Leadership and Diversity Management

Effective Leadership and diversity management practices have became inevitable in any business organization, which is determined to overcome the challenges of the global market and establish a positive working environment, which fully utilizes the available human and natural resources. Organizational diversity can be described as the concept of an organization hiring different kinds of people, that is, people of different backgrounds, gender, and race among other similar factors (Karsten, 2006).

In addition, a workforce with different skills, knowledge, and experiences enhances organizational diversity.

Though organizational diversity was initially understood to mean employment equity, the concept has expanded to incorporate the process of establishing and maintaining a dependable and flexible working environment from a diverse workforce, which can sustain the growth of any organization in this modern world marked with diverse challenges such as, urbanization, global economic recessions, and globalization (Arredondo, 1996).

Organizational leadership that would embrace diversity in its organization as well put proper measures to ensure working condition conducive to every individual in an organization is necessary the success of any organization.

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It is in this interest therefore this essay is written. It focuses on discussing the relationship between organizational leadership and diversity management. Emphasis is laid on how organizational diversity is a source of organizational strength as well as how organizational diversity can become a sustainable competitive advantage.

Overtime, organizational diversity has confirmed to be a source of organizational strength. Despite the fact that the concept calls for hiring of diverse work force with different skills, knowledge and experiences, organizational diversity also embraces training of workers (Sungkhawan, & Mujtaba, 2009).

This is aimed at enhancing the neccessary, knowledge, and skills required to solve the problems, which are being faced by the organization. This means that there is an efficient and an effective application of knowledge and skills and hence high productivity in the organization.

Another point which needs to be mentioned at this stage is education (Lockwood, 2005). Organizing for employee’s education is essential because it will give them a new view point. This will undoubtedly amount to the realization of the organizational goals irrespective of the prevailing challenges and hence depicts the strength of the organization. Still to be noted here is the importance of an open culture to the organization. Organizational diversity focuses largely on creating a positive and dynamic working environment where every body feels part of the organization and has a special role to play for the common goal of it (Pitts, 2007).

This is achieved by creating a safe atmosphere where every body can air his/her views without being criticized or seen as weak. Organizational leadership should set a healthy internal debate and including every body in decision making and problem solving propagates a sort of confidence and responsibility to the policy makers. This kind of cooperation and unity in decision making as well as in problem solving is a show of strength. The ability of an organization to stick to its goals all through the different stages of growth, which are marked with different challenges, is a show of strength in the organization.

Organizational diversity calls for healthy arguments and debates, which are aimed at achieving a common goal. As a responsibility, executive directors should therefore concentrate much of their efforts in providing direction to keep the rest of the policy makers on track of achieving their shared interest. The comfort and satisfaction of workers is another issue which cannot go unmentioned because of its importance as a source of organizational strength (Lockwood, 2005). Organizational diversity focuses on having the correct pay equation where everybody gets equal or more for his or her effort.

This will attract excellent people into their organization and serves to motivate workers and hence strengthening the organization. In addition to this, the ability of an organization to maintain its own or to feature in a new market is as a result of good and vibrant organizational diversity (Karsten, 2006). Sustaining the global market competition undoubtedly reveals how strong an organization is. Organizational diversity is undoubtedly a tool that can be used to attain a sustainable competitive advantage.

For instance, for an organization to sustain its market share or feature into a new market, it has to manage its knowledge effectively. This will enhance the utilization of the acquired knowledge and skills at the right time and in the right manner. This means that the knowledge possessed by the policy makers can be changed into a business strategy and implemented consistently with there common interests (Arredondo, 1996). Advancing in technology particularly will enable the organization to escape extinction because they will acquire new problem solving skills to overcome global challenges.

Another organizational diversity practice, which will give an organization a sustainable competitive advantage, is good incentive management. Although making profit is one of the major objectives of any organization, ensuring that all the employees are well compensated for their effort is crucial. Failure to do this, an organization can end up losing some of its experienced man power will quit to search better opportunities and therefore the organization will be rendered less effective in the global competition (Arredondo, 1996).

This problem is compounded by the fact that hiring and training new workers is expensive than sustaining the interest of the existing staff. It is worthy noting that good incentive management simplifies payment procedures calculations and periods. It also improves the efficiency of the management team and lowers administrative cost. In conclusion therefore, organizational diversity is a source of organizational strength and is very crucial if an organization have to attain a sustainable competitive advantage in the global community which is marked with many challenges which are transforming the world.

It will be appreciated that for any organization to gain strength and have a sustainable change, it has to put more effort in managing knowledge and incentives, training of workers, promoting an open culture and sticking to goals as some of the best practices of attaining an organization diversity. References Arredondo, P. (1996). Successful Diversity Management Initiatives: A Blueprint for Planning and Implementation. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. Karsten, M. (2006). Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Workplace: Organizational Practices and Individual Strategies for Women and Minorities. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Lockwood, N. (2005). Workplace Diversity: Leveraging the Power of Difference for Competitive Advantage. Retrieved August 4, 2010, from http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_6_50/ai_n14702678/pg_10/ Pitts, D. (2007). Who Manages Diversity? Predicting Diversity Management Implementation in Public Organizations. Retrieved August 4, 2010, from http://www. pmranet. org/conferences/AZU2007/ArizonaPapers/Pitts_Hicklin_Hawes_&_Melton_2007. pdf Sungkhawan, J. , & Mujtaba, B. (2009). Situational Leadership and Diversity Management Coaching Skills. Retrieved August 4, 2010, from http://www. cluteinstitute-onlinejournals. com/PDFs/1772. pdf