10/14: Leaders embrace diversity

Leaders embrace diversity
True leaders genuinely seek out diversity of opinion and viewpoint before making any decision. When they ask your opinion, they expect to hear it; they are not seeking confirmation or validation of a pre-conceived solution or decision.

This Six Sigma-like approach to problem solving—approaching a problem without a pre-determined solution in mind—will do more than result in new and creative solutions to problems; it will engage the individuals within the organization. Individuals and their associated groups, however diverse or disperse, will be a part of the solution. And if the solution requires change, which it very often will, then these same individuals will become a part of the change.

True leaders go about this process of seeking diversity of opinion and viewpoint in such a way that it does not compromise their ultimate responsibility to make the final decision. One other “seemingly paradoxical” nature of true leaders is their ability to be simultaneously decisive while being receptive to different viewpoints. It is the responsibility of the true leader to be the final point of accountability for the decisions made and the direction taken. And this responsibility is meticulously balanced by the ability to absorb and evaluate multiple inputs in an effort to make the best decision possible.

In her novel Middlemarch, George Eliot creates an image that beautifully describes the role of the leader as the centering force of diversity:

Your pier-glass, an extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling into an exclusive optical selection.

True leaders are those who make the scratches, the differences, the viewpoints—sometimes myopic and sometimes universally apparent—shine, and shine through their brilliance of focus. They are those who set the final course and ensure that all voices have been heard, all concerns have been reckoned with, and the final decision reflects the goals and aspirations of the clearly articulated organizational objectives.