Nine Tips for Diversity Leaders

This morning, a discussion on LinkedIn finally grabbed my attention. An editor wanted to know (paraphrasing) what tips the group members have for future diversity leaders in terms of necessary skills and expertise. It was the type of question that a nurturing personality has difficulty letting get overlooked. So I responded.

Skills:

• Ability to listen carefully, process the information, and respond with an appropriate response. Most would call all of that "good communication skills" but communication involves more than just talking at people or reciting anecdotes about 'this happened to me.'
  
• Ability to operate as a professional without projecting an air of pride or smugness. Become a beacon and role model but first, and most importantly, be human.
  
• Use your maturity. It's important to have the maturity to deal with human nature and various age demographics in order to learn from them as well as convey useful information to them.
  
• Communication is critical. If your message isn't getting through, take some time to review what you're saying and how you're saying it. Then modify your strategy so that the vocabulary and voice are not only understandable but also heard. Also consider aligning yourself with someone who more closely identifies with your target demographic so that they are speaking the language. Then the message more easily reaches its destination and becomes effective.
  

Expertise:

• Choose a specialty area and learn as much about it as possible. The learning should not be solely classroom- and textbook-centric. Those are clinical settings based on what others are telling you. In many instances, the best experience is to be out in the field interacting with the people and situations that constitute your specialty area. In order to gain that experience while still learning your specialty, it would be good to do volunteer work at a nonprofit that specializes in your calling or intern for them.
  
• There are many ways to gain an appreciation of the needs and wants of your audience. Some people have walked and lived among their specialty constituency (sometimes not on a willing basis). That can be extremely dangerous if it's done with no safety tether (others outside of the situation who can help you get out of harm fast). However, that type of immersion provides real life awareness and the ability to develop meaningful strategies to address issues.
  
• Having a real appreciation of the constituency needs leads to engendering trust from the members. That is extremely important to being effective as well as developing respect.
• A leader needs to have the sophistication to appreciate when transparency is mandatory.
  
• Recognize that privacy and confidentiality are imperative.
  
• It's important to do proper screening, usually couched in casual conversation that makes the person comfortable enough to share their philosophies that wouldn't ordinarily be verbalized (or demonstrated) in an employment interview setting. That will make proper selection of the most effective personnel possible.
  

Someone recently asked whether it's possible for a White person to be a leader of a Black organization. The ancillary query related to whether a woman could be an effective leader of that same group. As that conversation evolved, we looked at the NAACP as an example. It was founded by mutually concerned individuals from all ethnicities and walks of life. Among the founders were abolitionists, Jews, Gentiles, Blacks, Whites, men and women. One of the most pivotal of the founders was Mary White Ovington. The first "president" of the organization (who served in that capacity for ten years) was a White man, Joel Spingarn.

A few words about being a leader, no matter what the cause or organization, is having foresight and vision. Those skills will allow the leader to see most of the pitfalls before they arise. That will then enable them to develop strategies to avert the difficulties, use them to the organization's advantage, or overcome them with as much ease as is reasonable. In order to garner the support to execute the plans and goals of the organization, a leader must have excellent communication skills or a trusted adviser and speaker who can communicate the rallying cry on their behalf.

Finally, it's extremely important that the leader be able to understand the psychology of their opposition. Doing so will empower them to gain the ear of those who resist. Sometimes resistance is nothing more than fear dressed as aggression or hate. The ability to allay those fears by showing the benefits of becoming aligned takes significant skill and ability while yielding results useful for more than the constituent group.

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Thriving on Challenges

It's time to be reflective and introspective. It's also time to be retrospective, that is to say, look back on the events of these past 365 days and put together the pieces so that there is a rhyme and reason to all of the activity, the comings and goings, the planning and executing, being accepted or not.

