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Meeting the Leadership Challenge of a Diverse and Pluralistic Workplace: Implications of Self-Efficacy for Diversity Training

June 27, 2003 

"Research suggests that situations reflecting serious overt and subtle discrimination continue to exist in the work environment.  Grossman (2000) suggests that in spite of organizational efforts to manage diversity very little has changed in the experiences of culture, ethnicity, race, and gender groups.  A new leadership effort must emerge to address diversity issues.  To effectively integrate diversity in the 21^st century work place, this new leadership focus must rely on proven theory based approaches.  Diversity and initiatives require examination and reformulation in order to meet the increasing demands of work environments that are 'colored' by differences.

 The time has come to address the question: 'what type of leadership behavior and philosophy is needed to meet the challenge of a diverse and pluralistic workplace?  One attempt to respond to this question by discussing and applying one of the numerous leadership approaches popularized in the literature (e.g., charismatic, transformation, or Superleadership) (Avolio & Bass, 1988; Bass, 1990; Casimir, 2001).  However, the determination of specific leadership styles and theories only provide partial response to the pressing concern of diversity effectiveness.  Diversity awareness and promotion is a multifaceted phenomenon that could be positively affected by various leadership perspectives and organizational strategies (Richards, 2000).    Using Bandura's (1986) conceptualization of self-efficacy, diversity self-efficacy (DSE) can be defined as an individual's confidence in his/her ability to effectively acquire and utilize cognitive and other resources to facilitate appropriate response to diversity in the workplace to promote a positive diversity climate.

 Leaders of organizational change have not abandoned the effort to create a workplace that is free of discrimination and that values diversity.  Large numbers of U.S. organizations continue to expend vast resources in efforts to create and provide a work environment that is free from discrimination and one that promotes the effective use of diversity in the workplace.  The benefits of such expenditures derive from numerous rationales centering on organization competitive advantage that encompasses organizational growth and survival (Ellis & Sonnenfeld, 1994).  The ability of organizations to create and sustain competitive advantage through diversity requires refocused leadership with respect to organizational change strategies aimed at managing diversity.

 Diversity is an important employee performance area for organizations whose markets and clients dictate a need for diversity competence.  Komake, Zlotnick and Jensen (1986) suggest three types of supervisory behaviors specifically related to employee performance.  These levels are 1) performance antecedents, 2) performance monitoring, and 3) performance consequences.  Performance antecedents refer to the preparation including training and instruction provided for successful task accomplishment.  Performance monitoring points to data collection and the evaluation of goal attainment and task accomplishment.  And, performance consequences relate to outcomes and rewards following task accomplishment.  Consideration of all three of these behaviors has implications for building and facilitating the enhancement of diversity self-efficacy.

 In terms of performance antecedents, diversity training has the potential for better alignment with organizational diversity goals by importing self-efficacy principles in the training setting (Mager 1992).  To impact individual diversity self-efficacy, diversity training must incorporate mastery, modeling and observational learning experiences.  The opportunity to practice, identify and rectify mistakes as a part of the training will help to ensure transfer of acquired skills back to the work setting.  The incorporation of self-efficacy principles in diversity training and building diversity self-efficacy facilitate individual specific diversity leadership.  It is proposed that if individual organizational members can maximize their diversity self-efficacy, then they can effectively handle volatile diversity situations at the lowest level.

 Diversity of self-efficacy encompasses an element of individual self-evaluation and self-monitoring of personal actions and motivational outlooks.  In this regard, performance monitoring becomes more a function of the individual employee's self-efficacy mechanisms rather than supervisory imposed monitoring practices and procedures.  Enhanced diversity self-efficacy assists the employee in self-evaluation and regulating his/her responses to persons from different backgrounds and diversity related situations.  By facilitating effacious beliefs regarding diversity and providing the appropriate environment for continued mastery and modeling, employees acquire leadership skills that enable them to create change in their specific work environments.  Additionally, leadership exercised by employees can relieve the organization of reliance on super-ordinate compliance and monitoring systems.  Enhanced diversity self-efficacy, perceptions of ability and confidence to successfully promote positive diversity climates, appears to have great potential to bridge the existing gap between diversity training and diversity performance.

