Management: People and Culture

This reflective essay explores how a leader manages diversity in an organization and discusses theories, concepts, and approaches utilized to build a strong workforce.

Running head: MANAGEMENT: PEOPLE AND CULTURE
MANAGEMENT: PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

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Diversity is essential for an organization in order to succeed. In the world of
globalization, demography shifts from one nation to the other is a common fact. Therefore, the
businesses and enterprises that are functioning on various parts of the world have made it
necessary to include people from diverse communities into the workforce where they would be
working collectively for a common goal or objective (Cole and Salimath 2013). Diversity in the
workplace is as important for the employees as for the employers or the organizations. The
paper is a reflective essay on me as a leader and how I have managed to handle and lead the
diversities in my organization. The paper focuses on theories, concept and approaches that I
utilized and followed in order to build a strong work force within my organization.
During my postgraduate studies in the field of management, I had been recruited as a
diversity management leader of an organization in my internship curriculum for eight months.
Throughout my work tenure in the respective organization, I have experienced a plethora of
people from various walks of life, such as housewives and senior citizens, apart from that,
sexually diverse people such as transgender, gay and lesbians and also ethnically diverse people,
which included blacks, immigrants and Hispanics. As I was appointed as a diversity management
head officer by the organization, it was my duty and responsibility to look after the diversified
interest of the heterogeneous workforce of the organization and cater to all their needs, requisites
and grievances. Apart from that, it was also my duty to place plans, strategies, approaches and
policies so that the diversified talents of the diversified workplace population are maximized as
well as optimized. The whereabouts of my managerial work tenure which I had kept a diary
record of has been used in making the reflective journal. Throughout my working tenure with the
organization which worked trans-nationally and internationally had allowed many people from
diverse ethnic, national and racial communities to come together and amalgamate with each

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other peacefully and harmoniously in order to make the workforce more strong with diversified
thoughts, ideas and perspectives that can be utilized in the process of growth and development of
the organization at present as well as in future.
The organization where I worked for was a supermarket and at the every department of
the supermarket, various people from various ethnic, gender and cultural background had been
appointed. The grocery department of the supermarket had appointed four blacks and two senior
citizens out of eight employees. The Diary and Bakery department had appointed five indigenous
people out of ten employees. The Frozen meat and seafood department had appointed six women
out of ten employees in order to bridge the gender gap and break the glass ceiling of the women
employees working in corporate. The stationary and office essentials department had appointed
five sexually diverse and transgender out of ten employees. The apparel and food department had
appointed seven employees belonging to the indigenous communities and five immigrants out of
fifteen employees. Every department of the organization had appointed diverse people from
diverse backgrounds and walks of life in order to bring a comfortable environment of diversity
within the organization.
However, there had been several problems that are being faced by the organization as
they introduced the concept of diversity. The most common problem that my organization had
faced in the arena of inclusion of diversity was the lack of communication among the team
members. It has to be remembered that every professional individual, be it fresher or an
experienced one, possess a specific style of working their tasks according to his/her inclusive
abilities that differ from person to person. The basic difference between a fresher and an
experienced employee is that, the fresher, who had just passed out from their undergraduate or
postgraduate programs from their respective colleges or universities are often seen to be quite

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spontaneous and aggressive towards their jobs in the workplace. Supposedly, such behavior can
be an outcome of excitement in order to prove himself/herself within the organization where they
have newly joined. Whereas, the experienced professionals tend to be a little tranquil and passive
in their way of work as they have already been into the profession and has all kinds of positive as
well as negative experiences within the workplace which have inclusively provided them with
wisdom and sensibility. Young professionals have been seen to be enthusiastic about face-to-face
conversation and quick actions whereas the aged professionals are seen to be a little passive in
their actions and communication, which indeed affects the respective organization. The
organization where I worked has assigned several senior citizens who are experienced in the field
of retail management along with the young new fresher employees as well. Therefore, an issue of
lack of clear communication between the fresher and the aged employees had crept up because
their preferences and way of work was mismatched among them. Differences in working style,
prejudices against each other, temperament, mentality, way of thinking and courses of action
were the main issues that created a miscommunication between the young employees and the
aged employees within our organization. As a team leader of diversity management department
of my organization, it was my duty to sort out the issues and problems the respective department
has been facing. Therefore, in order to approach the problem, I had taken the assistance of the
Mainstream Approach at micro level based on the self-categorization theory (Lauring 2013).
According to the self-categorization theory of the mainstream approach, the employees from
diverse background stereotypes themselves as different from the other employees; they tend to
“otherwise” themselves from the organization culture as they believe in certain archetypical roles
about themselves. In this case, the individuals, the young employees as well as the aged
employees, who seem to be prejudiced against each other, had been given proper coach and

