Leadership in Business: A Case Study on Cultural Diversity & Inclusion

This case study analyzes the importance of cultural diversity and inclusive leadership in business, drawing from documents like "Leading for Change" and speeches on cultural diversity in the workplace. It identifies problems such as leaders undervaluing cultural diversity and facing resistance to workforce diversity. The study proposes solutions like senior management promoting diversity, mentoring programs, and fostering an inclusive environment. It emphasizes the benefits of cultural diversity, including enhanced creativity, improved decision-making, and global expansion opportunities. The role of leaders in developing cultural knowledge, cross-cultural communication skills, flexible work arrangements, and inviting diverse industry leaders is also discussed, highlighting the need for mentorship and sponsorship to empower individuals from diverse backgrounds and drive organizational success. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments.

Running Head: Leadership in Business
Leadership in Business
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Problem Identification................................................................................................................................................... 3
Solution for the Problem............................................................................................................................................... 4
Recommendation............................................................................................................................................................. 4
Importance of Cultural diversity in Organization.......................................................................................... 4
Global Expansion.................................................................................................................................................... 4
Creating a workplace environment where alternative perspectives are valued and
appreciated............................................................................................................................................................... 5
Mentoring new and high potential employees........................................................................................... 5
Effective Communication and Language Skills........................................................................................... 6
Leaders role in influencing the cultural diversity in the organization..................................................6
Developing knowledge about dimension of culture.................................................................................6
Developing new skills in cross cultural communication........................................................................6
Making work arrangements more flexible................................................................................................... 7
Inviting industry leaders from diverse backgrounds..............................................................................7
Mentoring and Sponsorship............................................................................................................................... 7
Importance of cultural diversity in the workplace........................................................................................8
Increased Creativity.............................................................................................................................................. 8
Decision Making...................................................................................................................................................... 8
Makes Company Attractive................................................................................................................................ 9
Varied opinions and perspectives................................................................................................................... 9

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References........................................................................................................................................................................ 10

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Introduction
The intention behind the case study here is to study and analyse the document titled
“Leading for Change-A blueprint for cultural diversity and inclusive leadership 2016”
and the speech by Doctor Soutphommasane, Race Discrimination commissioned titled
“Cultural diversity in the workplace 2015”.
The case study here in the first replace reflect on the biggest problem which is related to
cultural diversity in the Australia, which is one of the biggest multi-cultural country in
the world. Further, the action to solve the problem will also be discussed.
The second problem identified in the case study is how can leaders influence and
promote cultural diversity in the organization while handling the resistance of the
employees in workforce diversity.
The third problem identified in the case study is establishing the importance of cultural
diversity in the workforce. This will help in understanding the rationale behind
increasing the workforce diversity in the leadership roles in the organizations.
Problem Identification
The intention behind the paragraph here is to help in understanding why it is important
for leaders to understand the importance of cultural diversity in business organization.
AHRC (2016) leading for change publication identifies the problem that leads do
understand the importance of cultural diversity in the business organization. The
problem here is that leaders prefer people with fairer skin and wants to see people with
less cultural differences in the leadership role (Luthans & Doh, 2018).
It has been mentioned in leading for change that at the federal level, Racial
discrimination act prohibits unfair treatment because of race, colour, ethnicity and
national origin. It is also mentioned that it takes more than rules and regulations to set
the rules in place. Culture of inclusion has to be followed to make sure that no racial
discrimination takes place in the organization.

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It is mentioned that cultural diversity expedite the process of decision making and also
helps in enhancing the level of creativity in the organization.
In conclusion it can be said that cultural diversity is the need of hours and in Australian
organization there is lack of cultural diversity in the workplace. Hence, steps have to be
taken by leaders to ensure high cultural diversity in the organization.
Solution for the Problem
This paragraph will focus here on a course of action for leaders to influence and push
for increased cultural diversity in the organization.
The AHRC (2016) leading for change proposes that in order to promote cultural
diversity steps has to be taken by the senior management. Once they are convinced,
even the middle level managers will start promoting cultural diversity thus increasing
workforce diversity in the organization.
It is mentioned that in order to promote cultural diversity, mentoring and sponsorship
is highly important to give impetus to cultural diversity in the organization. This will
help the employees in gaining confidence so that they can contribute towards the goals
of the organization.
Recommendation
Importance of Cultural diversity in Organization
Global Expansion
Modern day business organization are moving forward on the path of globalization, thus
in order to do that they need a workforce which is highly diverse and culturally strong.
This workforce in diversity helps in clearing the air of obstacles in the earlier phase and
paves down the path of sustained growth. Organization can benefit immensely from
workforce diversity as they can deploy the people who are working in the leadership
position at headquarters to set up a base in their own land (Deal & Peterson, 2016).

