discussion

 What did you find to be compelling and enlightening? And what other advice could you give from your experience.

Define the terms culture, ethnocentrism, and prejudice, and describe their relationship to one another.

According to Northouse (2018, Ch. 16), culture is a commonly shared set of beliefs, values, and norms of a group of people. Ethnocentrism is the human inclination to place our own group as the focus of how we see and judge other groups. According to Northouse (2018, Ch. 16), prejudice consists of judgments about others based on fixed attitudes without any factual basis to come to the determination. In relationship to each other, a sense of pride is in all three.  A pride of belonging to the group, or pride in finding faults with other groups. Pride comes with blind spots, and as leaders, blind spots will ultimately harm an organization. If for the sake of pride, decisions are made, they will be unsustainable, and the challenges of overcoming prideful decisions will be the undoing of the leader and the organization. A positive workplace culture that incorporates the bountiful goodness of different individual cultures without ethnocentrism or prejudice will be a powerful entity. If any amount of ethnocentrism or prejudice creeps into the organization, it will become cancerous.    

Case study 16.1: Briefly discuss how you see these concepts in action in the case.

Ms. Tanaka is at a crossroads in her leadership development and delivery. From a cultural standpoint, she is more assertive and aggressive than traditional females from Japan. For the sake of argument, although the case study does not specify, the assumption is that she is of Japanese descent. From an ethnocentric perspective, it appears that Ms. Tanaka’s delivery is more in tune with North American workers.  It appears that she identifies more with the scope that being assertive was expected, and thus not well received in a traditional Japanese work environment. The prejudice comes into view when she receives praise from a supervisor who then flips the praise to inform that she is perceived as pushy and not a team player. Had it been a male receiving kudos for performance, it seems unlikely that the male would receive negatives about what image peers have.

How would you coach leadership of the organization in the case to be more effective and supportive of diverse people?

Coaching leadership to embrace the totality of the cultural diversity policy would be the first step. If assimilation into the “ways” of American business is the intent, allowing a performer (Ms. Tanaka) to have a voice is essential. One foot in and one foot out is not the best way to integrate into a culture. If leadership is not comfortable with being all in, they should reconsider their policy and change it. The policy is not worth the paper it is written on if it does not apply to all. Policies that are inclusive and enforceable are best when leadership does their part in implementation and enforcement.