Diversity Management as a New Organizational Paradigm: Leading With Cultural Intelligence (CQ)

Background

The past three decades have been marked by significant growth in the empirical examination of the influence of diversity on individual, group, and organizational level outcomes (Herdman & McMillan-Capehart, 2010; Harrison & Klein, 2007; Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). This growth in diversity research casts light on the dramatic increases in the heterogeneity of the workforce (Williams & O’Reilly, 1998).These changing demographics of the population globally have been and will be increasingly reflected in educational organizations such as schools. More specifically, schools have become increasingly turbulent and more demographically diverse with teachers of different cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds interacting and working together (Malik & Singh, 2017).

In light of this globalization process, advancing conditions in the world have caused transformation in teaching and learning environments. For example, global educational trends, international rankings, new expectations for student achievement and school improvement have placed principals and teachers at the crossroads between traditional and the new meaning of educational change. In an increasingly unstable environment, the range of educational goals, the pressure of accountability, overload, the adaptation to ever-changing conditions and multifaceted diversity present intolerable conditions for satisfying work experiences (Fullan, 2007). According to Sadri and Tran, workforce diversity may introduce work conflicts or tensions because the differences in norms and values among groups from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds are likely to manifest themselves in various work-related attitudes and behaviors (2002). In fact, being part of a global work team with team members of diverse cultural backgrounds is different from being a member of a culturally homogeneous team to which most people belong to their local cultural settings (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008).

As global interdependence, multinational corporations, cultural and social interconnections of the global economy strengthen and invigorate, educational leaders must be more proactive on issues of diversity, act differently, and most importantly lead differently (Williams & Tierney, 2013). This chapter sheds light on this interdisciplinary and multidimensional concept of diversity with the promise of unlocking the “black box” between diversity management and performance outcomes in educational settings.