Multicultural Leadership Concept - Coursework Example

MULTICULTURAL LEADERSHIPS Name Institution Multicultural leadership involves engagement of different races of people, different genders, different tribes and different age groups to work together as a team for a common goal. Multicultural leadership usually begins from within. Individuals have to accept the diversity of cultures and variation in capabilities among different people (Amot et al., 1996). Multicultural leadership leads to a lot of benefits to the organization at large. The mode of leadership help the affected employee to learn how to work together as a team; they learn how to understand and respect each other regardless of his/her race. Through the understanding, conflicts and disagreements are reduced leading to a better and a healthy working environment. The leaders in the position should execute good leadership and governance through employing diverse cultures in organizations. They should ensure they create good understanding among the employees and respect of each one's culture. The leaders should recognize each one’s tribe or culture through involving everyone in decision making and participation in organizations activities. The global structure of leadership creates a collective group operating as a family. Each employee views the other partner as a relative. The relation generated help in the development of essential virtues like respect, generosity, kindness, and caring. This situation whereby an employee views the other work mate as a brother or a sister creates harmony and co-operation resulting in increased production. The working environment becomes friendly, and every member enjoys his/her career. Due to involving people from different races and background, global leadership will help the employees to accommodate different people religions and beliefs (Littrel 60). As a result, there will be acceptance of different spirituality in various cultures. Through globalization and involvement of multi-cultures, the group leaders will be required to be contingent, in that they will be able to create togetherness and understanding among their employees. It will result in quick and easier achievement of the company’s focus that in the long run, will lead to the easier attainment of the company’s vision. Multicultural leadership will result in personal and professional growth to the individuals, which results from the taping of the skills society, regarding education background and exposure. It results to boosting of the cultures and their competence among other cultures. This involvement of the diverse cultures will lead to a gained advantage to the company involved. It benefits the company as they can target a large number of tribes, regardless of their languages or cultures. The company will be able to offer appropriate services to their customers without the limit of cultural or language barriers Globalization and technological advancement in the world have opened wide avenues for several kind of people with different knowledge to work together. The use diverse races and cultures have widened the sharing of ideas from different individuals. The practice has also helped in an increase in innovation and exploited the creativity among the employees. Leaders should practice democracy in their leadership periods ( Littrell 63). It will assist in involving every employee in decision- making for a common goal. It will also lead to sharing of ideas and brainstorming that ultimately will result in collective success and productivity. Multicultural leadership should be encouraged as a managerial skill of any business. The method encompasses different people with different abilities and characters. As a result, an individual employee is capable of identifying his/ her strengths or weakness through comparison with his / her co- workers. It will pose a challenge to the individuals, and they will work towards improving their weakness while they work on their strengths becoming more perfect. The system will encourage a healthy competition among the members, and they will be challenged to learn more. It will lead to sharing of skills which will enhance teamwork and increase cooperation. Various cases of internal conflicts like tribal wars and genocide are common in the world today. The global system is a method that is assisting in the prevention of this kind of conflicts. Individuals learn how to accommodate and learn from each other. Through teamwork and cooperation, they learn to live together and understand one another. The system, in the long run, will result in the closing of the cultural gaps that are usually the sources of conflicts and misunderstanding among various nations. Leaders should execute their power of leadership and influence through advocating more interaction of different tribes and religion which will enhance togetherness and understanding among the communities (Jung et al., p. 596). The various groups of people will learn the similarities that exist between them, and they start embracing each other’s culture. Also, through the cooperation of the different kind of people, individuals will be able to understand the differences that exist among themselves and those differences found among other people and in the process they will learn how to appreciate the personal gaps among them. It will create the desire to listen and learn from the other person while it eliminates the pride and neglection of other individuals who are disadvantaged. They will avoid undermining others. The form of leadership is still an advantage to the entire global, following the firm push to globalization and radicalization of the nations to reduce poverty and develop together. A multicultural form of leadership will help the employees to become open minded, and they start thinking globally. They will be able to link and share ideas depending on their diverse sources of origin. Bringing all this different kind of people together will help in sharing of ideas which will eliminate the conservative nature found in one tribe. The linking will create a network whereby different people from different regions are walking towards a similar goal. Different people in