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Creating a workplace environment where alternative perspectives are valued and
appreciated
In order to foster relationships in the organization and adopt openness towards diverse
culture, it has to be established that organization value alternate perspectives in the
organization and see it in a positive light. People coming from diverse background have
a different way to look towards a situation; this can help the organization in developing
an open perspective about the situation and the things at hand. People will become
more and more open and contribute in a free environment towards the objectives of the
organization. Thus, gradually move towards the leadership position in the organization
(Boekhorst, 2015).
(Source: Fullan, 2014)
Mentoring new and high potential employees
As mentioned in the earlier section, diversity in the workforce leads to enhanced
productivity in the organization and also helps to bring out the best ideas in the table.
The leadership has to make sure that they peak the newly joined talent, irrespective of
the difference in culture, and solely on the grounds of capabilities, potential and the skill
set. This will motivate and influence other employees to perform at their very best and
doing away with the problem of nurturing diverse talent in leadership. Mentoring and
sponsorship of people from diverse culture background, will be a motivation factor for
lower performing employees, thus giving them a push to perform at their optimum
levels to ensure success of the business organization(Bierema, 2016).

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Effective Communication and Language Skills
Customer often feels more confident and positive when they are communicating with
leadership of their own origin or having some similarity. It builds the trust and
relationship with the customers and also helps in global business expansion. In the
work environment as well, people get to learn more about the knowledge and the
culture of the group of people, this helps in their personal development. It also gives
them the opportunity to learn about diverse cultures which is extremely great for their
professional development (Thomas & Peterson, 2017).
Thus, it can be easily said that cultural diversity is extremely important and must to
have attribute in today’s modern day organization. It not only builds the reputation of
the organization and makes it look more attractive to the employees, it certainly adds
up to the productivity of the entire organization. Employees working under culturally
different leadership get to absorb the differences in the culture, in a way they can pick
up a thing or two from different culture and use it in their personality. As pointed out
earlier, culturally diverse workforce helps in making better and informed decision by
looking at the problem in an alternate way, thus helping the organization to move on
the path of sustained growth and development.
Leaders role in influencing the cultural diversity in the organization
Developing knowledge about dimension of culture
Leadership has to make the organization and the rest of the employees understand the
importance of different culture and it perceived benefits both for the organization and
the employees. This knowledge will help managers to position the relevance of
culturally diverse group in the organization and more and more people will accept it
with no objections. Culture of an organization is predominantly reflection of its people,
thus, more diversity implies better culture thus effective leadership (Landy & Conte,
2016).
Developing new skills in cross cultural communication
There are no two doubts that accepting people from different cultural background is a
tricky task at hand, until and unless people know the advantage of cultural diversity,

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they would never welcome the change. Thus, it is important to take step by step
measures to make cultural diversity welcome in the organization. Hence, leaders have
to understand the above resistance and make relevant changes and measures to deal
with the resistance in an effective manner. Understanding the cultural differences opens
up the room for development; leaders then have to facilitate bridging the gap between
the differences in culture, so that people can openly accept people from different
cultures (Hewlin, Dumas & Burnett, 2017).
Making work arrangements more flexible
It is most often seen that people across different cultures have different working
abilities with respect to time. For instance Chinese are more active in the morning hours
and Americans are more productive in the evening, thus allowing for flexibility in the
timing will help to nurture cultural diversity in leadership. People will find this change
welcoming and will start contributing towards the success of the organization. It will
also give impetus to employees from varied cultural background that the leadership is
most definitely taking efforts to promote, mentor and nurture them by brining flexibility
in the workplace (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).
Inviting industry leaders from diverse backgrounds
As mentioned earlier, people perceive employees from different culture as a threat to
their position and do not like them. It is seen that in Australia leadership prefers people
who have fair skin; this makes it difficult for Asian and OECD countries to occupy
position of leadership in business organization. This has to be changed in business
organization; leadership has to ensure that they change the status quo in the business
organization. Make the culture more open in the business organization and make it
more conducive to people with talent, capabilities and skill set rather than use some
form of bias to create discrimination in the organization (Allen, Porter & Angle, 2015).
Mentoring and Sponsorship
Most definitely it is not an easy task for a person to come from a culturally different
background and fit into a culture which is absolutely rigid; these culturally diverse
people form a minority group in the organization. Leadership has to make sure that
these people feel welcome in the organization despite all such differences. In order to do

