Today diversity and inclusion efforts are a part of the core strategy amongst top organizations, no longer are most companies giving lip service that in order to be competitive in a global workforce, a diverse workforce is necessary.
Although the business case for diversity and inclusion (D&I) may be clear to you, everyone in your organization may not be on board. One reason is that while people usually understand the benefits of D&I in theory, they sometimes find them harder to relate to their everyday experiences at work. Even teams that are highly effective because they are diverse might not connect their performance to their composition.
Not having your employees on board can put your organization’s efforts to build a diverse and inclusive brand at risk. To create a culture of inclusion that everyone subscribes to is not a quick and easy task. If you want to prevent a disconnect between your D&I goals and the on-the-ground experiences of your employees and clients, here are five pointers to bear in mind.
1. LEADERSHIP PLAYS A CRITICAL ROLE An organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts will fail without leadership commitment. As important as bottom-up initiatives are, diversity and inclusion need to be embedded in the way the organization operates. It needs to be a strategic priority and not an optional add-on. It’s the leaders who show what is important for the organization. They are also the role models who shape the organizational culture.
2. EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE ON BOARD If any of your employees feel excluded from diversity initiatives, they will most likely not subscribe to the messaging. Make sure you consult regularly with staff representing all the different groups in your workplace to get their input and have them shape your diversity and inclusion activities.
3. GOOD COMMUNICATION IS KEY To ensure that everyone on your team sees the link between diversity, inclusion and business success, it is crucial for leadership to be thoughtful and consistent in communicating the reasons behind D&I efforts.
4. START AT THE BEGINNING The hiring and onboarding process is the first contact a new employee will have with your organization and can leave a lasting impression. Look at your recruitment and onboarding procedures. Where do you distribute your job postings? What questions do you ask in an interview? What does your onboarding process look like? Simple things like assigning a new employee a mentor or creating a list of frequently used acronyms can be quite helpful.
5. INCLUSION IS A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION Being inclusive is something you need to keep doing, consciously, again and again. An organization should regularly examine its practices and policies through a D&I lens and provide training to employees so they all have the awareness, skills and knowledge required to build a more inclusive work culture.
It might seem overwhelming at times, but through collaboration and taking small actions, you will make progress. As the famous proverb goes, “the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”hey are diverse might not connect their performance to their composition.
by Anna Kostecka
Are Your Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives Working?
Attitude is a game-changer. It can determine whether you advance to the next level or stay at your current one. As John Maxwell said, attitude is not everything, but it is the difference-maker in life. For example, let’s say you have two people seeking employment for the same job and they qualify equally across the board in terms of experience, education, background, etc. However, one has a great attitude and one has a bad attitude. Who will you hire? The one with the great attitude, of course. Why? Attitude. It was the difference-maker.
When do you define attitude? Some may say that attitudes are systems comprised of many evaluations made over a period of time during experiences that have an attached emotion. That emotion gets tagged along with the evaluation of that experience throughout the person’s life, unless it changes. Attitude is the way I feel about a person, an object or event. So, if I love sports, I have a positive evaluation of whatever sport I enjoy. On the other hand, if I dislike a certain person or I hate life in general, then I have a negative emotional evaluation of that person or life in general. In essence, your attitude determines what color lens we see things through and how we handle them.
To quote Zig Ziglar: “Our attitude determines our altitude.”
Our attitude is the primary focus that determines whether we succeed or fail. This applies in every area of life.
However, in leadership, it determines whether or not we can make an impact to motivate our employees to maintain productivity, or produce a decline in morale, and therefore productivity.
There is no two ways about it: attitude is everything in leadership.
The attitude of a leader is contagious. It sends positive or negative vibes throughout the workplace. Studies have shown that when leaders exemplify negative behaviors, their employees distance themselves from their responsibilities. In essence, they distance themselves from what they were hired to do. They disengage from the overall vision and mission of the organization. The studies also indicate that they display a lack of care.
A good leader has the attitude of “serving his troops” at all times. The leader is a servant to the people whom they lead, not the other way around.
“A leader leads by example, not by force.”– Sun Tzu
We’ve all heard the phrase: “Lead by example.” In battle, the troops must see the Army Officer in front of them, leading them boldly towards their objective. The leader exemplifies a positive attitude, courage, selfless service, and inspires trust in his followers.
Example-setting is the only way a leader will get his followers to buy into his plan. Albert Schweitzer said: “Example isn’t the main thing in leadership – it is the only thing.”