different cultures communicate in various languages. As a result, global leadership will enable people to develop diversity in communication. Through sharing and working together, the people will develop communication skills where they will be able to deal with various sort of individuals in the society and working places. Despite the several advantages posed by global leadership, various problems usually arise in this form of leadership. There is a high level of misunderstanding that are likely to result in the groups of people. The diversity of their cultures will require the leaders to work extra harder and ensure there is a mutual understanding of all the cultures involved (Jung et al., p. 590). In the case of bias in leadership, it will result in the undermining of the cultures which appears inferior by few number of people in the tribe, their poor economic background or due to lack of political prominence in the ruling parties. Hence, the leaders in practice should ensure there is fairness in dealing with every kind of tribe or individual in the organization. Adapting to the several cultures involved poses a challenge in that form of ruling. Every culture has a given set of rules that govern their social, political and economic life. The set of control varies with the various cultures involved. Hence, there is an enormous task to the organization leaders who has a core role in harmonizing and creating understanding to the cultures involved. The leaders should ensure that every individual is respected and given room to execute the norms of his/ her culture, which failure to can result in conflict among the members ( Littrell 72). Development of conflicts among the members. Conflicts can be personal conflicts of communal conflicts that will arise due to dissatisfaction in sharing of resources and welfares among the members. In the case of bias in leaders, it will heighten the level of disagreements among the involved tribes. All the available resources will be shared with honest and transparency. Set standards should be configured to ensure they are used and followed by sharing and distributing resources. The leaders should lead in executing justice and sharing out the limited resources to avoid rivalries. Adapting to everyone’s style of living and expectations also pose a significant challenge to a global system. Every member joining the society as said earlier holds a different style of life which in all ways they don’t expect to change. Hence, the environment in which they are living should allow the freedom and should not restrict the different people with the different form of cultures from executing their styles of living. Similarly, the diverse individual in the group usually arrives with different expectations and opinions regarding on other people, how they behave, how they live and how they handle other unfamiliar people. In case, these expectations and beliefs are not met, problems are likely to arise which will result to conflict the organization (Jung et al., p. 594). Hence is the role of the leaders to ensure that everyone at least meets the expectations that they were holding before joining the other people from the different tribes and in case they do not respond to the expectations, the leaders should try to explain why and make them understand. Time is always a factor in management and running of any organization. Time management is different by different people from different cultures. Some individuals usually have no issue with lateness while others it's an issue; some cultures live up to time and dates, and they do not mess up with their times. As a result, there will be a problem in dealing with the two groups of people as a leader. There are those individuals who will always consider getting late for meetings or jobs while others will consider been punctual and up to date. It is the work of the global leaders to ensure they instill a common behavior in time management. The global leaders will be required to learn and understand the critical issues that affect the global team. The gray areas are concerning an individual culture, their weaknesses and strength will be highlighted (Jung et al., p. 591). The leaders should at least try to balance all the cultural differences that exist without becoming biased on one side. The leaders are required to learn and follow every community carefully so that to understand their mode of operation to avoid crossing their ways that would result in conflicts. In the case of a large and a diversified group of people, the organization can deploy cultural anthropologists who will assist in studying of this cultural practices and various areas affecting them. The rise in the personal conflict there should be committee necessary to deal with the problem. Fair penalties should be clearly set to help in fighting such misconduct in the organization containing multicultures (Jung et al., p. 590). In the cases of psychological tortures and challenges, the group should establish a committee to help in guidance and counseling to prevent the occurrence of such mental problems. These global issues can be solved by various means. One of the solutions is through the collaboration of all the stick holders found in an organization. From the highly ranked officials to the mere members of the organization should work towards working as a family and for the common goal. They should embrace the differences that exist between their religions, races, tribes, gender and age gaps ( Li et al., p. 332). The altitude will help the involved members to accommodate each other and respect the differences found within them. They should learn to acquire the positives and added skills that other cultures exhibit while they overlook the personal differences that exist. They should accept their cultural weakness and work towards making their weakness their strengths. Those in leadership should be in the front line to encourage the interaction of the various cultures and involve every member actively in organization activities ( Borchers 2003). They should advocate for regular discussions with the involved people to help them in identifying the possible causes of conflicts among them, how