Fluent Essays

1) Diversity Explore how the racial and ethnic composition of youth in the United States is changing. Include the following in your post: Identify the implications of growing racial and ethnic diversity in America. Analyze how you will ensure that, as a leader and advocate in the human behavior field, you are multiculturally competent and prepared to work with diverse youth. Examine various ways you can increase your multicultural competence. Evaluate a variety of resources available when working with these diverse populations of youth. Provide validation and support for assertions by including relevant examples and supporting evidence. 2) Leadership and Diversity Review the Eagly and Chin (2010) article on leadership and diversity. Then, complete the following: Answer how many cultural groups you identify with as an adult.Analyze the cultural groups that were meaningful to you as a child. Did these change over time?Analyze how your own cultural identity, past and present, will help you to become an effective leader in the human behavior field.Provide validation and support for assertions by including relevant examples and supporting evidence. contentserver.pdf no_child_misunderstood_enhanc.pdf multicultural_dimensions_in_ch.pdf _s2.0_s0190740913002582_main.pdf contentserver__1_.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview Diversity and Leadership in a Changing World This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Alice H. Eagly Jean Lau Chin Scholars of leadership have infrequently addressed the diversity of leaders and followers in terms of culture, gender, race and ethnicity, or sexual orientation. This omission has weakened the ability of research and theory to address some of the most provocative aspects of contemporary leadership, including (a) the limited access of individuals from diverse identity groups to leadership roles; (b) the shaping of leaders’ behavior by their dual identities as leaders and members of gender, racial, ethnic, or other identity groups; and (c) the potential of individuals from groups formerly excluded from leadership roles to provide excellent leadership because of their differences from traditional leaders. In addressing such issues, we argue that the joining of the two bodies of theory and research— one pertaining to leadership and the other to diversity— enriches both domains of knowledge and provides guidelines for optimizing leadership in contemporary organizations and nations. Keywords: diversity, ethnicity, gender, leadership, sexual orientation D uring the 2008 presidential race, public attention to the importance of gender and race for leadership escalated dramatically in the United States. When a White woman and a biracial man born to a White American mother and a Black Kenyan father emerged as the Democratic front-runners, and a White woman was selected as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, questions about how gender and race might affect the election and presidential leadership preoccupied journalists and dominated many conversations. Never before had Americans’ public discussions about leadership been so intensely focused on the confluence of gender and race. To shed light on these issues, people might reasonably have been expected to turn to scholars of leadership. Given abundant theories and empirical research pertaining to leadership, it seems that its theorists and researchers might have become major contributors to the nation’s conversations about these candidates. Instead of shaping discussions about these issues, psychologists and other researchers specializing in leadership remained relatively silent. This silence was foreshadowed by the complete lack of attention to issues of diversity in the special issue on leadership that appeared in the January 2007 American Psychologist. This omission also emerged in a different mode in a recently published scholarly handbook on leadership (Antonakis, Cianciolo, & Sternberg, 2004), in which two among the book’s 14 chapters did address these concerns. One chapter pertained to culture 216 Northwestern University Adelphi University (Den Hartog & Dickson, 2004), and another to gender (Eagly & Carli, 2004). Consideration of diversity was thereby segregated from the remainder of the volume and given scant, if any, attention in the chapters on leadership theories and key topics such as leader effectiveness and development. We and the other authors of this 2010 special issue on diversity and leadership are striving to reduce this troubling intellectual segregation. When organizational and political leaders in the United States were homogeneously White men, mainly from elite backgrounds, their gender, race, and ethnicity were unremarkable. However, much is changing in the United States and globally. Although White men still predominate as leaders, the increasing representation of women and of racial and ethnic minorities is unmistakable in the United States. For example, among chief executives of all U.S. organizations in the public and private sectors, 23\% are women, 4\% are African American, 4\% are Asian, and 5\% are Hispanic (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009). Among