Steps in getting the right attitude for leaders
As a leader, the higher you go, the more you have to make sacrifices for the good of your employees. As John Maxwell would say, “Leaders have to give up going up.” It’s not about you: it’s about your organization and your people. So you must have the right attitude. My mentors always told me that when you become a leader, it’s not about you any more. You lose the right to think about yourself; it’s all about the people you lead. You have examples such as Dr. Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement. He sacrificed not only his family, but his life, to give blacks equality in a society that refused to acknowledge it. Dr. King experienced many hardships – he was stabbed, stoned, physically and verbally attacked by humans and animals, and his house was bombed – and eventually he paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Steps to acquire the attitudes of leaders
As a leader, I follow six key steps to show the right attitude to my employees or team members:
1. Show Empathy. The Leader must show and have the capacity of understanding what the other individual is going through or experiencing. Even though personally they may not have experienced that event, they need to place themselves in the employee’s shoes.
2. Demonstrate trust. Remember that each employee has talents and abilities, and when joined together with those of other talented individuals, you have collective abilities and knowledge that can accomplish results. Give them the autonomy to take charge of the situation or task. Have faith in your people.
3. Provide the necessary tools for success. Give your people the latitude to connect with others within and outside the company such as vendors, customers, and potential future customers. Teach your employees everything you know. In every position of leadership I had, my philosophy was to work my way out of a job by teaching the employees everything I knew. Many leadership positions worked out very well for me, and the operation ran like a well-oiled machine.
4. Acknowledge achievements. Show appreciation and gratitude for the hard work your employees out in over the course of the week, month, or year. Most of my organizations had monthly gatherings to acknowledge new employees, say farewell to others, and to recognize those who achieved and desired high recognition and praise in front of their peers.
5. Encourage collaboration. Leaders need to demonstrate that the workplace is a collective and cooperative environment. And that we are one united organization trying to achieve the same mission and objectives. Never put up dividers between departments or divisions with the organization. Remember, one does not succeed alone.
6. Bring the team together. As a leader, refuse to let dissension and negative rumors poison the organization and your team. Rumor mongering will divide the team or your employees. This adds unnecessary stress and strain.
At some point, a person feels the need to evolve, to enter a new dimension of life. Maybe they want to improve a skill, a behavior, or an action. Perhaps they want to advance in their career, in their relationships with others, or change their mindset or grow their spiritual knowledge. But for growth to happen, the person’s environment must change.
We all know how growth happens in plants. It starts with a seed that must be implanted into fertile soil full of nutrients to form roots. It also needs sunlight, air, and water, which, through the process of photosynthesis, helps the growing seed produce its own food source. In the right conditions, the seed begins to grow into a plant, and that plant grows to its full potential. If one of these elements are absent, the seed my never take root or achieve full growth. If you plant a seed in an environment where one of these elements is absent, growth is inhibited and the seed’s full potential is never realized. The seed remains dormant.
That principle works the same in your life and mine. For growth to happen, your environment must be conducive to growth. It must have the right nutrients to stimulate growth. If you want to change your current situation or circumstances, you must change your present environment. John Maxwell writes that “Growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow is going to get better.” If you don’t have the resources and the know-how, start from where you are.
I realized at an early age that growth only happens in its proper environment. I remembered when I was 12 years old, I was sitting on my mother’s hardwood floor and watching an interview with my favorite television personality, Mr. T. “I was born in the ghetto, but the ghetto was not in me,” he said.
His words changed my life. They taught me that if circumstances are not what you want, then change them.
My circumstances at that time were poverty, crime, and a drug-infested neighborhood. I had no role models to look up to. The adults around me had the look of hopelessness and despair. They may have had dreams and ambitions, but when you looked into their eyes, the flames of ambition had gone out. The adults in my neighborhood accepted the destinies that the environment had given them. I refused to accept defeatism, cynicism, discouragement, and hopelessness. I had dreams, hopes, and a desire to succeed. I did not accept the status quo.
Music was my way out. I had developed a talent for the trumpet, and my mother scraped up enough money for me to take music lessons at a performing arts academy in the city I was living in. Taking music lessons allowed me to escape the impoverished and dangerous neighborhood for a few hours each week. I was taught by excellent music instructors who not only cared about the instrument, but the person. They demonstrated to me to the quality of life I was seeking. They became my role models. Upon graduating from high school, I received a two-year music scholarship to college. That was my ticket out of the ghetto. Later I joined the military and played the trumpet in the Army band for several years.