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so, they have to mentor them and make them understand the differences in the culture,
which can quite possibly be the reason for resistance in the organisation. Mentorship
and sponsorship of such individuals will boast the motivation level of other culturally
diverse group in the organization, and they will feel a sense of empowerment in the
organisation (Rhode & Packel, 2014).
Thus, it can be easily said that the change always has to begin from the top; it is the duty
and onus of the leadership to ensure that they motivate and influence the people from
diverse cultural background to come out in the open and perform at their best. At the
same time, they have to ensure that cultural bias and differences are reduced to a
minimum by giving the employees a deep understanding of different cultures and their
contribution in the success of the business organization.
Importance of cultural diversity in the workplace
Increased Creativity
Workforce diversity in leadership will help in raising the creativity levels in the
business organization. It is quite often seen that when people are coming up from
diverse background, they are able to contribute towards a given problem in a different
light altogether. This pushes the envelope of creativity in the entire organization. More
so, the learning ability of the existing workforce also increases because of this, thus
ensuring sustainability in the growth of the entire organization (Mills, 2017).
Decision Making
It has been over and over emphasized that organization or groups which have high
cultural diversity or workforce diversity are able to arrive at a decision much sooner
than any other combination(Bolman & Deal, 2017).. It is a fact that when individuals
come up different background, they have understanding of vast topics and things, which
helps to bring down best thoughts on the table, leading to better and faster decision
making in the modern day organizations(Antonakis & Day, 2017).. It has also been seen
that a group of people drawn from a diverse pool of people is any day superior to a
group drawn from talented individual thinkers involved in solving complex problems.
Thus, it becomes a prerequisite for leadership to take into account the cultural diversity
as strength in the organization (Scott & Davis, 2015).

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Makes Company Attractive
Business organizations which have high diversity in the workforce are perceived to be
attractive employer to the potential employees. Employees see workforce diversity as a
positive thing in the organization as they know the organization does not hold any bias
against any caste, culture, race, ethnicity, gender, language and so on. Generation Y and
Millennial value such organization with high workforce diversity and would want to
work in such an amazing learning environment, by learning from people belonging to
diverse backgrounds. It also helps in attracting the best talent in the industry, as there is
no bias and the employees are simply selected on the basis of their strength, capabilities
and what they can possibly bring to the table (Miner, 2015).
Varied opinions and perspectives
Employees coming from different backgrounds bring with them the ability to look at a
situation in a different manner. Diversity in workforce helps in looking at an issue with
different perspective thus widening the horizon of the entire group. It is the ability of
the organization to harness the strength of every individual and use it as the overall
strength for the organization. At the very same time, employees who are exposed to
varying cultures and work environment have more probability of growing in their
professional environment. It also does away with the problem of looking at the issue
with the same perspective due to limited approach; diversity ensures that such
problems do not become a source of trouble for the organization (Moran, Abramson &
Moran, 2014).

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References
Allen, R. W., Porter, L. W., & Angle, H. L. (2015). Organizational Dynamics and
Intervention: Tools for Changing the Workplace: Tools for Changing the
Workplace. Routledge.
Antonakis, J., & Day, D. V. (Eds.). (2017). The nature of leadership. Sage publications.
Benn, S., Edwards, M., & Williams, T. (2014). Organizational change for corporate
sustainability. Routledge.
Bierema, L. L. (2016). Women’s leadership: Troubling notions of the “ideal”(male)
leader. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 18(2), 119-136.
Boekhorst, J. A. (2015). The role of authentic leadership in fostering workplace
inclusion: A social information processing perspective. Human Resource
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Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
Deal, T. E., & Peterson, K. D. (2016). Shaping school culture. John Wiley & Sons.
Fullan, M. (2014). Leading in a culture of change personal action guide and workbook.
John Wiley & Sons.
Grayson, D., & Hodges, A. (2017). Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make
corporate social responsibility work for your business. Routledge.
Hewlin, P. F., Dumas, T. L., & Burnett, M. F. (2017). To thine own self be true? Facades of
conformity, values incongruence, and the moderating impact of leader
integrity. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), 178-199.
Landy, F. J., & Conte, J. M. (2016). Work in the 21st century, Binder ready version: An
introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology. John Wiley & Sons.

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Luthans, F., & Doh, J. P. (2018). International management: Culture, strategy, and
behavior. McGraw-Hill.
Mills, A. J. (2017). Man/Aging Subjectivity, Silencing Diversity: Organizational Imagery
in the Airline Industry. The Case of British Airways☆. In Insights and Research on
the Study of Gender and Intersectionality in International Airline Cultures(pp. 367-
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