1. Prepared by :
Alona Baranova-Mokhort
Master’s of International Management
The Faculty of Economics and
Management (ММ-601зі)
Scientific supervisor: Kubareva I.V., Ph.D.
DISCRIMINATION IN
LEADERSHIP
IN THE CONTEXT OF
HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
IN INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS
2. CONTENT
❏ Relevance of work
❏ Problem statement
❏ Research results
❏ Conclusion
❏ Bibliography
3. Relevance of work
➔ World Globalization
➔ Work Migration Process
➔ Diversification (customs, traditions, and the national boards
overall)
➔ New Leaders’ Generation
7. Avoiding Discrimination will result in:
❏ Better Work Performance (Employees’ Engagement)
❏ Loyalty to a Leader
❏ Trust & Respect at Workplace
❏ Shared Vision & Common Goals
9. Bibliography
1. Bolman, L. & Deal, T. (1997). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice and leadership (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
2. Heifetz, R. A. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Boston, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
3. Letter “From the CEO,” Jim Clifton, Gallup CHairman and CEO. “State of the American Workplace: Employee
Engagement Thoughts for U.S. Business Leaders,” by Gallup, 2013.
4. Lipman, V. (2015). Type B Manager (1st ed.). Place of publication not identified: Perigee. ISBN: 978-0-7352-0543-7
5. Nahavandi, A. (1997). Participative Management and Leading Teams. In The art and science of leadership (4th ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
6. Pffeifer, S. (2006, August 29). Duke TIP. https://tip.duke.edu/node/806
7. Podesta, C. (n.d.). Taking advantage of leadership opportunities
http://www.agiftofinspiration.com.au/stories/leadership/Advantage.shtml
8. Turnbull, K. (n.d.). Leadership in Context: Lessons from New Leadership Theory and Current Leadership Development
Practice. http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/Leadership-in-context-leadership-theory-current-leadership-
development-practice-Kim-Turnbull-James-The-Kings-Fund-May-2011.pdf
9. Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in organizations (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson. ISBN13: 9780132424318 Gender Diversity, and
Cross-Cultural Leadership, Ch.15, p. 456
10. White, L., & Jacobs, E. (1992). Liberating our children, liberating our nations. Report of the Aboriginal Committee.
British Columbia: Community Panel, Family and Children’s Services.
Editor's Notes
It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact of the world becoming more global, as a result, the work migration increases significantly, which means the diversification in terms of customs, traditions, and the national boards overall, thus, the necessity of the world-educated leaders arises in order to effectively lead the organizations. The importance of the above-mentioned is that not many leaders of the old generation are following the development processes in management, therefore, not aware of cross-cultures approaches, and ways of leading globally, which can make it a problem for businesses, especially international organizations.
Recent developments in the field of Management and Leadership have led to a broader interest in terms of discrimination. We usually talk about leadership and discrimination separately, moreover, the topic of the second is merely discussed in Eastern European, Middle East, and Asian countries, especially in terms of the nationality and cultural discrimination. The importance of this topic is that we need to become more familiar and respectful to other cultures in order to grow the prosperity of the international business and connections.
To begin with, it is a known fact that “People leave managers, not companies” (Lipman, 2015). Managers have the power and are the ones who make decisions, support the reputation and productivity of the organizations, and motivate employees. Therefore, for a business owner - the decision of choosing the right manager should in the first place. According to the Letter “from the CEO” by Jim Clifton: “the single biggest decision you make in your job - bigger than all the rest - is who you name manager. When you name the wrong person manager, nothing fixes that bad decision. Not compensation, not benefits - nothing”.
Effective human resource management closely depends on leadership abilities and skills of managers. Real leader will not apply above-mentioned mistakes in their communication and collaboration with employees. The risk of making such mistakes grows even more in the context of globalization since leaders work with multicultural groups. We assume, that discrimination is on the base of these problems
The above-described leadership implications prove the crucial part of choosing a suitable leader by any business owner. Moreover, referring to the cross-cultural context of leadership, the additional implication in terms of being respectful and non-discriminative to all the cultures, genders, values, ages and more - definitely applies in a nowadays business world. The last one can be inborn, however, most of the times this trait gets developed over the time and experience while being involved in the sphere of International Business. The importance of avoiding the discrimination in the organization is that the employees will be more comfortable to work with each other, as well as engage more in the companies’ activities and work, which will cause its positive impact on the overall efficiency of a business.
A shared vision occurs when different people have the same ideas and forces, but it starts from an individual's view. The vision also can be called as a Big Picture of the company and is related to an organization's mission, which is a reason for a firm's existence. Usually, the common vision is already created by the organization, but it is necessary to give individuals the chance to participate in building their shared view, especially for international companies. For instance, the workers work for the same international organization from branches in their countries (e.g. China, India, Canada etc), hence, the managers cannot apply same approaches and communication among them; same can be mentioned about customs, goals, and work attitudes. There is never one vision; everyone can have own ideas and opinions, and these ideas are not grouped into a right or wrong ones because they also can be improved by other like-minded people.
To conclude, every leader should have a self-awareness, ability to adopt, and critical thinking to make decisions and solve problems (Bolman & Deal, 1997). A leadership approach is about the adaptation strategy that leads to an effective leadership to be in existence within a given context. The adaptation of the method is based on the features and circumstances of the environment. The cultural difference does not let the same approach transfer from one culture to another. Thus, the context of one culture cannot be transferred to another cultural context; however, a given leadership approach can be adapted to another culture, but may require some correction (White & Jacobs, 1992).
