Five traps to avoid when leading a diverse team

by Joanne G. Sujansky

Today’s leader must motivate and retain a diverse talent base. Today's employees differ by race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual preference, lifestyle, physical and mental challenges, geographic origin, education, personality, values, experience and socioeconomic status.

Here are five common traps leaders fall into when leading diverse teams and some suggestions for avoiding these mistakes.

1. Not valuing differences
When leaders see differences as an advantage, they seek diversity in their teams and work hard to get different perspectives and opinions on the table. They naturally encourage individuality while promoting teamwork. This means they actively encourage team members to share ideas and to suggest options not already considered.

2. Failure to create an inclusive environment
Leaders need to encourage the involvement of all team members who, in turn, need to feel comfortable about offering suggestions and challenging ideas or practices. Leaders demonstrate inclusion by being open to new ideas, listening to different perspectives and encouraging creative problem solving.

An inclusive leader will challenge the group with comments like, “What other ways can we spin this idea?” “Who can suggest something totally radical to what we’ve done in the past?” A leader may also encourage participation by asking individuals to list ideas on cards to be submitted to a master brainstorm list.

3. Stereotyping
Leaders must avoid associating any behaviors, talents or lack of ability with any particular group. For instance, any leader who assumes that all women are emotional or that all Asians are excellent in math is guilty of prejudice and, further, does not acknowledge the uniqueness of each individual.

4. Not modeling the expected behaviors
Effective leaders demonstrate the behaviors they want from others. When they show respect for differences, develop trust in their teams and promote the valuing of differences, they set the standard for how others should behave. They should clearly communicate that disrespect for others will not be tolerated. If they observe inappropriate actions or hear disparaging comments, leaders need to be quick to confront the behavior and to suggest or encourage more appropriate ways to handle the situations.

5. Failure to coach
Leaders need to make expectations clear to all employees and coach them individually toward higher levels of performance and growth. Besides the individual coaching, leaders should help diverse teams with conflicts that may arise from their differences. The leader must also encourage team members to coach others. As coaching becomes part of the environment, new members can build mentoring relationships with others who can be helpful resources in the organization.

Talented individuals bring different perspectives and ideas to the workplace. It’s a leader’s job to attract and retain them. Avoiding these five traps can move diverse teams to their highest level of performance.

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