Discuss about the Leadership in Business for Employees.
The modern workplaces have drawn employees from all over the globe. The favorable government-government foreign policies and the globalization witnessed in the current century has allowed people to move and settle in different countries to work and, even have families away from home. Different cultures have a preferred mode of conduct, different values, and beliefs and possess diverse work-related skills and competencies that are beneficial to organizations. Organizations should strive to acknowledge different cultures in the running and managing of the business institutions to tap the benefits that come with a diverse origin. This paper seeks to outline the benefits an organization can accrue through the leaders understanding of different cultures in their firms and outline how the leaders can influence and support the multiculturalism in the current work environment.
Current organizations leaders will improve their companies’ performances and be competitive in the industry. People born in different parts of the world are exposed to different scenarios of business challenges and have acquired essential skills to handle the obstacles and achieve results. According to Ozgen, Nijkamp & Poot (2013), leaders committed to workforce diversity will learn to engage every person from every culture to tap into different skills and competencies and make their companies competitive. Business leaders who embrace transformational leadership can strike a dialogue between them and the employees and, bring up new ideas of doing business. Pieterse, Van Knippenberg & Van Dierendonck (2013) notes that efficient management of cultural diversity in the workforce stirs up creativity and innovation essential in creating a competitive brand. Leaders who understand the different cultures will be able to create a harmonious environment that allows the sharing of ideas among the employees and with the management and, eventually improve organization performance. Workforce diversity comes with different talents such as team leadership and encouraging personalities that act as a catalyst to achieving the set teams goals (Barak, 2013). Hence, organizations will make more revenues and cement their market position in the industry through the understanding and efficient utilization of employees cultural differences.
Modern business leaders will save the organization’s finances by avoiding the cost of hiring regularly and training of new workers due to employees’ turnover. Organization leaders who fail to understand the staff diversity in their firms and curb dissatisfaction lose their skilled employees. Chua (2013) argue that failure to manage cultural diversity result to job dissatisfaction and harsh work environment that cost the organization financially. The recruiting process is time consuming and expensive and, leaders who do not hold together their diverse workforce will plunge their companies to losses. Moreover, organizations leadership that fails to manage and utilize the diverse workforce effectively will witness low quality and quantity productions that will affect the company’s sales. Work environment with people of different cultures is prone to conflict within the workforce due to different values and preferred practices that result to low job fulfillment (Chua, 2013). Conflicts in the workforce cause frequent absenteeism as the workers try to evade the workplace. According to Moran, Abramson & Moran (2014), absenteeism at work affects the productivity of employees and the revenues for organizations. Hence, current leaders with cultural intelligence will be able to curb cultural conflicts that cause employees turnover and absence in the workplace.
Organization leaders will create a reputable organization image and draw skilled and qualified labor and position their firms in a favorable marketing position. Every person needs to feel appreciated and valued and, organizations that acknowledge different cultures become the favorite to employees. According to Australian Human Rights Commission (2016), a firm recognized for a harmonious social-cultural background attracts and retain vital human assets. The diverse workforce will provide quality performance and benefit the organizations by giving it a competitive edge in the industry. Van Knippenberg, van Ginkel & Homan (2013) notes that employees are more committed to performance if they feel valued regardless of their cultural origin. Moreover, organizations leaders that understand the cultural diversity will lead their firms to comply with the most labor laws that call for equal employment. According to Wagner & Hollenbeck (2014), companies that embrace the values of equal employment opportunity and respectful treatment of every employee scores highly in the public eyes and cultivate the urge for employees and customer association. Organizations that display appreciation and tolerance of different cultures will rank on top in customers preference and, this will translate to more revenues. Therefore, current leaders should understand and appreciate diversity to have an excellent brand image in the industry and increase their sales.
