How to lead diverse teams effectively?

Globalisation and technological progress supported by the global supply chain have fundamentally reconsidered organisational behaviour and team effectiveness. Diverse teams are a prerequisite for the continued competitive advantage of information exchange for firms or non-commercial organisations. However, at the same time, the other side of the coin is that diversity in the team setup can lead to serious cohesion disadvantages since differences bring threats and may be a reason for conflicts. In this post, I want to share my thoughts on leading diverse teams effectively in a sequence of four steps. This algorithm also can be used as a guide for troubleshooting in case of a negative trend in team dynamics.

The first step for a leader should be to run an exercise to reflect and cluster his team under different lenses of diversity. Most effective for me during my career were two main categories such as “Surface diversity” and “Deep diversity” By “Surface diversity”, we should understand all discernible characteristics such as cultural background, nationality, age, gender, and hobbies. By “Deep diversity”, we should appreciate more personal aspects such as core values and beliefs, the motivation of the individual, and the social groups to which they belong. As a result of running such an exercise, different dimensions of diversity in the team should appear.

In the second step, having diversity clusters as input, a leader should determine existing subgroups, reflect on the available team, and evaluate team history and performance. A review of the current HR cases, if any, and a detailed analysis of the issues or problems highlighted as part of the one-to-one meetings should be considered as a source of valuable input. A key output of this step is to understand how the initial diversity, under the influence of existing processes, culture, and climate, is transformed into new subgroups and moods on the ground.

In the third step, having data about the subgroups gathered and collected, a diagnosis of the existing dominant processes and a prediction of the future ones should be made. We can distinguish two main types of dominant processes, such as “Intergroup bias” and “Information elaboration”. “Intergroup bias” should be understood as the trend of revaluation and a more positive outlook on in-group results rather than the out-group. By “Information elaboration” should be understood as the process of “exchanging, processing, and integrating task-relevant information and ideas”.That is why communications and tasks related questions should be analysed in different subgroups. We can conclude that the “Intergroup bias” dominates in those subgroups where less friendly touch and a large number of disagreements can be observed. “Information elaboration”, in turn, looms in the subgroup where there are many requests for clarification and the focus point is on the task rather than an individual.

In the fourth step, having defined the dominant process, a matching exercise should be executed to identify essential leadership behaviour to address the diversity issues. Similar to the diagnosis of the dominant processes we analysed under the lenses of communications and tasks-related activities, necessary leadership behaviour can be defined based on “Person-focused leadership” or “Task-focused leadership”. “Person-focused leadership” should be understood as the style of management where interactions between team members and their right attitudes and mindset should be a priority for the leader. “Task-focused leadership” should be understood as the style of management with optimisation and focus on providing maximum clarity and transparency for task-related processes, a comprehensive definition of the requirements, and implementation of concepts such as the definition of ready and the definition of done. All teambuilding-related activities can be beneficial and applicable here.

For the “Intergroup bias” dominant process, the complimentary match of the leadership style will be “Person-focused leadership”. This is because such a leadership style should create a shared identity, removing threats and increasing the team's trust.

For the “Information elaboration” dominant process, the supplementary leadership style will be “Task-focused leadership” because it will help clarify expected results and establish or improve the essential processes to achieve such results, supported by regular feedback procedures and more transparent accountability.?

To conclude and summarise, I'd like to stress that leadership behaviour is not something that can be defined once and applies to every team; oppositely, leadership behaviour should be flexible and changeable depending on the current stage of development and the needs of the team.

P>S

To jump deeper into this topic, I definitely can recommend the following literature:

1) Homan, A.C., Gündemir, S., Buengeler, C., van Kleef, G.A., 2020. Leading diversity: Towards a theory of functional leadership in diverse teams. A useful study of the skills and behaviours that contribute to leading diverse teams successfully

2) Sch?lmerich, F., Schermuly, C.C., Jürgen, D., 2016. How Leaders’ Diversity Beliefs Alter the Impact of Faultlines on Team Functioning.