What happened? I wanted out of my environment, I did not accept my circumstances, and I did not give up on hope, even at a young age. I got the opportunity to be in a different environment that nourished my growth – not only in developing my skill as a musician, but as an individual. I flourished in that environment and that led to my growth journey. I never looked back.
What does a growth environment look like?
In order for a seed to grow, it needs the right soil, sunlight, air and water.
My mentor, John Maxwell, always taught that your environment is helping you, not holding you back. This one statement helped me examine my own workplace environment. John asked us questions that helped us examine our present environment, such as:
Are you in a place where others are ahead of you, or are you the go-to person? Are you the smartest one in the room? Then what and who is pouring into you? You are not getting the necessary nutrients for growth. If you are pouring everything you have into others, who is pouring into you?
Are you challenged on a constant basis?
In the military, on every assignment I went to, something was always wrong. Logistical processes were not in place so customers were not getting their supplies and materials on time, which upset them. Or a morale problem amongst the workers compounded the unhappy-customers problem. Sometimes I complained to my peers that I always got the most challenging assignments. It was then that I recognized another of John’s principles: you must get out of your comfort zone to grow. When I finished the assignment, the logistical processes were far better than the previous ones, the morale within my area of responsibility was very high, and my customers were giving my operation rave reviews.
At first, I didn’t understand why I always got the hard and challenging jobs. Later I realized that the military was giving me a new growth environment with each new assignment. As the saying goes, with each promotion comes more responsibility. I must have made a lasting impact on my senior officers, because they expected my performance to be top level. My performance in my military career lead me to exponential growth, higher compensation, and bonuses.
If I embraced challenges, you need to also.
Another statement that helped me evaluate my present environment was: Are others growing around you? The answer to this question reveals the state of workplace or organization, or your peers. Are others getting promoted? Are they recognizing their workers’ abilities and strengths? Is this recognition due to workers doing extraordinary in workplace assignments and exceeding performance standards?
Military organization inspired and motivated me to take on challenging assignments and be not concerned about getting my hands dirty. Adding value to the organization is important to me. Complacency is not an option, nor is just earning a paycheck. This motivated me during my journey of growth. The environment had to be nourishing, challenging, and motivating. If your workplace is toxic, or complacency is the norm, find something else that will help you develop and grow.
Even life after the military, I never changed my mindset. This framework is forever embedded in my mind. Always seek the best environment for continual growth.
In my last job in California, even after working for 10 years within the organization, promotions came very slowly, even though I used the same approach discussed above. Morale there was at an all-time low. Nepotism, jealousy of the bosses’ favorites, and a toxic work environment inhibited growth. Through several turn of events within the organization, a shuffling from the top down gave me the opportunity to accept a temporary developmental assignment 1700 miles away. The assignment was challenging but rewarding. It gave me insights into my field that I never knew existed. In fact, the work was so advanced that my 10 years on the job in California had not prepared for it. It was so advanced that my old notes and files from previous work were too elementary for the assignment. Boy, did I feel outside of my comfort zone.
However, the staff was supportive, and there were plenty of opportunities for me to get up to speed. After several months the developmental assignment ended. I wanted to remain at the new workplace, and I made my request known to the higher-ups. After a lot of convincing of senior management, my potential was recognized, along with my work ethic, and an agreement was made to keep me on. I never looked back.
Just as my military experience had taught me, I took on the hard assignment. This has encouraged and fostered my growth. I’ve had a few failures, but these were not my enemy. Many in the office are more advanced than me, but I am quickly catching up.
Lastly, leaders must create a growth environment within their organization or areas of influence. I came to realize that as my ranking became more senior that I had a responsibility to help others that worked directly for me to grow. I had to create a growth environment. I used the same framework and list that I was taught, I applied it to help others.
For people to grow you must set the bar high. Provide them with a challenging environment.
Give them challenging work, nothing beneath them. And if they do not know how to do it, train them the right way first, then expect them to maintain the standard.
Cultivate an affirming atmosphere. Nurture and nourish your people for growth.
Model growth in front of them. Lead from the front, not the rear. I always say: “The most valuable gift I can give to other is a good example.” There is nothing more confusing than a person who gives good advice but sets a bad example. To quote (again) John Maxwell: “A pint of example is worth a gallon of advice.”