the members of the 111th Congress, 17\% are women, 8\% are African American, 1\% are Asian, and 6\% are Hispanic (Infoplease, 2009). Although all of these groups have remained underrepresented in these and other leadership roles relative to their numbers in the U.S. population, members of these groups occupy considerably more of these leadership roles than in any earlier historical period (Zweigenhaft & Domhoff, 2006). Simultaneously, the growing diversity among followers challenges all leaders to take into account the perspectives of people representing backgrounds, beliefs, and mores different from their own. Despite the growing diversity among leaders, the stillpresent underrepresentation of women and of racial and ethnic minorities in leadership roles demands an explanation. Could this underrepresentation represent the lack of qualifications of members of these groups? Or could it represent discriminatory barriers whereby White men have preferential access to leadership roles compared with equally qualified women and racial/ethnic minorities? These questions have long been researched, often by economists and sociologists. These researchers have asked whether observable human capital variables (e.g., educaAlice H. Eagly, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University; Jean Lau Chin, Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alice H. Eagly, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, 2029 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: eagly@northwestern.edu April 2010 ● American Psychologist © 2010 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/10/$12.00 Vol. 65, No. 3, 216 –224 DOI: 10.1037/a0018957 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Alice H. Eagly tion, training, job experience) and structural factors (e.g., occupational segregation) account for the lesser workplace advancement and lower wages among women and minorities. The nearly unanimous conclusions are that such variables account for only a portion of the gender and race gaps in wages and promotions and that discrimination is a contributing factor (e.g., Arrow, 1998; Blau & Kahn, 2006; Grodsky & Pager, 2001; Maume, 1999). Adopting a different approach to detecting discrimination, other social scientists, including psychologists, have contributed experiments that equate job applicants in all respects other than the attribute (race or gender) that is suspected to trigger discrimination. Although many of these experiments involve presenting resumes to students and other participant groups, other experiments are far more naturalistic audit studies in which job applications or actual applicants are presented to employers (see Pager, 2007; Riach & Rich, 2002). Experiments of these varying types reveal discrimination harmful to women, although not in female-dominated jobs such as secretary, where this bias reverses to disadvantage men (see meta-analysis by Davison & Burke, 2000). Experimental studies have shown that discrimination is particularly potent against mothers (Correll, Benard, & Paik, 2007; Heilman & Okimoto, 2008) and African Americans (e.g., Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004). Psychology of Discrimination Against Leaders From Diverse Groups Why would people engage in discrimination that makes it difficult for individuals from certain groups to serve in positions of leadership? Employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin became illegal with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of April 2010 ● American Psychologist 1964 (1988). Under many conditions, discrimination against workers with caregiving responsibilities is also unlawful (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2007). Most important, job discrimination violates the consensual American value of equality of opportunity. Despite these considerations, discrimination remains commonplace in large part because it continues to proceed in covert, subtle, and unintentional forms even when its more blatant expressions are restrained (e.g., Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004). People can unknowingly discriminate by means of “mindless” processes that operate beyond their conscious attentional focus, all the while thinking that they are merely choosing the best person for the job or otherwise acting in an unbiased manner (Bargh, 2007; Fazio, 2001; Lane, Kang, & Banaji, 2007). How does this type of discrimination come about? Our beliefs about the attributes of social groups often bias our judgments of individual group members (von Hippel, Sekaquaptewa, & Vargas, 1995). The potential for prejudice is present when social perceivers hold a stereotype about a social group that is incongruent with the attributes that they believe are required for success in leadership roles. Regardless of whether an individual from such a social group actually fits the group’s stereotype, people’s subjective construals of the individual may lead them to believe that she or he does not “have what it takes” for success in a leadership role. This result constitutes prejudice—that is, a less favorable attitude toward persons who are stereotypically mismatched with the