Cultural Diversity And The Perspectives From Manager 's Competences And Leadership Style

Diversity is vital in today's workplace. Having a diverse workforce opens up a wealth of possibilities and helps to encourage creativity and innovation.

Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between people in an organization. Diversity encompasses race, gender, ethnic group, age, personality, education, back ground, cognitive style and much more. As the work places are becoming more multicultural and diverse, there is an increased need in understanding the dimensions of diversity and cultural differences that affects the business communication within organizations. A better understanding of these differences is not only important to effectively bridge such gaps but also helpful in identifying the unique strengths and perspectives, each diverse group brings, that an organization can benefit from.

As it mentioned in the class lecture, typically, workplace diversity is the presence of individuals who are different by race, religion, gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference. This topic shows us about how to deal with diversity

Over the decades, diversity in the workplace has started to become a business necessity. But what does diversity actually mean? In broad terms, diversity encompasses a group of people with different biological characteristics such as age, race, gender, ethnicity disability and so on. However, the true definition of diversity in the workplace is about ensuring that every single person that goes to work everyday have the freedom to bring along their full self to work and it is not just about welcoming but it is about embracing and harnessing the diversity of thought, the diversity of background, the diversity of experience, the diversity in education, and not just the traditional aspects in diversity. Even so, one of the major challenges that

In order to form a leadership that keep on with the passage of time, international leaders and managers ought to demonstrate likely competences in cross-cultural cognizance and practice. It is vital they recognize the value of leadership and managerial potentials, and to grow and sustain effective leadership approaches and methods for abiding diversity management (Ulrich and Smallwood, 2012). The conjecture emerges is that successful and effective international leaders and managers holds key to solve the secret of working with diverse workforce and dealing with them for the purpose of organizational development in order to enhance competitiveness.

Future trends for a diverse society will become more evident. As a result, the workforce and to a greater extent, the marketplace must increase diversity. Globalization of corporations begat a global economy increasing the marketplace, and enlarging a diverse workforce. The reality is diversity will become less of a social issue and more of a business concern linked to competitive strategies. Upper management will become more involved in diversity issues because diverse workforce needs to be better utilized in order to remain competitive. Diversity training will be integrated into other types of training. Corporations will continue to explore demographic changes in our society and link them more closely to global changes.

Globalization sets the perfect environment to develop diversity in the workplace. This new society, in which we are currently living, has created a new workforce that is based on its diversity that can greatly help with any business development and growth. In business, diversity brings opportunities to grow, expand and reach out to other markets by utilizing the values, ideas and the diverse skills that people from many different backgrounds have to offer. Diversity it is simply the basic foundation for any business’ development.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the leadership competencies needed when managing diversity within an organization from an empirical article titled “Leadership Competencies for Managing Diversity” (Linde, Havenga, Visagie, 2011). Furthermore, an in depth look at examinations of different leadership styles theories will be included to explain their differences and how each style ranks when managing diversity in organizations. A definitive look at how experiences of managers can convey their leadership styles by referencing the diversity leadership competency model. Specifically, how to identify the kind of leadership competency styles often found in organizations and to determine how they are developed related to diversity management for organizations to sustain their success. Experiences related in the workplace and how diversity is viewed or treated pertaining to race, gender, generational groups and how leadership style has an overall effect in organizations. To conclude that based on the studies and evidence presented overall resulted in a positive evaluation.

Global and cultural diversity are the biggest and most important challenges that organizations face in nowadays. The diversity of the workforce means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, ethnic origin, for health, occupation, etc. Diversity is an advantage in this global world, and it cannot be considered as a disadvantage in obtaining opportunities (McGuire & Mammed, 2010).

In today’s society, with various changes occurring in demographics because of globaliza- tion it is important to focus on a more diverse workplace. Managing a more diverse workplace may cause challenges. However it will benefit the company

Diversity in an important aspect in the work place since the world is changing and organizations are forced to evolve with changing times. Diversity in the workplace entails bringing together different people from various backgrounds, education levels, point of views, and ways of thinking. This kind of diversity promotes innovation and is a major contributor to the cultural identity of successful organizations. Global demographic trends coupled with social cultural shifts have brought about increased pressure on organizations to embrace diversity, especially in U.S. As stated by McInnes (1999), “more and more organizations are embracing policies and practices to value diversity in their work forces as a way to increase competitiveness, build talent, expand organizational capabilities, and enhance access to diverse customers.” Diversity becomes an important strategy in an organization only when it is intentionally promoted and encouraged. When we allow diversity to become a vital factor in decision-making and planning, it becomes a powerful business strategy because it allows room for discussion and expression of ideas from various demographics and backgrounds. If truly embraced and cultivated, diversity can be a strategic advantage that moves an organization to higher levels.

If a company wishes to expand worldwide, a diverse workforce can improve communication between countries that they may wish to work with, resulting in higher sales and profits. Diversity gives employees a deeper understanding of different cultures enabling them to adapt accordingly.

Before anyone can truly understand the issues surrounding diversity within our workforce, it is safe to say that they have to understand the meaning. Workforce diversity is defined as diversity amongst employees that represents both a challenge and opportunity for business. Today, the U.S. workforce is as diverse as it has ever been, and it is becoming even more so (Lawrence & Weber, 2014). Some of the diversity we are seeing are as followed, but not limited to:

In a world that has grown increasingly smaller due to mass media, world travel, and readily available information, the workplace has grown increasingly diverse in both gender and cultural aspects. Individuals no longer live and work within the confines of their geographic locations. At almost any position with any company the individual employee is a part of a larger world economy that harvests assets from the ends of the earth. Because of this, companies seek to capitalize on diversity to become more creative and flexible in their business models.

Many opportunities are associated with a culturally diverse workplace and global expansion may have potential to provide just such a diverse work group. Cross-culturalism in business can provide leaders and employees with a wonderful opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and cultures. In addition, “the more opportunities for business leaders to interact with people from different cultures, the more likely they will be to have positive attitudes from different cultures and identify, learn and apply diverse culturally-appropriate business behaviors” (Caligiuri & Tarique, 2012, p. 614). Culturally diverse environments offer a multitude of benefits including “the variety of perspectives, skills and personal attributes” (Matveeve & Nelson, 2004, p. 254). Moreover, multicultural teams have potential to “generate more ideas of higher quality in brainstorming tasks” (Matveeve &