Conclusion
Remember, growth is the only guarantee that tomorrow will get better. If you don’t know whether your present environment is a growth environment, do an assessment.
Are others more advanced than you?
Are your assignments challenging?
Is your environment affirming or toxic?
Are you excited every morning about embracing challenge?
Are others growing around you?
The bottom line is that a growth environment aids in growth. It doesn’t hold you back. Lastly, if you are a leader, you are responsible for helping others grow and creating an atmosphere of growth. Grow leaders, don’t just tell them what to do.
Written by Derrick C Darden, PhD Photo by Sharon McCutcheon
Reward and recognition is a proven way to reinforce desired behaviors that epitomize a company‘s culture. But what if the company’s values are distorted and abused by manipulation, pressure tactics, and an acceptance of concealment of information from customers? Many of us see this behavior happening in front of us, yet we refuse to speak up for fear of retribution from our superiors. Even if we don’t say anything, we buy into the bad behavior. There’s a pattern in many cases, a link between unethical behavior, abuse of incentive monetary reward/recognition systems, and organizational cultural norms.
Studies have shown that reward and recognition systems can be a great motivator and an effective way for companies to encourage employees by rewarding and recognizing their achievements. These systems can promote higher performance, engagement, and commitment in the organization. Employees who feel intrinsically valued increase the company’s productivity and retention and reinforce the company’s cultural norms. A survey of employees in four different professions (ground workers, librarian clerks, intake receptionists and medical record assistants) conducted by East Carolina University found a strong correlation between effective motivators – such as good pay and recognition – and benefits to the workplace Mani (2002). So, reward and recognition works, and industry has put heavy emphasis on praising and recognizing employees’ achievements to promote desired behaviors and organizational norms.
However, the recklessness of a few can transform a perfectly legitimate incentive program into a widespread unethical behavior promoted by the upper management. For example, at the height of the mortgage-backed securities crisis in 2007 and 2008, many financial institutions lost billions of dollars in subprime loans. During the government’s initial investigation, UBS, the largest of these financial companies, acknowledged that part of their massive losses were a consequence of large bonuses for their upper management. The company had promised large bonuses to traders, encouraging them to create mortgages faster to satisfy the gluttony of investors. Many reputable lenders such as Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, to name just a few, all loosened their standards to make loans available to everyone, even those who could not afford them. People with low credit scores and low incomes were sold prime mortgages. Of course, a new phrase was introduced: predatory lending. These financial institutions didn’t verify incomes, but offered adjustable mortgage rates to people who only paid the interest on the loan, but didn’t know the loans would require full payment a few years down the road. Predatory lending caused thousands of people who could not afford their mortgages to walk away for their homes. These companies lost billions, and the American people had to bail most of them out.
In 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ top official began an investigation into why veterans had longer than normal wait times to see the doctor. Many veterans died while waiting to see their doctor for follow-up care or primary care. At the conclusion of this investigation, it was found that many VA employees had covered up faulty patient care procedures used by the VA and that a bonus plan had contributed to unethical behavior. The investigation found that the connected hospitals under investigation had found employee bonuses were connected to the scheduling of patient care; additionally, incentives were paid to doctors to reduce follow-up care to patients. As soon as he learned of this crisis, the Secretary canceled the performance bonus plan. Obviously, he saw the connection. After a large public outcry, Veteran Affairs Secretary General Shinseki handed his resignation to President Obama. In his resignation speech, the Secretary said, “I can’t explain the lack of integrity among some leaders of our health care facilities.” Lives were lost because of unethical practices.
What causes people to act unethically in the workplace? In a Harvard article, a psychologist points out three areas or factors that cause people to cross the unethical line:
Omnipotence – Employees may feel they are above the rules and are entitled to act in the way they want. Left unchecked, the trickle-down of wrongdoing will become a burst of unethical behavior, especially in the workplace. My mother used to say, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
Cultural Numbness – Playing by another’s rulebook, even when it’s deviant in nature. No matter how high your moral and ethical compass, you keep hanging around, and you gradually begin to accept bad behavior as the norm.
Justified Neglect – Ignoring wrong behavior without speaking out because of fear of losing your sure footing with the powerful boss or manager.
Reward and recognition systems are excellent ways for organizations to promote desired cultural norms and maintain a competitive edge. But these systems can be abused. That’s why all employees must be trained in organizational norms, ethical conduct, and proper behavior. We know that so-called people of high morals may choose to neglect and or ignore improper behavior – and that a lack of ethics can destroy people’s lives.