The single most continuous factor in this year has been challenge. In this instance, I speak of challenge in the context of a difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it. It forces us to meet the test or else fail. But Life is like a wheel in regard to challenges. Although we will reach an apex at one point, we will then sink from that height, whether from falling action or from failure, and continue to rotate until we come upon the same situation again in a new way and in another place, but still basically the same test to challenge our skills. And it is our ability to survive and pass the test that spells success as well as moving on to another level of challenges that will push our thinking, creativity, resourcefulness in order to claim a new victory with the arsenal of skills and talents that we amass as we move along our Life path.

The interesting thing about failing a challenge is that most of us get curious about what might have occurred had we succeeded. What's on the other side of the challenge and what is in the reward? Sometimes it's intangible. It lends itself to being able to communicate with others more effectively or to see the circumstances of others in an enlightened manner. We no longer need to judge another because we've developed an empathy with the person or the situation. There's better comprehension of more that's involved and we have a flavor of the dynamics against which the other is contending.

That taste of the potential victory spurs us to try again. We are in a position to appreciate the challenge we just faced because of the initial involvement. We realize how much more was involved in order to achieve success, even though we may not yet have a full sense of all that is necessary for that final conquer. Some of us analyze what we experienced, step by step, piece by piece, to determine what happened at each juncture, looking at what the various alternatives would have yielded had we moved in one direction rather than another. Just imagining this tends to get us excited, spurring us to leap to the next opening with enthusiasm. Just one more chance and it can be done. There'll be success!

And the curiosity spurs another aspect that can lead to development of even more skills -- creating alternatives. We create alternative methods of regaining the opportunity to face the challenge that will lend opportunity to do the next level of functions. Alternatives can be more than just maneuvering to be in the right place at the right time. Alternatives can also build new ways of overcoming old situations. Perhaps instead of climbing over the mountain, it is possible to tunnel through or under it, or simply go around it. Having executed any of the alternatives, even more perspectives are revealed to us. We learn more about the available terrain and its attributes -- the advantages and the recourses.

Welcome the Challenges

You expect me to say we should welcome challenges. I won't disappoint you. Without challenge, there's a life led in a static state. Challenges inspire and teach. Yes, to be certain, they are difficult. But what good comes from something that's a constant cake walk? We take the fruit for granted and don't appreciate any of what went into the development and gaining of the reward. We don't appreciate the knowledge that resulted from the experience. In fact, it's tossed aside like a gum wrapper so we can latch onto something that seems to hold more value in many ways. The resulting aptitude is something that is put off for another day. We don't stay as far ahead of the pack as we could without the challenges; we don't inspire others to push to be their full and best selves.

It's also important to enjoy the results of the challenge -- the victory. It's imperative to take the time to absorb who we were before the challenge and what we have become, what we have accomplished because of it. Most importantly, it'/////s absolutely necessary to see what we have done if physical representation is possible. Otherwise, it will feel as though we've simply been taking one step after a mindless next one. Sense and see the change in order to allow it to become part of who you are and spur even more growth.

Perhaps that one word is what challenge is all about -- growth. With everything in this and all other universes, the other constant is growth in order to extend the civilization, species, existence, and progress. To stop growing is to stop living. To stop growing is to stagnate and die because you become useless and rusty.

Desire for growth is healthy. Its seed is the curiosity that was addressed earlier. Repetition isn't necessary. Just a reminder that it behooves us to get curious about things and challenge ourselves to find the answer, find a new way, a better way, an improved way. And once those new things are developed, we should be mindful to evaluate all of them individually and against one another to determine whether there was in fact improvement or just a lot of flurry and activity for the sake of being in a state of agitation. Purposefulness is important to curiosity and growth.

Opening Doors

At the end of all of these activities and efforts, we should find that we are able to open more doors -- doors to Opportunity. Additionally, as we open one door of opportunity, it should then lead to another challenge that contains the seeds of the unknown and the budding of curiosity about the potentials that lead to success and yet another door to another opportunity.

Commencement

So as we begin this year 2008, may you have many challenges that you meet with success by satisfying your curiosity about the potentials and alternatives. And may those challenges be filled with an endless hall of Doors of Opportunity.