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CHAPTER 11: DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY 349
Now answer the following questions with respect to your perceived diversity.
What are your feelings about being different?

Which elements of diversity are you proud of? Why?

What element would you like to change to be less diverse? Why?

How do your differences contribute to a student team or work organization?

In Class: This exercise can be adapted for group discussion in class about underlying
diversity. The instructor can ask students to sit in teams of 3 to 5 members in a circle facing
each other. A student (focal person) then volunteers to describe the way he or she feels different
from others based on the list above. Other students take turns providing feedback to the focal
person on what the perceived differences mean to them with respect to team or class contribu-
tions. Each student takes a turn as the focal person, describing their feelings of being different
and hearing feedback from others on the perception and impact of those differences.
Here are the key questions for this exercise: What did you learn about perceived
diversity and interpersonal relations? What does it mean when our differences appear
larger to ourselves than they appear to others? How does personal diversity affect team
or organizational performance?
(A list can be written on the board.)

Leadership Development: Cases for Analysis

Northern Industries
Northern Industries asked you, a consultant in organizational change and diversity man-
agement, to help them resolve some racial issues that, according to president Jim Fisher,
are “festering” in their manufacturing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts. Northern
Industries is a family owned enterprise that manufactures greeting cards and paper and
plastic holiday decorations. It employs 125 people full time, including African-Americans
and Asians. About 80 percent of the full-time workforce is female. During the peak pro-
duction months of September and January (to produce orders primarily for Christmas/
Hanukah and Mother’s Day), the company runs a second shift and adds about 50 part-
time workers, most of whom are women and minorities.
All orders are batch runs made to customer specifications. In a period of a week, it
is not unusual for 70 different orders to be filled requiring different paper stocks, inks,