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Prior to serving in the military, I have primarily worked in sales and marketing in which I relied upon “strength in numbers” to dictate my day-to-day business as usual. One could also assume that these words apply to the armed forces, if thinking along the terms of a “million man army”. However, based on my experience, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Rather, the greater force lies with “strength in diversity”. While I am sure that most, if not all fellow service members automatically understand this meaning, I am also sure that there are others that don’t. To summarize how diversity brings strength to an organization, I have provided a quote below from Naval leadership during the the Southern University Commencement Speech (Diversity, n.d.):
“Over many years in this uniform, I have galvanized my belief that our security, in fact, the strength of our nation is derived from the power of our diversity. Diversity of race, yes, but also of gender, thought, and culture. In the military and in business, in classrooms, in the halls of Congress, in institutions of education like this. And many voices, many minds, contrasting views, and healthy debates all contribute to our collective capability. ”
It is the latter part of this quote, in which I believe strength manifests itself and given the diverse range of military members, it is equally important for leadership to address these differences and focus on the similarities. Combined, this relationship with diversity is what glues the organization together, and bridges the gaps, because each individual unique contribution, solidifies and creates and impenetrable force. However, it is not to go without saying that leading this force of diversity does not present its challenges. The most obvious way that leadership not only recognizes differences, but focuses on similarities is through performance orientation.
Northouse (2016) describes the performance orientation dimension of culture as the extent to which an organization or society encourages or rewards group members for improved performance and excellence (p. 434). In the military, it doesn’t matter your what walk of life you came from, what part of the globe, your gender, your race, etc. The ability and perform trumps every difference and thus at the same time, places everyone in the same category, all the while, each unique contribution that an individual can draw from are what contribute to the process in the pursuit of excellence. Basically, leadership is able to take an actual cultural dimension and apply it to an organization to foster excellence, even if that cultural dimension doesn’t originally coincide with an individual’s native culture. On that note, I am brain twisted and will end with a question to my readers: Are there any other cultural dimensions you can think of that leadership can use in a similar way to what I have described to help foster excellence in an organization?
References
Diversity (n.d.). United States Biography. Retrieved from http://www.navy.mil/navydata/leadership/quotes.asp?q=11&c=5
Northouse, Peter G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice. 7th ed. Sage Publications.
Diversity can be viewed as a strength in any group. And I agree with you that to find the similarities in a group can strengthen the bond in differences. I very much like the idea of “collective capability” that you provide in the quote. While diversity can be a strong aspect of a group, the acceptance of diversity and understanding of the framework for understanding differences is where that strength holds its roots. Group members must strike a balance between their individual contribution and the ideals that the group holds for progression, ie. source of identity and means of achievement. (Penn State, 2015) Another important aspect to consider would be the universal attributes that the group is able to identify with. These are the aspects of the group dynamic that allow for the group to function at a diversified level.
To answer the question that you prompted, another cultural dimension that can be identified at a level of diversity could be in the idea of diversified roles within a group and the members of the group that are most adept to successfully complete those roles. This again draws of that idea of “collective capability”. As an example I recently worked over the Thanksgiving holiday during the Black Friday sales event. The staff was all provided with different assignments for the event. These assignments were typically given in parallel to the employees strong suits. The level of diversity in the staff as a whole allowed for individual tasks for the event to be carried out successfully by the individual most suited for that task. Some employees were designated to supervise, some gave out wrist bands for merchandise, some cleaned up as the event progressed and some performed crowd control duties. The diversified skills and knowledge of individual employees is how the management team assigned positions for the event. And I am happy to report that the Black Friday event went very smoothly thanks to the abilities of the diversified staff and the ability of the management team to recognize individual attributes and organize the event staffing accordingly.
Works Cited
Penn State University Course Creator.(2015). Lesson 13:Leadership and Diversity.
Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/psych485/001/content/13_lesson/06_page.html