LEADERSHIP

Managing Diversity
Learning Objectives:
A. Understand diversity and its elements.
B. Explain the advantages and
disadvantages of culture.
C. Define ethnocentrism and stereotyping.
D. Describe four dimensions of cultural
difference.
E. List the positive aspects of managing
diversity well.
F. Understand how to manage diversity in
organizations.
Defining Diversity
• Represents the multitude of individual
differences and similarities that exist
among people
• Diversity pertains to the host of
individual differences that make all of
us unique and different from others.

https://www.inkling.com/read/organizational-behavior-
kreitner-kinicki-10th/chapter-2/defining-diversity
Elements of Diversity
• Age • Income
• Gender • Education
• Ethnicity • Marital Status
• Race • Religious Beliefs
• Physical Ability • Geographic Location
• Sexual Orientation • Parental Status
• Physical • Personality Type
Characteristics
Culture
The totality of the norms, standards and
behaviors that operate in a society. This
attributes distinguish a society’s
members, individually and collectively,
from other societies and cultures.
Culture
But while he gains so much from culture, man
is also brainwashed, to some extent by the
culture to which he is exposed from birth.
Equipped with a collection of stereotypes with
which to face the world, man is apt to lose
sight of possible alternative methods of
behavior and understanding. (V. Barnow)

V. Barnow in Ross Webber, Culture and Management

(Homewood, IL: Richard D. Erwin, 1969), p. 69
Culture
Hofstede states that culture is to human
collectivity what personality is to the
individual. The way humans react to the
basic issues that confront all humankind
is determined by culture.

Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International

Differences in Work-Related Values (Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage, 1977, 1980, 1984)
Ethnocentrism
“Exaggerated tendency to think the
characteristics of one’s own group or
races are superior to those of other
groups or races.”
Cultural Differences
Four dimensions of cultural differences:
1. Power distance
2. Uncertainty avoidance
3. Individualism
4. Masculinity
Stereotyping
“To stereotype is to assign identical
characteristics to any people in a group
regardless of the actual variation among
members of the group.”

Elliott Aronson, The Social Animal (San Francisco: W.H.

Freeman, 1976, p. 175)
Effects of Stereotyping
• Prevent people who are different from
feeling accepted and living up to their
full potential
• Blocks learning in the organization
Minority Experience
Brown, reminds us that minorities in a
society that allow discrimination tend to
be particularly sensitive to discriminatory
behaviors within the organization that
employ them.

L. David Brown, Managing Conflict at Organizational

Interfaces, 1983
Positive aspects of managing
diversity well
• Allows minorities and eccentric people to feel
comfortable and contribute fully at work
• Permits organizations to benefit from diverse
viewpoints
• Makes it easier to serve a diverse group of
customers
• Helps the organizations attract and retain
high quality employees
Tips for Managers
Guidelines for dealing with people from
different culture:
• Know and understand you own culture
• Know other culture
• Look for strengths in the other culture
rather than focus upon weaknesses or
differences
Tips for Managers (cont.)
• Listen actively so that people can guide
you and so the organization will benefit
from its diversity
• Use management techniques or
intervention strategies that will be
appropriate for the given culture or sub-
culture
Tips for Managers (cont.)
• Develop an atmosphere in which it is safe
for all members to ask for help
• Avoid such behavior which can be
viewed as discriminative to others
• Create an inclusive environment
Tips for Managers (cont.)
Conflict and tension do not disappear in a
diverse group when the differences are
acknowledged, but they can become a source
of learning.

David A. Kolb, Organizational Behavior, Sixth Edition

Conclusion
Diversity is a growing reality that organizations
need to address explicitly. It should be
acknowledged, appreciated and dealt with as
a source of richness, creativity and cross cultural
recognition.

Effective leadership empowers each individual

regardless of race, gender or religion and
inspires the desire and the ability to work
together toward a common goal.