requirements of a leader role than toward those who are matched (Eagly & Diekman, 2005; Heilman, 2001). This less favorable attitude often results in discriminatory behaviors. To understand who is at risk for this type of inequitable treatment in relation to leadership roles, it is first necessary to understand how people think about leaders. Although ideas about leadership are influenced by situations and organizational cultures (Lord, Brown, Harvey, & Hall, 2001), people generally believe that leaders are ambitious, confident, self-sufficient, and dominant, that is, well endowed with agentic and competent qualities (Powell, Butterfield, & Parent, 2002; V. E. Schein, 2001). For example, the role of business executive is thought to require attributes such as being action-oriented, decisive, and competitive (e.g., Martell, Parker, Emrich, & Crawford, 1998). Management theorists have regarded behaviors such as competing with peers, imposing wishes on subordinates, and behaving assertively as prototypical of the managerial role (Miner, 1993). Despite the inclusion of some expectations about considerate and supportive qualities, most managerial roles are strongly infused with cultural masculinity, especially as these roles are construed by men (e.g., Atwater, Brett, Waldman, DiMare, & Hayden, 2004; V. E. Schein, 2001). And how do people think about the members of groups that have had limited access to leadership roles—in particular, women and members of minority groups based on race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation? In hegemonic American culture, such individuals are regarded as unlike leaders in some important respects. People perceive women 217 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Jean Lau Chin not as particularly agentic but as communal, possessing traits such as kindness, warmth, and gentleness, which seem especially tailored for subordinate and service roles (Kite, Deaux, & Haines, 2008; Newport, 2001). The gay male stereotype partially overlaps this female stereotype, since gay men are viewed as feminine in personality and behavior (Madon, 1997). Racial stereotypes also contain attributes disadvantageous for leadership: African Americans are stereotyped as antagonistic and lacking competence, Hispanics as uneducated and unambitious, and Asian Americans as quiet and unassertive (e.g., Madon et al., 2001; Niemann, Jennings, Rozelle, Baxter, & Sullivan, 1994). Note that stereotypical beliefs, such as the gentleness ascribed to women, need not be negative to be disqualifying in relation to leadership roles. In fact, as Pittinsky (2010, this issue) argues, positive and negative beliefs about outgroups often coexist. Such beliefs often lurk below the surface, so that a conscious denial of stereotypes can coexist with unconscious mental associations that affirm stereotypes (e.g., Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004). Given the prevalence of such stereotypes and their tendency to operate below conscious awareness, fully qualified individuals from “outsider” groups often appear to lack the “right stuff” for leadership. Perceived as deficient in essential qualities, they have reduced access to leadership roles (Heilman & Eagly, 2008; Leslie, King, Bradley, & Hebl, 2008). Racial and cultural stereotypes have other pernicious effects on diverse individuals’ opportunities for leadership because they can act as self-fulfilling prophecies that undermine these individuals’ willingness to put themselves forward as potential leaders. Research on stereotype threat has demonstrated such an effect. Specifically, when participants were presented with gender-stereotypical portrayals of women prior to being given a group task, the 218 women (but not the men) subsequently were less interested in being the group leader and more interested in being a follower (Davies, Spencer, & Steele, 2005). The activation of cultural stereotypes inconsistent with widely accepted ideals of leadership thus can undermine leadership opportunity not only by eliciting doubts about stereotyped individuals’ leadership abilities but also by making them personally anxious about confirming these doubts and therefore wary about taking on leadership roles. Tendencies to like and associate with others who are similar to oneself exacerbate the biases that flow from cultural stereotypes (e.g., Byrne & Neuman, 1992). Because similarity promotes liking, entrée to important networks can be diminished by ingroup preference even more than by outgroup suspicion. Yet access to influential social networks is essential to building the social capital that allows people to emerge as leaders and become effective in leadership roles (e.g., Brass, 2001). In addition, when women and members of racial or ethnic minority groups gain positions of leadership, some people resent and resist the overturning of the expected and usual hierarchical relations between groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). All of these factors lessen the access of women and of racial and ethnic minorities to leadership roles. Questions About How Leaders From Diverse Groups Lead In addition to the issue of access to positions of leadership, questions