they can better their living in that form of working without neglecting any minor group or underserving some few people. The dialogues will work as a tool that will be used to solve problems within, they will also help in decision making (Ford et al.,p 25). It will create equality and boost the self-esteem of all the cultures involved. Cultural days are essential where the various cultures are given a chance to potray what they hold special in their community. Different cultures should exhibit their mode of cooking, allowed to perform their local songs and show their social life. It encourages others to embrace and respect the differences that exist within. They will also be able to learn the similarities that they all share which will boost harmony. Cultural days will create a sense of acceptance of the various cultures involved. The leaders should support this activity financially and ensure they are actively involved in them. Apart from this activities made by the organization, the national government should work to protect the cultures. They should stand in protecting our cultures as a national heritage. The government should arrange necessary seminars and conferences involving every member of the society, the workshops will bring different cultures together, and they learn how to live with each other and peacefully. The government should ensure that in every learning institution, every citizen has a right to teach in a school of his/ her choice without the cultural barrier. The government should change the curriculum and ensure that learners are taught about other tribes and cultures immediately from when they are young and in the lower schools (Dugan et al., 2012). It will create the insight required by the young growing generations where they are taught to appreciate the existence of the diverse cultures in their nation. Sports and athletics competition should be carried out in the country. It will help to tap the talents that are competent among different members of the societies without becoming bias of their differences in tribes, religious or race (Thomas 2002). The activities will enact empathy and togetherness, which will ultimately help to avoid an outbreak of any cultural conflict. Multicultural leadership is a complex form of governance, and the involved leaders should show their qualities in leading. They should show their traits as leaders where they show good personal characters and leaders who are ready to learn characteristics and qualities of employees or people they are leading. They should show good behaviors in dealing with the diverse cultures of their followers. They should be democratic especially in decision making where they involve every member without undermining the minority in their organizations. They should consult other stakeholders before concluding on any decision. Autocratic leaders are less respected in their governance, and they are usually sources of cultural conflicts as they are often biased on one group especially the majority (Chen et al.,p. 221). They undermine the minority that create low esteem in this group of people, and they are unable to work as a team. The leaders should practice the contingency theory, where the situations they are in help them to make good leadership. Various tribes and religion in an organization contribute to creating an equality, togetherness, harmony and respect among the different people. Thus, a leader will be required to work under this situation and create proper understanding among all the involved members (Nam et al.,p.775). It will show good leadership skills. The leaders should try to exhibit their power and influence especially during settling dispute that arise among their followers. They should enact laws to help to solve the conflicts that arise and creating a solidarity of the team. They should cultivate teamwork and encourage adapting to the diversity of the different cultures involved. In the long run will lead to the development of a civilized society. Multicultural leadership should be recommended for every institution and companies. Following the globalization and development of corporations in social and economic matters, there is a great need to cope with this diversity of cultures. Every stakeholder in the society should play a part in embracing the differences in their cultures and learn how to adapt the cultural gaps. The global leaders should lead in cultivating the cultural diversity that exist in their societies. It will result in peaceful co- existence of different people and provide equity in sharing of resources. The understanding will create a peaceful and friendly working environment resulting in increased productivity, the comfortable working environment that will finally lead to working towards achieving the company vision and mission(Prabhu 144). Multicultural leadership is a system that have lead to utilization of all the available resources and tapping and taking advantages of the diverse abilities and skills found in the different kind of people in the team. The system gives space to all the involved to share ideas, creativity and innovativeness. The people learn to build effective communication skills and to cope with different races and tribes that boost cultural competence. REFERENCES: Littrell, R. F. (2002). Desirable leadership behaviours of multi-cultural managers in China. Journal of Management Development, 21(1), 5-74. Jung, D., Yammarino, F. J., & Lee, J. K. (2009). Moderating role of subordinates' attitudes on transformational leadership and effectiveness: A multi-cultural and multi-level perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(4), 586-603. Li, J., Xin, K., & Pillutla, M. (2002). Multi-cultural leadership teams and organizational identification in international joint ventures. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 13(2), 320-337. Borchers, G. (2003, May). The software engineering impacts of cultural factors on multi-cultural software development teams. In Proceedings of the 25th international conference on Software engineering (pp. 540-545). IEEE Computer Society. Ford, D. P., & Chan, Y. E. (2003). 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