Table Of ContentFuture of Business and Finance
Joan Marques
Satinder Dhiman Editors
Leading With
Diversity,
Equity and
Inclusion
Approaches, Practices and Cases
for Integral Leadership Strategy
Future of Business and Finance
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Joan Marques • Satinder Dhiman
Editors
Leading With Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion
Approaches, Practices and Cases for Integral
Leadership Strategy
Editors
Joan Marques Satinder Dhiman
Woodbury University School of Business
Burbank, CA, USA Woodbury University
Burbank, CA, USA
ISSN 2662-2467 ISSN 2662-2475 (electronic)
Future of Business and Finance
ISBN 978-3-030-95651-6 ISBN 978-3-030-95652-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95652-3
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Organize Your Reality
Organize your reality, make it sustainable
Rearrange your priorities, make it equitable
Get grounded, create an environment
Anchored in clear communication and values
Natural and in alignment with your spirit
Immersed in morality and understanding
Zoning in on overall well being for
Everyone involved in your projects
Your reality is both the subject and object
Operating in the long term when you
Understand how its all connected
Respect guides the bigger perspective
Rearranging reality involves concentration and strategy
Evolving professionally centered in equality
Achieving a solid support system
Locked into the 21st century modern world
International cosmopolitan platforms
Tethered to enlightened principles for a reality
You can sustain to align your heart and mind
~ Mike Sonksen
v
Preface
This impressive, multi-angled work is a collective effort from 46 authors who live
and work in 16 countries of the world, who are all concerned about the imbalances
that keep our global home in a lingering, paralyzing stranglehold. This work, there-
fore, touches on myriad issues we have recently encountered and, in many ways, are
still struggling with, influenced by history, augmented by a global pandemic, and
nurturing concerning incongruences in equality. At the root of the problems, our
human cohort is facing a range of anthropocentric actions that will first and fore-
most require awareness and understanding of how they were erected and how they
remain intact before we will actually be able to understand the steps we have to take
to resolve them.
So, how have the contributing authors decided to approach the many concern
areas of our times?
Part I of this comprehensive work focuses on Leading a Diverse Workforce. It
starts with Chap. 1, in which Joan Marques laments the ongoing challenges of dis-
crimination, fueled by implicit biases. She subsequently discusses the qualities of
awakened leaders as critical components toward establishing and nurturing a
diverse, equitable and inclusive environment. In Chap. 2, Seval Gündemir and Teri
Kirby emphasize diversity approaches, which are beliefs or organizational models
for how to manage workplace diversity. They propose effective ways for leaders to
utilize diverse approaches to attain a diverse and inclusive workplace, and discuss
future directions for diversity and leadership scholars and practitioners. Then, in
Chap. 3, Sevgi Emirza proposes a conceptual framework to address the potential of
compassionate leadership components, which are integrity, accountability, pres-
ence, authenticity and dignity. She thereby states that compassionate leaders are
more likely to notice distress, suffering and pain experienced by employees with
diverse identities, feel an emphatic concern for removing such negative experiences
and improving well-being of diverse employees and actually respond by taking
positive actions that promote inclusion and affirm the value of diversity.
In Chap. 4, Peter Lewa, Martin Murigi Mburu and Rachel Mwende M. Murigi
call for inclusive leadership, in order to invoke transformational approaches in the
management of organizations, countries and institutions in dynamic contexts where
vii
viii Preface
change is rapid. They do caution that successful transformation will require the vis-
ible and sustained engagement of a wide range of followers within any context
under consideration. In Chap. 5, Sylvia Burgess, Forrest Toms, William Munn and
Daniel McKelvey bring decades of collective insights and experiences to the table
to describe current flaws in advocacy for the Black community in the USA and to
propose effective alternatives for future consideration. Robert Fleming considers, in
Chap. 6, the roles and responsibilities of organizational leaders in anticipating, pre-
paring for and responding to crisis events. He thereby discusses the role of respon-
sible leadership that is informed, inclusive and transparent in preparing contemporary
organizations to address the expectations of employees, customers and other orga-
nizational stakeholders as together we seek to understand, embrace, and engage in
the “new normal” of our post-pandemic world. In Chap. 7, Debra Dean illustrates
the development of a new leadership theory that will respect human dignity and
encourage differences, not just tolerate them. At the core of respectful pluralism,
she examines rhetoric to choose words that will lift others up instead of tearing
them down.
