Diversity Paper 7

When I graduate in Spring 2020, I plan on joining the Army which I believe is one of, if

not the most, diverse organizations that one can be a part of. The sheer size of its workforce

guarantees a large amount of diversity from across the United States and all of the cultures that

exist within the United States. The purpose of the Army is to defend the United States from

threats both domestic and foreign and to protect its interests. The official mission is listed on the

Army website as “The Army Mission – our purpose – remains constant: To deploy, fight and win

our nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt and sustained land dominance by Army forces

across the full spectrum of conflict as part of the joint force” (U.S Army, 2019). Within the

Army exists a diverse group of people, according to Kim Parker, Anthony Cilluffo and Renee

Stepler from the Pew Research Center, “Racial and ethnic minority groups made up 40% of

Defense Department active-duty military in 2015, up from 25% in 1990” (Kim Parker, Anthony

Cilluffo and Renee Stepler, 2017). From that 40%, 17% are black, 12% are Hispanic, 7% are

categorized as other, and 4% are asian. Women are underrepresented at only “15% of DOD

active-duty military personnel are women, up from 11% in 1990” (Kim Parker, Anthony Cilluffo

and Renee Stepler, 2017). The diversity of the U.S Army continues to grow with every year that

goes by and will be even more diverse in the next decade. Managing this diversity can be

difficult because it is difficult to cover every kind of culture in a leadership course. In fact,

according to Jean Lau Chin in the article titled “Introduction to the Special Issue on Diversity

and Leadership”, “... our leadership theories have been silent on how the diversity of leaders and

followers within organizations influences the enactment of leadership” (Chin, 2010 pg. 151).

This leads me to believe that there is still a lot of knowledge to gain regarding cultural diversity

management and a large part of this knowledge comes from real world practice rather than
purely from schooling. However, a degree does provide an excellent foundation for this further

knowledge to be built upon.

*Side note: I realize that the quotes are stating the statistics for the entire DOD, but considering

that the Army is the largest branch, I would argue that these demographics apply to the Army.

In terms of the identity that I would bring to the Army, they are split up into two areas of

my pie chart from module 1. The first area being primary dimensions and they consist of things

such as my gender (male), age (22 at the time of graduation), above average mental and physical

abilities. Secondary dimensions are more personalized to who you are as a person and include

things such as education, marriage status, income, work experience, and religion. In my case,

these secondary dimensions include; a bachelor's degree, being single, being atheist, a low level

of income, and 5 years of work experience in retail. Unlike primary dimensions that can’t be

changed, secondary dimensions can change frequently and can be changed by the person they are

describing to better reflect who they are as a person as they mature and go through life. Thanks

to my degree in organizational leadership and this class, I will also be bringing an extensive

collection of knowledge regarding how to manage the wide variety of cultures within the army

and how to best lead the people under my command. Also, I have a foundation of knowledge

regarding how to interact with people from other cultures and to practice patience and

understanding. The Haji Kamal activity was especially applicable to my future position

considering the fact that the U.S Army is still active in the Middle East and progress still has to

be made in regard to their relations with the U.S.

Considering the challenges and opportunities within the Army, my personal approach to

leadership would consist of putting those below me in rank before myself and embrace the

saying of “leaders lead from the front” rather than being the kind of leader to sit back and have
everyone else do the work. Building a strong bond with your troops and leading from the front

can help build a strong foundation for cohesion and mutual respect. These two factors can help

maintain morale when times are at their most difficult. Also, making a point to listen to various

forms of feedback from those you are leading helps to build these foundations of mutual respect

and have your unit working more efficiently and productively than if this mutual respect was

nonexistent. In regard to managing diversity, patience and understanding are the keys to being an

effective leader. Open lines of communication help to facilitate an understanding between

different cultures and with time, the differences between two or more cultures can be mitigated

and any conflicts can be swiftly and effectively be resolved. Also, being flexible in terms of

utilizing different leadership types to match various situations and people can be a valuable tool

in getting the most out of your team. Especially when considering that people from different

cultures react and respond to different kinds of leadership. In the article titled “Diversity as an

aspect of effective leadership: integrating and moving forward” by George Gotsis and Katerina

Grimani, they agree and state the importance of adopting different leadership styles based on the

culture and situation by writing “... the adoption of particular leadership styles is not unimportant

to the organizational efforts to capitalize on the potential benefits of diverse work groups”

(Gotsis and Grimani, 2016 pg. 245). If a leader only adopts one style of leadership and attempts

to make it fit every kind of situation he or she encounters, this can be a lot like trying to fit a

square object into a round whole. This may lead to both productivity issues and further conflict.

Building upon this idea, leadership is a vital part of the puzzle in terms of being able to

motivate and organize your team to work efficiently and achieve the goals that they have for

themselves and the goals of your organization. Leadership undergoes changed on a daily basis,

so a leader has to be flexible in their approach to build and maintain relationships with their
followers from various cultures and to be able to mediate any potential forms of conflict. In

chapter 18 of the reading titled “Leadership in a Diverse Workplace” by Donna Chrobot-Mason,

Marian Ruderman, and Lisa Nishii they state that “... leadership plays a much more important

role in the success or failure of a diverse workforce and diversity issues… organizations can

leverage differences to become a competitive advantage rather than a liability” (Chrobot-Mason,

Nishii, and Ruderman, 2013 pg. 317) This reinforces the idea that there has to be an effective

leader in place in order to see any kind of positive results from employing a diverse team of

people. Without an effective leader, the team can quickly fall victim to cultural conflicts that

destroy morale and cohesion leading to severely reduced productivity and efficiency. This is

unacceptable in the Army considering that there are people’s lives at risk and a team has to be

operating at peak capacity in order to ensure that there are no mistakes being made that lead to

friendly casualties. Therefore, a leader that is able to manage these cultural differences is an

invaluable resource and can lead their culturally diverse team to success.

In module 1 of this course, we took a cultural intelligence test and I've since taken it

again in order to compare the results from module 1 to module 7’s results. Initially, the only

areas that I scored highly on were being able to adjust to a new culture and my perceived ability

to be able to socialize with people from other cultures. Since then, after all of the modules in this

course have exposed me to various cultures and how they operate and their beliefs, I scored high

on the original areas that I just mentioned and new areas such as; being able to enjoy interacting

with people from other cultures, I am more conscious of my cultural knowledge as I interact with

other people, and being able to adjust that knowledge of various cultures when interacting with a

new culture. The more specific areas of cultural knowledge such as body language, speaking,

arts and crafts, religion, and facial expressions are still somewhat of a weak area for me
considering that there are so many cultures to be aware of and they all likely have different

norms for these areas. However, considering that this course was only seven weeks long, the

change in my cultural IQ has been impressive and it will continue to grow as I gain more

experience with specific cultures and how they operate within their norms and values.
 References

Chrobot-Mason, D., Ruderman, M.N. & Nishii, L.H. (2013). Leadership in a Diverse

Workplace. Chapter 18 in The Oxford Handbook of Diversity and Work. ASU Library Holdings.

Chin, J. (2010). Introduction to the Special Issue on Diversity and Leadership.

Gotsis, G., Grimani, K. 2016. Diversity as an aspect of effective leadership: integrating

and moving forward.

Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2019, from

https://www.army.mil/info/organization/

Parker, K., Cilluffo, A., & Stepler, R. (2017, April 13). 6 facts about the U.S. military's

changing demographics. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-

tank/2017/04/13/6-facts-about-the-u-s-military-and-its-changing-demographics/