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326 PART 4: THE LEADER AS A RELATIONSHIP BUILDER
Leading People Who Aren’t Like You

You’ve recently gotten the promotion you’ve longed for, worked for, and know
you deserve. The job of managing the New England district office of Allyn &

Freeson Investments required relocating, but your family enthusiastically made
the move. Your children seem to be adjusting well to their new school and your
wife likes her job at the local bank. If only things were as smooth at Allyn &
Freeson. The all-white staff seems to be throwing up roadblocks in every direc-
tion. Nobody seems to even talk to you unless they’re asked a direct question or
forced to make a response to your greeting of “Good morning.” Traveling to the
branch offices isn’t much better, and many of the local managers have inexpli-

cably stopped sending in their weekly reports. You knew being the fi rst African-
American district manager in the area was going to be a bit of a challenge, but
the sense of isolation you feel is more powerful than you anticipated. Even in the

branch offices, you’ve met only two other African-Americans, and they’re in
low-level clerical positions. “Even Noah’s ark had two animals that were exactly
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alike,” you moan to your wife over dinner one evening.
Welcome to the real world of diverse leadership. As more women and minori-
ties move up the management hierarchy, they’re often finding it a lonely road to

travel. Even for those who have experienced a degree of racism or sexism at lower
organizational levels, stepping into positions of higher authority can
Action Memo
be a real eye-opener. Racism and sexism in the workplace often show
up in subtle ways—the disregard by a subordinate for an assigned
Complete the exercise in Leader’s Self-
chore; a lack of urgency in completing an important assignment; the
Insight 11.1 to learn about the values you
ignoring of comments or suggestions made at a team meeting. Many
and not like you.
minority leaders struggle daily with the problem of delegating author-
will bring to leading people who are diverse
ity and responsibility to employees who show them little respect.
How does an African-American or Hispanic manager lead an
all-white workforce, or a female manager lead a workforce of mostly
males? What happens when a 32-year-old is promoted to a position of author-
ity over a group of mostly 50- to 60-year-old middle managers? These questions
are being asked more and more often in today’s diverse organizations. Consider
Stanley O’Neal, CEO of Merrill Lynch, the only African-American running a
major Wall Street company; Rachelle Hood, the African-American woman hired
to transform Denny’s Restaurants from an icon of racism after a series of dis-
crimination lawsuits; or Donna Dennison, who in 2006 was elected the fi rst ever
female sheriff in the state of Maine and leads a largely male department. These
leaders face enormous challenges. In many organizations, people who fall out-
side the traditional U.S. model of the middle-aged white male manager have a
hard time being successful because the organizational climate doesn’t genuinely
support and value diversity. By the end of this chapter, we hope you will better
understand some of the challenges, as well as some leadership strategies that can
help make organizations more inclusive and provide a better working environ-
ment for all people.

Challenges Minorities Face

Valuing diversity and enabling all individuals to develop their unique talents is
Ethnocentrism difficult to achieve. Most people, including leaders, have a natural tendency to-
Ethnocentrism

the belief that one’s own culture
the belief that one’s own culture
and subculture are inherently
and subculture are inherently ward ethnocentrism, which refers to the belief that one’s own culture and subcul-
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superior to other cultures
superior to other cultures ture are inherently superior to other cultures. Many leaders relate to people in