Part II of this book, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Organizations, begins with
Chap. 8, in which Mateo Cruz, Yaromil Fong-Olivares and Wiley Davi identify
brave dialogues as one “concrete learning practice” that helps employees respond to
perceptions of subtle bias or discrimination. The brave dialogue approach derives
from our diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work with leaders and their teams. In
Chap. 9, Pamela Caldwell proposes that we need to view diversity and inclusion in
the workplace, as not a one size fits all, but a framework that will encompass all
departments and all levels of an organization. Then, in Chap. 10, Duane Windsor
presents a general social norm for increasing employee diversity in pluralistic soci-
eties like the USA and homogeneous societies such as Sweden. He discusses how
best to improve diversity and inclusion in businesses, and posits that, whether based
on moral obligation or civic duty conceptions, the general social norm should aim
to improve diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI).
Vartika brings the issue of gender quota in boardrooms to our attention in Chap.
11. She finds that homogeneity remains a major issue in boardrooms across the
world with only 15 percent of women occupying the boardroom seats. Aikaterini
Grimani and George Gotsis then zoom in on inclusive leadership in Chap. 12. They
emphasize that inclusive leadership represents a conceptual shift to diversity leader-
ship that is in a position to account for the basic needs for belongingness and unique-
ness of all stakeholders involved in organizational processes. They stress that
inclusive leadership is invested with a strong potential that promotes sustainable
health outcomes and allows for more compassionate, humane and caring health care
organizations in conformity to the emerging challenges for managing health care in
a post-COVID-19 world. Continuing the view on constructive professions, Edyta
Janus and Agnieszka Smrokowska-Reichmann further focus on inclusive leadership
in helping professions in Chap. 13. They discuss findings from a study they con-
ducted with a group of professionally active occupational therapists to analyze how
the participants defined leadership and whether they intentionally used elements of
leadership in their work.
Preface ix
In Chap. 14, Jody Worley places the term causal ambiguity on our radar, refer-
ring to ambiguity perceived by organizational decision-makers as to how organiza-
tional actions and results or inputs and outcomes are linked. He finds that causal
ambiguity is prevalent and can function as a barrier for acting and implementing
initiatives to advance DEI in workplace contexts. In Chap. 15, Peter Lewa, Jeremy
Muna and Faith Muna remind us of the importance of change management in a
world filled with unprecedented changes. They specifically focus on the theory of
strategic change management under changing dynamics, presenting the argument
that leading change requires consideration of “engagement” and “inclusion” and
hence engaged leadership for better results. In Chap. 16, Wanda Krause wraps up
part II of this book by encouraging organizational leaders and managers to create
safe, equitable and inclusive work environments. She specifically underscores the
challenge of knowing how to root DEI initiatives in the workplace in ways that are
sustainable and impactful with this larger view.
Part III of this book, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Education, leads us to
Chap. 17, where Mohammed Aboradam and Khalid Dahleez examine the diversity-
induced challenges in higher education. They affirm that, in order to meet these
challenges, management practices must address diversity among academic work-
forces. They specifically highlight the effects of inclusive leadership, including the
encouragement of management-level innovation in academic units and establish-
ment of a climate for creativity. In Chap. 18, Yulee Lee and Trevor Cox alert us that
the current approach in higher education toward diversity, equity and inclusion
(DEI) efforts can hinder genuine culture change without opportunities for dialogue
and intentional efforts to decenter whiteness through critical reflection as a com-
munity of learners. They explore the current efforts around DEI within higher edu-
cation, examine why lasting change is often difficult in higher education institutions
and offer tangible practices for dialogic practices to decenter whiteness at various
levels of the institution to promote sustainable DEI change.