Present-day organization leaders with cultural intelligence will create a collaborative working environment and enhance the organization’s team decision making. Ang & Van Dyne (2015) points out that building a cohesive relationship between people of different cultural origin act as a recipe for organization development and growth as a result of a variety of skills and talents. Leaders should strive to understand the various cultural practices, values and beliefs to avoid offending workers through policies, language, and gestures and promote tolerance among the employees. Furthermore, leaders will be able to efficiently solve organizational problems through consultation of employees that have different experiences and skills due to culture differences. According to Podsiadlowski, Gröschke, Kogler, Springer & Van Der Zee (2013), different prospects on an issue provide a platform for the best solutions to an organization challenge. The success of an organization greatly depend on the responsiveness of business hurdles and having people who respond to challenges of every nature puts the organization ahead of competitors. Moreover, teamwork in a business institution is a critical investment as they help people gain from each other knowledge and develop a pool of new skills. Diversity in workforce enhances productivity through workers exposure to new ideas and perspectives from colleagues and encouraging them to correlate; countering existing stereotypes (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg & Van Dierendonck, 2013). Hence, understanding cultural diversity acts as a training method for workers in the organization and translates to organization growth.
Business leaders will accord their firms a marketing edge and enhance service delivery to diverse groups of customers. Firms that understand the preferences of their clients can design products that appeal to the customers and increase the sales and gain customers loyalty. Organizations with culturally diverse workforce have a culturally diverse market for their goods and services (Homan & Greer, 2013). Understanding cultural diversity will spur creativity and innovations to come up with brands that capture the intended customer base and appeal for their loyalty, hence, gain a competitive edge in the industry. Additionally, modern leaders will train their employees to handle different cultures during their service delivery to avoid offending customers. Leaders with multi-cultural knowledge can pair customer service attendants with clients from respective areas for effective service delivery (Shin, Kim, Lee & Bian, 2012). Leaders with cultural knowledge will be able to foresee cultural barriers between workers and customers interactions and, design measures to allow undisrupted service delivery. Moreover, leaders will be able to establish and grow global businesses. The rise in globalization requires the current group of leaders to have a global mindset to survive in the international trade (Van Knippenberg, van Ginkel & Homan, 2013). Leaders who are open-minded will learn the different expectations of different cultures and act responsibly. The knowledge of different practices will allow business growth across the borders.
Modern leaders should display a personal commitment to achieving cultural diversity in the workforce and set it as a priority. According to Australian Human Rights Commission (2016), organizations leaders should take cultural diversity and inclusion in the businesses as a personal mission that needs to be attained for the well-being of the institution. Leaders should strive to communicate the importance of cultural diversity in the workforce in every opportunity to curb the resistance for other workers. U.S Department of Commerce (2014) note that the best leaders are the ones who cultivate cultural diversity as the core values of an organization. Committed leaders will infuse cultural diversity changes in the organization and motivate the staff to embrace the changes for the good of the institution.
Current organizational leadership should take the initiative to develop reports on their firms’ workforce cultural diversity and determine the cultural representation. Organizations with data on the labor force diversity can establish the impediments to achieving the diversity and come up with measures to implement strategies (U.S Department of Commerce, 2014). Present-day leaders need to make the cultural diversity assessment and evaluation of workers a major activity in the organizations to fully support the cultural diversity and benefit the organizations through different skills and competencies. Australian Human Rights Commission (2016) argues that it is difficult to implement workers cultural diversity with urgency without the right amount of data. Thus, organizations should conduct the worker’s cultural background studies to enhance the implementation of staffs’ cultural diversity and, increase the firm productivity.
Organizational leaders should develop policies and strategies addressing cultural diversity as a crucial corporate goal. Guillaume, Dawson, Woods, Sacramento & West (2013) notes that the best way to achieve cultural diversity in an organization is through the connection of cultural diversity and organization objectives. Leaders should strive to come up with strategies that recognize staff diversity as a critical means of achieving set organizational goals. Moreover, organizations should evaluate and reward leaders by the achievement of cultural diversity in the workforce. According to Caligiuri & Tarique (2012), accountability requirements from leaders to foster cultural diversity in the workforce will prompt the leaders to set personal targets and, hence, achieve the cultural diversity.