 Leaders in organizations have implemented a number of methods in attempts to change the impact of diversity on workforce interactions and operational processes (Wentling & Palma-Riva, 1998).  These methods include financial incentive systems, diversity as a component of performance evaluations, discipline to enforce individual employee accountability, executive level coordination and monitoring, and recognition and awards programs.  The concept of diversity education or training has become the primary and overarching change initiative for the vast majority of organizations (Johnson & O'Mara, 1992).

 Leaders of diversity programming must present a new focus if diversity training is to be maximally effective in changing the workplace experience with respect to race, ethnicity, gender, age and culture.  Diversity self-efficacy refers to an individual's judgment of confidence in his/her ability to effectively acquire and utilize cognitive and other resources to facilitate appropriate response to diversity in the workplace to promote a positive diversity climate.

 Leaders must sift through evidence and assertions that question the utility of diversity training.  Numerous practioners and students of diversity, for example have called for the total elimination of diversity training programs as processes for change (Hemphill & Haines, 1997; Thomas, 1994; Gordon, 1992).  The question of whether to eliminate diversity training should receive a resonant negative response, particularly in light of the continued instances of inappropriate employee behavior; increase in EEOC complaints (Mathews, 1998); research results concerning perceptions of ill treatment in the workplace due to race, ethnicity, gender and age differences (Cox & Nkomo, 1991; Ohlott, Rudeman & McCauley, 1994; Talley-Ross, 1995; Grossman, 2000); and documented concrete advancement ceilings for white women and women of color (Catalyst, 1999).

 Often employees who strive to effectively change and adapt work behaviors find that they must do so in spite of peer reactions and organizational structures (Cox &  Beale, 1997).  Bandura's conception of the self-efficacy construct and subsequent corollary research indicate that self-efficacy judgments are based on four principal sources of information (Bandura, 1982; Wood & Bandura, 1989; Gist & Mitchell, 1992).  Enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and physiological/psychological arousal comprise these basic information sources available to the individual (Bandura,  1977, 1982; Gist, 1987; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998b).

 Organizational leaders wishing to enhance employees' abilities to embrace and actively promote inclusionary practices must not just describe behavioral expectations for employees with respect to diversity.  But, in addition and most critically, diversity leaders must examine the personal mechanisms and corollary processes that can influence individual levels of diversity self-efficacy.  For diversity training to be effective those receiving such training must perceive themselves as being capable of regulating and directing their actions towards diversity.

 The important impact to the organization of higher levels of diversity self-efficacy lies in the individual's transfer of learning from the training experience back to the work environment (Tracey, Tannebaum & Kavenaugh, 1995).  Training design intersects with self-efficacy in terms of content and methods incorporated in the instructional experience d(Noe & Wilk, 1993).  More specifically, sources of self-efficacy information in the form of enactive mastery, vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion can be included in the training design and development stages.

 A major workplace dilemma for many organizations is determining methods and processes for encouraging and harnessing the creative energies and talents that result from a diverse employee base.  The need for innovative ideas and non-traditional thinking continues to be demonstrated.  Training and instruction regarding appropriate techniques and methods to respond positively to diversity have and continue to be the fulcrum of organizational diversity efforts (Baytos, 1995).  However, definitive processes to ensure application of skills learned in the training environment have been elusive.  The stability of the research and the positive relationship between self-efficacy and work performance (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998, a) provide ample indication of the usefulness of the self-efficacy construct in diversity training.

 Effective 21^st century diversity efforts require leadership that seeks to empower individual employees to truly function in the change agent role.  Such empowerment includes providing opportunities fro the enhancement of the skills and confidence to successfully navigate the often tempestuous waters that engulf the integration of diverse workers and operational perspectives.  The new leadership focus in the diversity arena must come to recognize what is needed to attain and sustain the motivation (effort and persistence) to change work environments.  By fostering diversity self-efficacy (DSE) through diversity training, significant progress may be made in meeting today's leadership challenge of promoting and sustaining a truly diverse and pluralistic workplace (Combs, 2002, p. 1-17)."

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Reference: Combs, G.M. (2002).  Meeting the leadership challenge of a diverse and pluralistic workplace: implications of self-efficacy for diversity training. The Journal of Leadership Studies, 8, No 4.

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Created: 2008-01-09, Updated: 2009-02-17