In Chap. 19, Nicole Dillard and Julia Storberg-Walker further emphasize that
effectively engaging diversity is a top priority in higher education. They affirm that
the value of diversity in the classroom is particularly relevant for leadership studies
programs due to the very explicit goal to prepare and develop workers to lead in
diverse environments. To help fellow faculty members to integrate justice, equity,
diversity and inclusion (JEDI) into their curriculum, they share valuable insights
into the benefits of engaging DEI as an opportunity to foster a more inclusive
approach to leadership education and radically shift educators’ personal mission for
justice. Ofelia Huidor presents the community cultural wealth model in Chap. 20.
This model places emphasis on the array of cultural knowledge, skills and abilities
exhibited by students of color as they navigate the schooling process. She thereby
underscores the importance of community cultural wealth as a culturally responsive
teaching approach to inform pedagogical practices with a focus on diversity, equity
and inclusion.
In Chap. 21, Michaël Séguin discusses the changing diversity and inclusion land-
scape of Canadian universities, with specific focus on the Université de Montréal
case. He thereby informs us about the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) program,
x Preface
which required Canadian universities to address the underrepresentation of women,
indigenous peoples, persons with disability and racialized persons in these presti-
gious positions. He thereby analyzes how this commitment may work as a transfor-
mative leadership strategy both locally and nationally. In Chap. 22, Gilbert Nyakundi
Okebiro and Asenath Kerubo Nyakundi inform us of the challenge in Kenyan insti-
tutions of higher learning, where leadership focuses on promoting ethnicity, thereby
ignoring diversity, equity and inclusivity. To solve this issue, they recommend pro-
gressive and transformative leadership with diversity and equity, qualifications and
competence skills irrespective of ethnicity to transform and sustain quality and stan-
dard education in higher institutions in Kenya.
Part IV of this book, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Interdisciplinary and
Global Deliberations, commences with a strong statement from Emerald Archer in
Chap. 23, whereby she exposes the overlapping double discrimination of racism and
sexism. She brings to our attention the inconvenient truth that violence against
women often goes under-reported. She then explains how the #SayHerName cam-
paign has worked to center Black women’s experiences with police, making these
women visible and including them in the larger conversation of racial injustice. In
Chap. 24, Erla Kristjánsdóttir and Sigrún Gunnarsdóttir place the plight of the
Covid-19 pandemic within the leadership scope and underscore the effects of anxi-
ety and negative effects on well-being this has brought in professional environ-
ments. They specifically focus on
the Icelandic labor market and illustrate how inclusion, effective communica-
tion, trust, accountability, common purpose and solidarity enabled leaders and
employees to cope effectively. Then, in Chap. 25, Claude-Hélène Mayer presents a
psychobiographical account of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1918–2004),
analyzing his life from a transformational leadership perspective, as well as from a
cultural and intercultural competence perspective, with the aim to provide an out-
standing example of a leader in the context of the Middle East who is honored for
his leadership and intercultural ability to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in
words and actions throughout his life.
In Chap. 26, Thora Christiansen and Ásta Dís Óladóttir shift our focus one more
time to Iceland, this time in light of its reputation as a global leader in gender equal-
ity. These authors find, nonetheless, that women face apparent exclusion from senior
executive positions, as men hold all CEO positions at listed companies. The study
they conducted reveals deep dissatisfaction amongst women executives with the
prevailing hiring practices, which they experience as a fast-paced and closed pro-
cess, heavily reliant on board-members’ networks and head hunters’ lists. They
voice the need for inclusion and call for disruptive tactics, more courage and gender
quotas on the executive level. In Chap. 27, Mirella Baker Bemmel and Howard
Housen remind us of the need to recognize how critical the understanding of diver-
sity, equity and inclusion is as part of the equation in business operations. They
stress that, in order to make sustainable changes that go beyond benefits to the bot-
tom line, there must be a grasp of the historical and contemporary components of
diversity, equity, and inclusion. They emphasize that when employees transition
from feeling marginalized to feeling safe, valued, respected and empowered,
