The most successful organisations are those with the most diverse and engaged workforces. Studies show an 80 per cent improvement in business performance among those with high diversity levels. When people feel included and able to reach their full potential, they are more engaged, more productive and often more creative – Charlotte Sweeney & Fleur Bothwick in “Inclusive Leadership”.
Diversity is an emerging topic of conversation in national and organisational settings. Despite its importance, it has not generated sufficient awareness in a critical mass of audiences. While some organisations talk about it, many others have not caught on with its significance in organisational effectiveness and leadership. Yet, diversity is an inevitable element of human and organisational existence. Leaders need to be more knowledgeable about diversity and place it within relevant contexts in the organisations they lead. In this article, I present the case that enhancing leadership through diversity covers four measurable factors – instituting deliberate policies, avoiding group think, accepting differences and providing training and skills.
Instituting policies on diversity
To benefit from diversity, leaders need to be deliberate in installing relevant organisational policies. This is an absolute requirement in the process of enriching organisations through diversity. But policies will not execute themselves and they require the support and action of executives. Leaders, especially at executive level have to be role models of the policies they profess to support.
When top leaders demonstrate the understanding and application of diversity, organisational diversity is strengthened. Boards of corporate entities also have to lead the way at their level so that management teams are given no choice but to implement diversity policies. Having a strategic plan for diversity will entail creating a vision for it that is linked to business strategy. It is imperative that leaders are consistent role models of inclusive leadership.
Avoiding groupthink (and embracing dissent)
Groupthink has the capacity to bring diverse people together and mould them into a single perspective or thought pattern. While it has it benefits, groupthink can also kill innovation and creativity at individual and team levels. Herminia Ibarra notes that: “…effective leaders create and use networks to tap new ideas, connect to people in different worlds, and access radically different perspectives.” In other words, effective leaders intentionally avoid groupthink to build their leading and learning capacity. Leaders need to figure out correctly that dissenting voices are not necessarily negative voices. This implies that leaders should actively encourage dissent and extract its positive elements.
Although it is said that silence is golden, it can also be a leader’s death trap when the whole team is silently disagreeing but unable to voice it. The dissenting voice becomes the life guard of the leader by steering away from drowning in groupthink. As James Kouzes and Barry Posner express in “The Leader’s Legacy”, “…we never benefit from, nor truly believe, the sycophants whose flattery is obviously aimed at gaining favour. We know that no one can be that good. To stay honest to ourselves, what we really need are “loving critics” – people who care deeply enough to give us honest feedback about how we’re doing.” To build true diversity is to enable diversity of opinion.
Accepting differences as inevitable
Differences are integrated into our collective humanity – differences in background, race, education, genetics, colour, nationality, language, culture, personal experiences and the most natural of all gender. The contents of official forms recognise these differences and we usually are compelled to document how we are different from others. Differences are mostly inevitable, and uncontrollable but hardly viewed as valuable. Consequently, human beings would be better off acknowledging and accepting differences and seeking to use them productively.
Generational shifts also emphasise the differences even in modes of thinking and values. The older ones long for the “good old days” while the younger ones claim the older ones are “old school”. The good old days had their positives but the world might be regressing if indeed it returned to the past. The present has its benefits and has taken lessons from the past as points of improvement. Leaders should show the way in accepting differences and blending them into organisational success.
Providing training and skills
Leaders and organisations should not assume that people will automatically understand the workings of diversity. Instead, it is necessary to actively provide knowledge platforms for employees to learn about diversity and grasp how it empowers them to achieve better results. As the opening quote of this article suggests, business improvement is linked to organisational diversity. More and more companies are activating policies about diversity but the journey to full understanding is still a long one. Like other knowledge gaps, organisations, leaders and HR executives in particular should seek to fill the gaps in learning the value of diversity.
Closing note
Diversity researchers David Thomas and Robin Ely conclude that when differences are used to shape goals, processes and teams, employees bring more of themselves to work. This is a strong argument for leaders to appreciate diversity.
Weyinmi Jemide
