How to Lead a Culturally Diverse Team

How to Lead a Culturally Diverse Team:

R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr. once said, “Creating and managing a diverse workforce is a process, not a destination” (Alyn). Diversity is something that we come across everyday of our lives. Leading a culturally diverse team should be done carefully, not to discriminate or show bias for one decision making style verses another (Laroche, 2003).

The Fusion Approach:

The fusion approach is based on coexistence of differences and meaningful participation. These two elements of collaboration ensure reachable goals effectively and creatively. In North America, company’s face diverse situations daily. The fusion approach has the basic goal of allowing each member to make his or her own contribution to achieve the team’s goal. Fusion teamwork allows differences to coexist and be talked about (Gwynne, 2009).

Traditional Collaboration:

There are two traditional ways to lead a diverse group. In a more dominant model, specific team members direct the teams by collecting information. These specific individuals are in charge of decision-making. These individuals also tend to disregard differences that are not in line with theirs, and overpower other members’ viewpoints. This approach creates a less culturally intelligent team model because it discourages expressive contribution from other team members and their decision-making (Gwynne, 2009).

Rather than the prior dominant model, a harmonizing model would be the integration, or identity model. This model entails all of the team members to direct their cultural identifies to the entire team in order to find common interests and goals. This advantage boosts every team members’ participation. However, there are two risks that could occur when...

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...fferent locations and trying to break through the language barrier might be a difficulty task for a leader, but it is important to do if the leader wishes to develop a strong culturally diverse team and create team spirit among members (Gwynne, 2009). There are many benefits when working with a culturally diverse group, which include members supporting each other, learning new management approaches, and developing team spirit (Laroche, 2003).

References:

Alyn, J. (n.d.). Inclusionalysis. Alyn Consulting. Retrieved January 26, 2014, from

http://www.alynconsulting.com/diversity-blog/communication/12-diversity-

quotes-i-love-and-how-to-use-them-2/

Gwynne, P. (2009). MANAGING CULTURALLY DIVERSE TEAMS. Research

Technology Management, 52(1), 68-69.

Laroche, L. (2003). Managing cultural diversity in technical professions. Amsterdam:

Butterworth-Heinemann.