Written by: Roderick Mason, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Organizations have assets and liabilities. The organization has to take care of all the assets and liabilities to have a healthy life. The life of an organization includes a healthy working environment for employees. Organizations can only be run through Human Resources. Employees who generally have a service length of more than five years become a kind of asset for the Company.
So it’s the responsibility of the CEO to take care of such assets. The leaders of a company or a nation have to act as diverse leaders. As assets and liabilities Show Company’s health similarly, employees’ health depends on the following:
Earn good money
Have Own house
Good job
Safety of family
Good career
Peace of mind
Good physical health
Peace of mind at the workplace
The cultural difference at peace
Self-respect at workplace
Diversity in Leadership
From the perspective of leadership, diversity can be explained as:
Understanding
Assessing or evaluating
Implementing strategies and processes that work for more members of the group
Giving respect and margin to the differences in every person/employee
A leader can bring out the best of each member by empowering the points mentioned above at the organizational level.
It’s also important for leaders to understand and groom their cultural views. Recognizing and refining these views can assist us in improving diversity leadership.
Inclusion
We can explain inclusion with the perspective of "leadership, which makes all the members of a team feel that they have been treated with full respect and assessed on merit, which has made them confident and enthusiastic."
Like at the workplace, allowing other employees of different backgrounds (cultural, professional, etc.) to fully participate in the organization’s activities with respect and honor is called inclusion.
Teams having inclusive leaders are:
Like to report that they are 17% high performing,
High-quality decision-makers are 20%,
And 29% likely to report behaving collaboratively.
Nowadays, companies rapidly like to hire diverse, multi-disciplinary teams that work in collaboration, including women and men, people from different cultural and young, and old workers for best results.
Feelings of Employee at Workplace
Employees being human beings, face several situations which they cope with to achieve organizational goals.
These areas are some examples:
Hesitation while meeting with people many times a day of different ethnic backgrounds at the workplace.
Fear of judgment style by the others when we try to take some time during working hours to do a personal task.
It’s depressing for an employee when he does not ask their opinion in decision-making.
Interruption by others and it is bad if we are called emotional or angry.
It’s bad when I am under observation because of my race.
Language issues.
Mental stress when people don’t talk at the workplace because I am from another country.
Unfair treatment if you are disabled.
Issues with me because of my religion.
Impact of Leadership Diversity and Inclusion on Business
Every business owner and leader wants their business to flourish around the world. For the rapid growth of any business, innovation is one of the key elements that come with leadership diversity. We can see some big companies in the world have top management employees from different parts of the world, having different experiences from different countries and cultures. It helps multinational companies introduce a product based on the desire, taste, and culture of the people in that country.
"Business has only two basic functions which include marketing and innovation." — Peter Drucker
Leadership Diversity at the workplace can be described as accepting people of different ages, genders, income levels, behaviors, races, religions, professional experience, mental and physical health, and qualifications with differences.
According to research, diversity as per Millennials is as if any business wants to innovate, it should take advantage of the employees from different experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives.
Steps towards Inclusive Leadership:
The cake-inclusive leader cannot be baked without the following ingredients. One must follow the below-mentioned ingredients of inclusive leadership.
1. Commitment:
They are sincere to diversity, like to become whistleblowers, challenge obstacles, likes accountability, and make the foundation of origination on diversity and leadership for long-term growth for employees.
2. Humility:
Inclusive leaders are humble with everyone, and they support them every step of life. These types of leaders are not proud and self-centered. They accept mistakes and take these as learning steps towards growth.
“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”
3. Curiosity:
Inclusive leaders have the following characteristics according to curiosity.
Open-mind.
Respect others' views.
Listen without judgment.
Empathy to understand others around them.
Acknowledge their limits.
By practicing the above, inclusive leaders become broad-minded, analytical, and compassionate.
Cultural Acceptance: They respect others’ cultures and adapt as required.
4. Collaboration:
Leaders believe in the power of collaboration. They empower others, which in return makes them strong. For example, a great Govt empowers their nation, and in return, the people of that country work hard and payback to the country. Similarly, we can apply this to the organization.
5. Respect Merit:
They are well aware of likes and dislikes in the workplace and always discourage this to support merit and empower the skills of each individual.
Steps towards Diverse Leadership:
The following must be followed to become a diverse leader.
1. Scope of Diversity
Diverse leadership should also understand the following when hiring anybody as it goes beyond gender and race. Other types of diversity include:
Age
Disability factor
Educational background
Religion
Orientation
Parent/family status, etc.
These things create tremendous diverse leadership while considering the above points when hiring for an organization.
2. Support Stakeholders
Its the responsibility of a leader to become diverse. He/she must take care of stakeholders on merit.
i. Customer
Diversity leadership provides companies an advantage with potential customers. In such a way, vendors win more business from the companies.
ii. Human Resource
Companies that don’t have diversified leadership can lose good employees, which will be directly proportional to the company’s bad health.
Compliance
Diversity is an essential part of compliance as the country implements corporate inclusivity laws. For example, women must make up 25 to 50 percent of these companies.
Impact of Diversity and Inclusion after COVID-19
Let us discuss the situation of diversity and inclusion in the current climate of the world.
Now, according to the post COVID situation, there is a crisis around the world. McKinsey research has declared that 39 percent of all jobs previously held by African Americans and compared with 34 percent by white one is now threatened by reductions in:
hours or pay,
temporary vacations, or
permanent layoffs.
Waste of inclusion:
Another issue companies and leaders face the end of inclusion due to COVID1 as people are working from home. Sense of neglect started occurring because face-to-face coaching and consoling cannot be replaced with online discussions.
Sending staff home to work, in a bid to stem the spread of COVID-19, risks reinforcing existing exclusive behavior and biases and undermining inclusive workplace cultures. Now, the COVID-19 crisis is making jobs vulnerable.
How to get benefit from Leveraging I&D in the crisis
The problems facing all should not be unaddressed because this can cause damage to the industry. Leaders need new problem-solving skills and vision to address issues faced by organizations.
In 2008–09, during the global financial crisis, banks having a higher ratio of women on their boards were more stable than their peers. The research shows that those banks are less vulnerable, which are run by women.
We can see and check countries with women leaders are thought to be facing the COVID-19 pandemic with greater success. We can conclude that female leadership has a trust advantage giving women the edge in certain crises.
Conclusion:
These things above matter a lot on:
Countries economic situation
Law and order situation
Ethics
Companies working environment
Health facilities
Every employee wants to work in one of the best organizations in the world. An employee needs perks, allowances, respect, insurance, and good working and learning environment along with job security. Diversity and inclusion allow employees to learn from people from different countries, cities, gender, and cultures, which helps in their personal growth and professional growth. Sometimes people travel from one continent to another to get benefits from a high exchange rate for better savings and the future of their families. A good inclusive environment helps them have peace of mind that other employees of the Company have accepted them.
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Roderick Mason, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Roderick M. Mason is a Certified John Maxwell Speaker Trainer Coach and the founder of Holistic Coaching Solutions. A platform focused on delivering high-end corporate training services. He is a Certified Bucket List Coach, a Certified CBMC Leadership Coach, a Certified Primal Health Coach, and a Licensed Diversity & Inclusion Trainer. He is an avid seeker of knowledge who highly appreciates the notion of continuous improvement and growth.
