The most essential for the leader is to understand and knowledge about other cultures. In this blog, I’ll be talking about business and the Deaf. “An ethic is a set of principles defining right conduct for a social group, a culture, or a nation.” (Abramson & Moran, 2018). From my experience and what I’m seeing that the leaders are not aware of Deaf individuals. American Sign Language is our value and the most essential to communicate. This blog aims to show why a leader should be knowledgeable and understand the Deaf community and cultures.
Heather McDonald made a horrible joke about using American Sign Language on her social media, an American actress. She was using fake sign language with a guy, unsure who he was. She is an actress and should not be mocking the Deaf community with “Fake Sign Language” on one of her podcasts on social media. She didn’t show her empathy or understanding of why American Sign Language should not be joking around. It is a big offensive to the Deaf community. She is a leader for her platform, and this is a perfect example that she does not understand other cultures.
Another example that I can share is that the White House promised to provide American Sign Language on the screen so the Deaf community can be involved. This is a perfect example from a leader, President Joe Biden’s administration. He provided an American Sign Language for the presses, and it was on the screen. It was the best news that we heard and understood the presses due to the pandemic for the last two years now. When the pandemic started, things were not easy for the Deaf community because Trump’s administration didn’t provide an American Sign Language. Fortunately, most states and major cities like Philadelphia, New York City, and more provided American Sign Language. Whoever provided an American Sign Language was the perfect example of good leadership for the Deaf community. “Employees view improvements and communication as a two-way street, with the leader being as influenced by his or her workforce as the workforce is by management.” (Abramson & Moran, 2018).
Overall, the leader needs to be knowledgeable and understand the Deaf community and cultures so the Deaf community can be part of everything. It would be great if leaders find great resources providing the best access to communication for the Deaf community or other cultures. However, there are no excuses for the leader to “not know” that there are no resources for different languages.
References:
Abramson, N. R., & Moran, R. T. (2018). Managing Cultural Differences: Global Leadership for the 21st Century (10th ed.). Routledge.
Li, L. (2021, January 27). White House briefings will now include an American Sign Language interpreter. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-house-briefings-will-now-include-an-american-sign-language-interpreter/
I appreciate your understanding of the Deaf community and masks.
Hello Laura,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I agree, not only do we need to understand other cultures, but everyone should realize how to communicate and share a message that can be understood by all. This includes the deaf or the blind etc. During the pandemic, everyone was quickly told to mask up, but they did not realize that the entire community can not do so for specific reasons. According to an online article from Think Global Health by author Laydia Haile, “In a recent Hearing Health Foundation survey, a reported 85 percent of hearing-impaired individuals experienced difficulty reading lips covered by face masks during the pandemic. While clear face masks can reduce lip-reading challenges, access and usage can vary by setting making it harder to navigate unfamiliar social contexts and communicate effectively.” (Haile, 2021) For example, the deaf community really relied on reading lips, so the mask would now make it challenging for them as they would be unable to read lips and fail to communicate and understand others as they have learned to focus on facial expressions and body language.
Works Cited
Haile, L. (2021, September 7). Hearing Loss, Social Isolation, and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Retrieved from ThinkGlobalHealth: https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/hearing-loss-social-isolation-and-covid-19-pandemic
Hello Laura,
I hope all is well – and thank you for sharing your Blog Post. I found your post insightful and knowledgeable.
After reading through your post, I became curious about how many individuals worldwide can be impacted by unethical behavior towards the death community. The World Health Organization (2021, para 1) reported the following, “Over 5% of the world’s population – or 430 million people – require rehabilitation to address their ‘disabling’ hearing loss (432 million adults and 34 million children). It is estimated that by 2050 over 700 million people – or one in every ten people – will have disabling hearing loss.” These numbers are eye-opening but are a stark reminder for world leaders to educate themselves and others on the deaf community.
Additional research brought my attention to articles regarding recent events related to COVID-19 and trends toward more reliance on electronic communication, specifically conference calls. This article reviewed how so many of us were on “zoom-overload”, often tuning out, speaking too little, or speaking too much – repeating ourselves – during these situations. However, an article from Harvard Business Review, shared how we can communicate effectively with technology by learning from the deaf community. Some tips the article provided that I was personally not aware of to help bridge communication included not wearing patterned clothing (it can deter from verbal hand cues – and sign language), using the chat feature to clarify high-level important information, and learning one new sign a meeting.
Thank you again for sharing this post – it personally prompted me to do research on the deaf community and culture.
Citations:
Nawaz, S., & Cordano, R. (2020, August 3). What deaf people can teach others about virtual communication. What Deaf People Can Teach Others About Virtual Communication. Retrieved October 31, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2020/08/what-deaf-people-can-teach-others-about-virtual-communication.
World Health Organization. (2021, April 1). Deafness and hearing loss. Retrieved October 31, 2021, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/deafness-and-hearing-loss.