arise concerning how leaders from diverse identity groups lead—that is, whether their differences from the majority group make a difference in behavior. Others’ expectations about how women or members of racial and ethnic minority groups should behave may constrain their leadership. Also, the social identities that represent people’s psychological relationships to their social groups can constrain their behavior (Frable, 1997; Phinney, 1990). The influences of others’ expectations and of personal identities are a frequent theme in the articles in this special issue. For example, Cheung and Halpern (2010) explain how some women import mothering metaphors into their understanding of leadership. Fassinger, Shullman, and Stevenson (2010) discuss whether the assumptions that leaders and followers make about sexuality constrain or enhance the capacities that lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgendered leaders bring to leadership. Sanchez-Hucles and Davis (2010) suggest that identities pertaining to race and ethnicity affect the ways in which individuals lead. Leader Behavior The case of women’s leadership has been extensively researched (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Eagly & Karau, 2002). On the one hand, female leaders are expected to take charge and approach leadership in the same ways as their male colleagues. On the other hand, female leaders are expected to deliver the warmth and friendliness that is culturally prescribed for women. Simultaneously impressing others as a good leader and a good woman is an accomplishment that is not necessarily easy to achieve, and common pitfalls April 2010 ● American Psychologist This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. involve seeming to be “too masculine” or “too feminine.” Members of other “outsider” identity groups also encounter expectations that complicate their performance as leaders (see, e.g., Banks & Mona, 2007, for leaders with disabilities and Parker, 2005, for African American female executives). Negotiating the masculine and feminine apparently tends to push women leaders toward a relatively androgynous style of leadership that incorporates culturally masculine and feminine elements. Research thus has demonstrated that women have a somewhat more democratic and participative leadership style than men, perhaps because people resist women who take charge in a particularly assertive manner. Female leaders are also somewhat more transformational in their leadership style than male leaders, especially in mentoring and developing workplace colleagues. And somewhat more than men, women adopt a positive managerial approach that trades on rewards rather than a negative approach that trades on reprimands. All of these tendencies have emerged in meta-analyses of studies of the leadership styles of women and men (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003; Eagly & Johnson, 1990; van Engen & Willemsen, 2004). Consistent with the power of leader roles to constrain leaders’ behavior is the finding that typical differences in the leadership styles of women and men are quite small when they occupy the same managerial role. Moreover, despite stereotype-based suspicions that women might not be effective leaders, the ways in which women differ from men in leadership style are generally associated with good managerial practices in current-day organizations (e.g., Judge & Piccolo, 2004). In most contexts, top-down, command-and-control leaders no longer provide the most effective or admired type of leadership (Eagly & Carli, 2004, 2007; Kanter, 1997). In response to these changes, scholars of leadership have increasingly emphasized that effective leadership emerges from inspiring, motivating, and mentoring followers. Such leadership is embedded in interpersonal exchanges and dialogues in organizations in which leadership is distributed throughout the organization, as both followers and leaders take responsibility for adapting to challenges (e.g., Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Spillane, 2006). There has been little systematic investigation of how group memberships other than gender affect leaders’ behavior. On the one hand, leaders and followers from diverse identity groups generally face some degree of pressure to behave like leaders from the majority group. On the other hand, leaders from diverse groups no doubt continue to express their own cultures to some extent. These issues have considerable complexity in the United States, where immigration has increased population diversity and created immigrant subcultures that differ both from the majority culture and the immigrants’ cultures of origin (Deaux, 2006). In the articles in this special issue and other accounts, hints of this cultural shaping of leadership abound—for example, in claims that African American women have an especially self-confident, assertive style (Sanchez-Hucles April 2010 ● American Psychologist & Davis, 2010) and that Asian leaders manifest a collectivistic orientation that emphasizes harmony among group members (Cheung & Halpern, 2010; Kawahara, Esnil, & Hsu, 2007) and benevole ... Purchase answer to see full attachment