptions?

• Traditional gender role expectations
• Lack of experience working with women
• Working in nontraditional fields
• Self perceptions of confidence
• Gender discrimination

• Lack of real power and resources
• Lack of experience
• Try to use male model
• Overcompensation for female socialization
• Receive little guidance and mentoring
• Placed in staff positions

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How can women develop effective styles?

• What do studies of successful women leaders
  reveal about developing effective styles?
• What can organizations do to help women develop
  effective leadership styles?

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Recent Study of Men and Women Leaders (2000)

• Women executives were rated higher on 42 of the
  52 skills measured
• In a nutshell, women were better at
• Motivating others
• Fostering communication
• Producing high quality work
• Listening to others
• Equal to men on strategic planning and issue
  analysis

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Wellesley Center for Research on Women (2001)

• Interviewed 60 prominent women from many fields.
  General results indicate
• Over time, obstacles to womens leadership have
  diminished but have not disappeared
• There is no one style of leadership that was
  successful context is important
• Relational practice (democratic, people-oriented
  leadership) fits todays context

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Wellesley Center for Research on Women (2001)
(cont.)

• Women must be tenacious and optimistic to
  overcome obstacles
• Strategy to gain visibility Know and value
  yourself and let others know
• Sometimes early support from others helped, but
  not always critical for success
• Mothering actually provided valuable skills and
  training in leading others

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Why arent there more women leaders at the top of
organizations?

• Work aspirations and expectations
• Human capital differences
• Gender role expectations and stereotyping
• The double burden of work and non-work
  responsibilities
• Organizational cultural assumptions about work
  success
• Women choose not to advance in management opt
  out

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Strategies for Building Leadership Opportunities
for Women

• Assimilation of women to the organization
• Accommodation of the organization to women
• Celebrating differences strategies
• Changing embedded organizational cultural
  assumptions about work
• New flexible career strategies brought about by
  young professional women (and men)

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Solutions What Women Can Do

• 1. Adapt to the requirements of the situation
• 2. Demonstrate critical skills for effective job
  performancemust work very hard!
• 3. Display entrepreneurial initiative
• 4. Accurately identify company values and work
  within these
• 5. Take on risks and challenging assignmentsget
  line positions
• 6. Bring whole selves to the job
• 7. Use numbers to bring about change

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Solutions What Organizations Can Do

• 1. Provide better guidance and mentoring from
  senior managers, males and females
• 2. Put women into line positions where the
  action is
• 3. Give women high visibility experiences early
  in career--build confidence and skills
• 4. Develop networks and connections within and
  between organizations
• 5. Break down cultural practices that may
  reinforce gender stereotypes
• 6. More focus on work-life integration and
  innovative career options