In other words, unethical behavior can significantly increase the cost of doing business.
What are your thoughts?
Reference:
Mani, B.G. (2002), “Performance appraisal systems, productivity, and motivation: a case study”, Public Personnel Management, Vol. 31, pp. 141-59.
We’ve all heard the phrase: “Lead by example.” In battle, the troops must see the Army Officer in front of them, leading them boldly towards their objective. The leader exemplifies courage, selfless service, and inspires trust in his followers.
Example-setting is the only way a leader will get his followers to buy into his plan. Albert Schweitzer said: “Example isn’t the main thing in leadership – it is the only thing.”
Most people are visual learners, not verbal learners. Good communication makes the vision clear, and good modeling makes it come alive.
A leader must want his followers to model the desired behavior. How do you do that? How, as a leader, do you get your followers to exhibit the you want to see? The answer is simple: be a leader, not a naysayer. Leaders must lead themselves first.
To do this a leader, a manager, supervisor, team leader – whoever aspires to lead – must have self-awareness. They must know their weaknesses and their capabilities before barking out orders. But building awareness about one’s habits of thought, emotions, hopes, and behavior is a task. Leaders must know what makes them tick, their beliefs, their priorities, their aspirations, values and fears (Boaz and Fox, 2014)
Most leaders want status, but not the responsibility. Are they at that level to get more pay and more status, or to get themselves and others to buy into the organization’s mission, vision and goals?
We have a biblical example of this in Kings II Chapters 22 through 23. King Josiah ruled Judea for 31 years. When he was 18 years old, he was in the midst of a restoration project of the temple of God, where a scroll of the book of the law was found by the high priest and was given to the royal secretary to be read to King Josiah. When the king heard the words of the law, he immediately tore his robe. In the Old Testament, this was a sign of repentance, remorse, and despair. Josiah was known as a very righteous king, yet through the word of God, he repented and became aware of his own sins towards God. Here you see how the king Josiah (leader) made a change within himself (self-awareness). His internal reform brought about the internal reform of his people, which led to the restoration of God‘s covenant throughout Judea.
How inner awareness affects the leader’s outer change
People do as they see, so the leaders’ actions speak louder than words. As mentioned previously, the example isn’t the main thing – it is the only thing. Organizations that want to implement new strategies create new policies and procedures. But the new processes will fall short if the leader does not exemplify the desired change. In their research, Boaz and Fox indicate that new strategies often fall short because of a failure to inspire the “underlying mindsets and capabilities of the people who will execute [them].”
Research indicates that if the leader doesn’t role model change and maintains the status quo, the people on the ground will maintain that same motivation. (Boaz and Fox, 2014). In my Biblical example, the people saw their King change from within. All of his actions illuminated his internal change, and this motivated the people to also change and move toward transformation.
Learning to lead means cultivating awareness of self. You must be aware of your inner thoughts, character and the values that you hold firm to, regardless of the situation. Self-awareness requires you to know what makes you tick – your inner desires, your strengths and weaknesses, the interests you had as a child, and what motivates and inspires you as an adult. But in this day and age, having inner awareness of one’s self is not easy. Many voices out there harbor confusion, deception, fear, but a few voices have vision and purpose. Nevertheless, to lead others, one must lead one’s own self.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ―Aristotle
If you model the behavior you want everyone in your organization to exhibit, then change will happen without resistance. In a research study, seasoned executives with 15 or more years of experience were asked to name the critical leadership competency for successful change efforts. The answers were communication, collaboration, and commitment.
In the area of communication, the leaders explained that followers must know the “what” and the “why” of the change and understand how these align with the organization’s values. In the area of collaboration, successful leaders encourage people to work together across boundaries with other teams or departments to achieve a common goal. In the area of commitment, leaders aligned their own beliefs and behaviors to support change.
The successful leaders also had to step out of their comfort zone and not appear to be resistant or inflexible. The successful leaders embraced change by devoting time and effort to it. Those who were resistant to and negative about change were unsuccessful in implementing change in their organizations (Center for Creative Leadership, 2020). The bottom line is that people model the behavior of their leaders. Followers (employees, team) will do what they see their leader do. General Colin Powell said it best: “You can issue all the memos and give all the motivational speeches you want, but if the rest of the people in your organization don’t see you putting forth your very best effort every single day, they won’t either.” Be an example of the change you want to see.