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suggestions against discriminatory attitude within the organization. Nevertheless, certain aged
employees refused to take our suggestions and took the decision to resign.
The second most common yet a significant problem that our organization faced was the
cultural differences among the employees leading to stress and discomfort among the members
of various departments. The organization where I worked as a diversity management leader has
been known for its provisions of opportunities even to the most marginalized sections of the
society of Australia, which included the indigenous people of Australia, the Torres Strait
Islanders, the Hispanics, women,and the immigrants. The people from the indigenous
communities of the Australia have faced numerous racial as well as derogatory comments and
reactions from other employees belonging to the mainstream community. It has to be understood
that every community has certain cultures and traditions which they follow in order to gain an
individual as well as a collective identity of their own. Therefore, every culture is diverse and
authentic in its own way and it is the moral and ethical responsibility of the people or individuals
in a society to acknowledge and accept diverse culture. Cultural clash occurs in an organization
when the employees from diverse racial and ethnic group come into a dispute and conflict within
each other on the basis of idea, ideology, prejudices, stereotypes and bigotries (Hunt, Layton and
Prince 2015). It was observed by me that the mainstream European origin Australian employees
of our organization showed apathy and unfriendly behavior towards the indigenous Australians
on the basis of their skin color, physical structure and the way of their behavior and code of
conduct. The main reason for such apathetic behavior was still unknown for us and such
obnoxious mannerisms exhibited by the mainstream employees by judging an individual on the
basis of their differential appearance and not by their talent, capability and personality has been
highly criticized and condemned by me and our diversity management team to a large extent.

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The immigrants who have been appointed in our organization have also been subjected to
derogatory remarks about their position in the society with tints of social and racial prejudiced
among the other employees of the departments. Therefore, such problems needed to be sorted out
immediately and effectively. As the leader of the diversity management team of the organization,
I have suggested and arranged for a diversity training program within the organization utilizing
certain significant and effective theories of conflict management to address the issue. The most
significant theory that I have utilized in this case is the four dimensions of culture by Hofstede.
The four dimensions of culture by Hofstede included power distance, uncertainty avoidance,
individualism vs. collectivism and masculinity vs. feminity (Martín et al., 2013). In order to
make the training effective, each dimensions have been dealt with. Power distance dimension
that states people who have less power in the society to be expecting to receive an equal power
status within the society had been clearly mentioned in the training where lessons regarding
power sharing and equality were provided. Uncertainty avoidance was met with by providing the
employees with lessons regarding clarity and precision in their behavior with diverse people and
environment. According to individualism vs. collectivism that states certain people from a
particular society wants to stay isolated or well-knitted towards their groups for a collective
identity, lessons were given to the employees regarding accepting and respecting individual or
collective identity of a person(s) from a particular ethnically diverse community in order to
maintain the integrity and honor of themselves as well as the organization. The approach of
masculinity vs. feminity in Hofstede’s theory states the difference between masculine culture and
feminine culture. Masculine culture is considered to be assertive, heroic and chivalrous whereas
feminine culture is often viewed as passive, cooperative and caring. Through the diversity
training program, I provided lessons to the employees (both men and women) to not be gender

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insensitive or biased on any grounds. The employees were also requested and suggested to shed
off their gender stereotypes and biases and develop a mutual respect for the opposite genders and
also the sexually diverse or transgender employees. It was well inflicted on them that the
organization did not comply with the gender roles, and that even the most challenging roles were
also been bestowed to women (traditionally, men took control over the challenging roles and
tasks in an organization) and that the organization was completely gender neutral and
condemned any kind of gendered discrimination and abuses of any kind. The training program
was apparently a successful one. However, certain follies were also present. Certain employees,
who belonged to vulnerable indigenous communities, exhibited opposition ideas where they
argued and demanded for equal treatment and setting up of CCTV Surveillance cameras inside
the organization. According to the complaining employees, in spite of all kinds of training and
coaching programs on diversity, the vulnerable employees still face certain obnoxious issues
such as social exclusion and indirect or subtle humiliation and ostracizing, which affects them
drastically both physically and psychologically. Therefore, they demanded of surveillance of the
working environment. Such demand exhibited the limitations of the diversity management of our
organization which needed to be revisited.
The limitations, as a diversity management leader of my organization that I have
identified and realized was that, as a leader, I would have been required to be more skillful in
communication. Persuasive communication skills, which is one of the most important skills a
leader should have in order to motivate and influence the employees, was lacking on me. The
incident of the conflict of communication between the young employees and the aged
employees, where certain aged employees resigned from the organization, was caused mainly
due to poor persuasive skills I possessed as I was not successful enough to ventilate their

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grievances regarding adjustment and cooperation or motivate them intensely to remain in the
organization. Therefore, first and foremost, to become a good leader, I would be requiring proper
persuasive skills. The second incident of cultural clash and demand for CCTV Surveillance
within the workplace by the vulnerable employees to keep an eye on working environment in
order to remove issues such as social exclusion and subtle psychological humiliation by
ostracizing them brought out the limitation of diversity management of our organization. As a
leader, I have to focus on more pragmatic approach such as live inspection and surveillance
rather than theoretical and discursive approaches to eradicate workplace discrimination and
ensure a safe and healthy environment for ethnically vulnerable employees in future.

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References:
Cole, B.M. and Salimath, M.S., 2013. Diversity identity management: An organizational
perspective. Journal of business ethics, 116(1), pp.151-161.
Hunt, V., Layton, D. and Prince, S., 2015. Diversity matters. McKinsey & Company, 1, pp.15-29.
Lauring, J., 2013. International diversity management: Global ideals and local responses. British
Journal of Management, 24(2), pp.211-224.
Martín Alcázar, F., Miguel Romero Fernández, P. and Sánchez Gardey, G., 2013. Workforce
diversity in strategic human resource management models: A critical review of the literature and
implications for future research. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 20(1),
pp.39-49.