Blog 1: Influence of Team Diversity

Nowadays, each business around the world concerns the effective team managements to bring the highest-performance in the consequence by collaborating with different kinds of peoples in one team which is called “Team Diversity”. It is a multidimensional concept of peoples including different background, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality class, religion, age and disability. According to Vielba and Edelshain theory, most successful organisations in global market perform team diversity to seek the right employees to work in their company for adapting their products and practicing to fit the expectations of customers (McGuire and Bagher, 2010).

As a leader of the team in the organisation, it is important role to lead the employees in the team diversity since the business practicing from leader will be resulted of building unique attitudes, behaviors and outlooks through the team members. For Moore theory (1999), he stated that recognizing, understanding and valuing difference is the key for leader to increase participation rates of diverse group in the workplace which creates the impressive outcome and high performance of work from the team members (McGuire and Bagher, 2010).

In order to lead team diversity, leader should provide the good leadership style through team members to engage team with a diverse set of personalities effectively. There are four main methods that leader should concern on the following (Ebokosia, 2012):

1) Know and adjust your “default” leadership style – Leader should understand the preferred way of managing. If it is not suitable for team members, leader needs to modify the leadership style to each employee for creating self-awareness.

2) Ask the right questions into team member – Leader should response what the team member want to be managed by providing the right questions and the right answers. This will help leader to give the best suited task of work to each team member by focusing on the strengths and weaknesses.

3) Highlight exemplary behavior – Leader need to provide the suitable technique into team members which is “the ability to enable others to act”. For example, leader can highlight one employee who can make highest sales in their retail stores by encouraging team members to follow, not tell or force them directly. This technique can promote self-starters and encourage team-work.

4)  Find the right way to engage low performers – Leader should motivate low performance of some team member to support them into better performance in the future such as giving good feedback, explaining problematic behaviour or seeking out solutions together.

Team Diversity can affect a wide array of important team outcomes, including performance, satisfaction, creativity and innovation through the organisation. In addition, it can also instigate the exchange and processing of different perspectives and ideas from different peoples in team which can able to increase team performance, work motivation and satisfaction through team members. Consequently, the organisation can involve a complex process of moulding a common set of values inclusive of difference which gains the profitability (Homan and Greer, 2013).

However, the different in views and backgrounds can create the confusion, threaten and annoyance through the individuals, as it can be delayed in decision making due to diverging views and opinions within team members. Furthermore, dissimilar cultures and values with conflict opinions can negatively affect the overall team spirit that is essential for reaching high-levels of productivity. In overall, the disunity of team members will be damaged the outcome of the organisation (Welinder, Araujo and Lynn, 2012).

The case study of Thorntons, the quality chocolate retailer opening in U.K. over 100 years, is the good example company of providing the effective team diversity in the organisation. Thorntons offers a flexible benefits programme, training and development programme with the whistle blowing policy to manage the employees in the organisation equally and effectively. Thorntons also monitors all staff to develop both individual and teams in line with their business. Moreover, Thorntons encourages the employees to share their ideas and opinions through the company and coworkers. This shows that the company fully concerns in the important of diversity in the organisation (Thorntons, 2012).

In conclusion, it is very important for the leader to control the team diversity in the organisation. There are many benefits for the organisation such as increasing in productivity, innovation, employee satisfaction, motivation and excellent work environment. However, team diversity is also the challenge factor for leader because different in both intrinsic attitudes and extrinsic appearance may create the conflict between peoples in the organisation. From this case, it is the role for leader to create the environment of tolerance and understanding into team members to adopt their mindset in same path.

Reference

[1] McGuire D. and Bagher M. (2010) Diversity training in organisations: an introduction. Journal of European Industrial Training (34) pp. 493-505

[2] Ekobosia A. (2012) Multiple Personalities: How to Lead a Diverse Team to a Common Goal [online] available from <http://www.blackenterprise.com/career/leadership-strategy-diverse-teams/> [17 June 2013]

[3] Welinder E., Araujo J. and Lynn K. (2012) The pros and cons to diversity [online] available from <http://www.employerbrandingtoday.com/blog/2012/02/08/the-pros-and-cons-to-diversity/> [18 June 2013]

[4] Homan A. and Greer L. (2013) Considering diversity: The positive effects of considerate leadership in diverse teams. Group Processes Intergroup Relation. 16(1) pp.105-125

[5] Thorntons (2012) Thorntons Annual Report 2012 [online] available from <investors.thorntons.co.uk/download/pdf/AnnualReport2012.pdf> [18 June 2013]