The current class of leaders should involve employees in coming up with policies to enhance cultural diversity and develop more leaders with diverse cultural backgrounds. Having employee’s representatives on cultural diversity boards gives the organizational leadership a clear perception of the process and ensures necessary measures are taken (U.S Department of Commerce, 2014). The employees will support the leaders’ initiatives to achieve the cultural diversity. Additionally, the leaders should strive to grow a new breed of diverse cultural leaders in different positions in the organization. Fong Boh, Nguyen & Xu (2013) notes that leaders can develop cultural diversity through empowerment and mentorship. The support of cultural diversity and professional development from leaders will create a favorable environment for organizations to achieve cultural diversity.
Consequently, current leaders who understand cultural diversity will tap into the benefits of different skills and competencies and improve organization performances and be competitive. The leaders will improve job satisfaction and get financial performance through avoiding the cost of regular hiring due to employees turnover. The company’s’ will gain reputable image, enhance collaboration for effective problem solving and, have a marketing edge for a culturally diverse customer base. Furthermore, modern-day leaders should have a personal commitment and make cultural representative report making a habit to achieve cultural diversity. The leaders should develop policies that link the organization’s goals to cultural diversity as well as embrace accountability and rewarding of leaders according to cultural diversity achievement to ensure the firms have a culturally represented workforce.
References
Ang, S., & Van Dyne, L. (2015). Handbook of Cultural Intelligence. Routledge.
Australian Human Rights Commission. (2016, July). Leading for Change; A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Leadership. Retrieved September 27, 2016, from https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/2016_AHRC%20Leading%20for%20change.pdf
Barak, M. E. (2013). Managing diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace. Sage Publications.
Caligiuri, P., & Tarique, I. (2012). Dynamic Cross-cultural Competencies and Global Leadership Effectiveness. Journal of World Business, 47(4), 612-622.
Chua, R. Y. (2013). The Costs of Ambient Cultural Disharmony: Indirect Intercultural Conflicts in Social Environment Undermine Creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 56(6), 1545-1577.
Fong Boh, W., Nguyen, T. T., & Xu, Y. (2013). Knowledge Transfer Across Dissimilar Cultures. Journal of Knowledge Management, 17(1), 29-46.
Guillaume, Y. R., Dawson, J. F., Woods, S. A., Sacramento, C. A., & West, M. A. (2013). Getting Diversity at Work to Work: What we know and what we still Don’t know. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 86(2), 123-141.
Homan, A. C., & Greer, L. L. (2013). Considering Diversity: The Positive Effects of Considerate Leadership in Diverse Teams. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 16(1), 105-125.
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences. Routledge.
Ozgen, C., Nijkamp, P., & Poot, J. (2013). The Impact of Cultural Diversity on Firm Innovation: Evidence from Dutch Micro-data. IZA Journal of Migration, 2(1), 1-24.
Pieterse, A. N., Van Knippenberg, D., & Van Dierendonck, D. (2013). Cultural diversity and team performance: The Role of Team Member Goal Orientation. Academy of Management Journal, 56(3), 782-804.
Podsiadlowski, A., Gröschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C., & Van Der Zee, K. (2013). Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity Perspectives in Organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(2), 159-175.
Shin, S. J., Kim, T. Y., Lee, J. Y., & Bian, L. (2012). Cognitive Team Diversity and Individual Team Member Creativity: A cross-level interaction. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 197-212.
U.S Department of Commerce. (2014, October 13). Best Practices in Achieving Workforce Diversity. Retrieved September 28, 2016, from https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/workforce-diversity.pdf
Van Knippenberg, D., van Ginkel, W. P., & Homan, A. C. (2013). Diversity mindsets and the performance of diverse teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 121(2), 183-193.
Wagner, J. A., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (2014). Organizational Behavior: Securing Competitive Advantage. Routledge.
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