Cultural Diversity Organizations today have a social and ethical responsibility for managing diversity and ensuring the culture of the company is one that values the employees no matter the background. Workforce diversity consist of similarities and differences among employees in terms of age, cultural background, physical abilities and disabilities, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. Organizations are focusing on cultural diversity due to globalization (worldwide growth), generational gaps, increased global competition, and due to the increased social and economic fairness and morality. For whatever the reason, organizations who focus on cultural diversity initiatives, are putting themselves in the driver seat for longer-term …show more content…
Leaders must be aware of a person’s cultural differences in order to be effective. Dubrin (2016) stated a cross-cultural leader must be patient, adaptable, flexible, and willing to listen and learn which is known as cultural sensitivity. Great leaders use emotional intelligence when dealing with individuals or groups. Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. When leaders combine cultural sensitivity with emotional intelligence, you get cultural intelligence. This is the ability for a leader to interpret someone’s unfamiliar gestures in the same way someone from this persons culture would. Reguieg (2014) stated there are four types of cultural intelligence, which include metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral. These are all necessary for leader to fully entrench themselves in the culture of another, especially with …show more content…
Cultural sensitivity and cultural intelligence are vital to the success of the leaders as well as the associates of a given organization. Successful organizations have programs that focus on cross-cultural training as well as conflict resolution. Reguieg (2014) also stated that cross-cultural training is the most effective means for increasing the understanding and awareness for individuals who are confronted with cultures outside of their own! Organizations looking to achieve cultural diversity must have the buy-in from the executive level leadership and be willing to hold themselves and others accountable for achieving diversity in the workforce. Recent studies show the organizations are embarking on diversity training for a great number of reasons, but the ability to compete on a global level is the stand out. According to Lockhart (2002), “The ability of organizations to effectively compete in a global economy increasingly depends on their competence in managing their diverse human resources for strategic advantage” (p.1). Diversity and cross-cultural training are necessary initiatives for organizations that want to make a difference on a global scale and back home in diverse
In my readings, I have agreed with the term for culture in the book?? Cultural Diversity?? written by Jerry V. Filled. It states that "One 's culture becomes one?s paradigm, defining what is real and what is right.? in other words culture is taught to children by family it is a variety of learned behaviors, beliefs, values, traditions etc. All of which help shape a person and is a huge portion of who they are.
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.
In this article, Byars-Winston and Fouad, seeks to assess the importance of cultural factors and their impact on multicultural value of career counseling from the perspective of a counselor. The authors further examine the Culturally Appropriate Career Counseling Model and offer an expansion of the model through incorporating metacognitive processes. Culture is believed to play a significant role in one’s career decision making but the extent to which it does remains unknown. It is therefore imperative that career counselors try to understand
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.
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...
A leader must be able to use reasoning and observational skills in order to interpret unfamiliar situations and therefore come up with appropriate behavioral responses. They must be able to respond to new situations in culturally appropriate ways. As we all know different people respond to things differently. If you are a leader of a big corporation, you will not only have to deal with the cultural differences of your own employees, you will also have to deal with the cultural differences from outside sources such as buyers or clients. In order to have high cultural intelligence it is important that cognitive, emotional, and physical components work together. Cognitive abilities requires observational and learning abilities in order to understand others. Leaders must also show self-confidence and self-motivation, this is the emotional aspect. A leader must also be able to shift speech patterns, expressions, and body language to tune into people of different cultures (Daft,
Diversity in the workplace is very important in today’s global workforce because workers in the economy all over the world are currently made up of many different ethnicities, varied cultures, beliefs, and backgrounds. People that are involved in management such as managers, and supervisors could greatly benefit from being accustomed to diversity in the workplace because their job entails dealing with a multicultural work environment on a daily basis. Knowing how to handle diversity in the workforce and having the necessary skills for supervisors would be beneficial not only to them but also to the success of the company and economy because a strong, diversified workforce will create a more “creative, innovative, and productive workforce.” (Kerby, 2012).
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.
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.
Valuing diversity in the workforce can assist a manager or an organization in developing and utilizing all of the human resources available. Valuing diversity can be defined as, “valuing the vast differences between people within an organization.” Our text defines valuing diversity as: “means putting an end to the assumption that everyone who is not a member of the dominant group must assimilate.” In today’s work environment the workforce may consist of numerous employee’s with various ethnic backgrounds and ages. These diversities give an organization the opportunity to obtain new ideas or alternative solutions to a complex problem. Organizations that value diversity tend to have more creative, motivated and productive employee’s. The employee’s feel more valued and tend to have less interpersonal conflicts and have a greater sense of teamwork. An example of a Company that expresses the importance in Valuing Diversity would have to be Home Depot. If you view the following link: https://careers.homedepot.com/cg/content.do?p=divinitiatives Home Depot openly expresses their Value on Diversity. During an interview with a Human Resource Manager at Home Depot he openly stated how they value each employee by acknowledging that within the workforce there is a vast diversity in culture, age and knowledge. At times management rely on this diversity to acquire solutions to complex problems. Valuing Diversity is an essential step to creating a stronger relationship between the employees and the organization.
Undeniably, the individuals must interact with foreigners inevitable, who are different language and culture. There is an important that a leader should train its employees for improving communication skill and adapt to working with foreigner people. Furthermore, encouragement workers’ firm to learn about understanding a culture, especially the culture of cooperation company. In the past, some people believed that the leadership must be highly talented, then the public emphasize that the leadership also must be emotional intelligence, it relate to cultural intelligence. I have understood that the cultural intelligence is the ability of flexibility in the cultural understanding and learn about creating interaction. This also adapts a behavior to follow environment, including expression to accurately fit a situation. In the article of Earley and Mosakowski (2004) have explained that cultural intelligence is the ability of individual emotional development and cope with behavior problem of person who comes from different cultures; the association of source of cultural intelligence contains three elements. Firstly, the head which is thinking, perception and learning about taboos about other cultures. Secondly, the body which is learning of expression and respect for the differences of other civilizations. Finally, the heart which is an ability of adaptation to
The situation seems to be confusing when the leader themselves is not from the native country or let’s say the leader is an outsider. In such situations different leaders may have a different experience of handling cultural diversity in the workplace. People have experience of being led by the people who are like them, but still today people will hesitate when an outsider come and lead them. This type of scenario is the result of intolerance. Employees should be given an idea how cultural diversity may change the way of leading or maybe how beneficial is it. Change can be said as a global rule and cultural diversity too is an inseparable part of this
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.
Moreover, this equivalent opportunity concept in workplace diversity is aimed for guaranteeing that business organizations make the most out of the difference from workforce varieties rather than to losing ability which may help the businesses to be more proficient and effective. Workplace diversity carries with the heterogeneity that should be sustained, developed and acknowledged as method for enriching organizational effectiveness in this modern society (Henry & Evans, 2007). In order to make sure organizations achieve the diversity goals, businesses should take the appropriate actions to boost culturally diverse employees. Thus, businesses need to gain progress toward multiculturalism, which should incorporates to avoid employees ' impression of the degree of separation and bias, the equal rewards and punishment, the openness of critical information, and the chances for employees to stepping up for their career goals in future (Brown, 2008). Truly, develop and implement multiculturalism in the workplace is not an easy thing to do for businesses. It needs a certain numbers of policy and regulations to follow and adjust before businesses or organizations are actually considering diversity. Also, work diverse group come from people that has different ages, ethnicity, and sexual orientation working together to form a multicultural workplace. There are some
We need to be aware of the diversity in the classroom. Cultural diversity includes: bi-racial, adoptive, immigrant, gay, and step-families. It is a large majority of the students today even in my generation. Focusing on making a balanced curriculum that exposes the students to all of these different backgrounds is very important. I know that it is likely that a teacher will not be able to cater to every student, but it is important to involve each of them. There is a large percentage of students that have dropped out due to the lack of having a connection with the curriculum. It is frustrating that we are lacking progress in our schools to help these children connect when studies show that each cultural group will soon be equal in numbers. We need to form a better