Leading Diversity Effectively with Compassion

Leading Diversity Effectively with Compassion

Managing a team effectively is a lot easier said than done. We are often told to understand people better and to adapt ourselves according to their personalities, which is something I totally agree with. But since human beings have free will, we cannot simply classify them by type into some kind of table the way a zoologist might do with animal species. There are, however, academically proven principles, such as the Big 5 (Five Factor Model) personality theory, which have proved reliable over time in helping to assess people and predict their leadership behaviour.

Diversity of personality: I have been involved in a leadership assessment and development programme at an organisation that is the leader in its industry. Specifically I have been evaluating Ms Kaewta (not her real name) and the relationship with four other executives that she leads.

All four are highly capable in their areas of responsibility, with the right professional and educational background. However, a closer look at their personalities, based on information gleaned from psychometric and cognitive ability assessments, reflects big gaps among the team players and also Ms Kaewta herself. Here are brief descriptions of each one:

Kaewta: Capable of persuading people and explaining difficult subjects by using interchangeable styles as required. However, this tendency to be an influencer prevents her from being a highly attentive listener. She has a tendency to initiate her own way of achieving desired objectives and is incline not to follow conventional practice.

Nantawan: Tends to worry too much and cannot hold it back but has to emotionally express her feelings and concern to the others. She has a high degree of persistency which drives her to overcome any barriers to her work.

Rattana: Typically does not hold back her emotions toward anything. Since she always works at a fast pace, she may find her people cannot keep up with her. A strong directive management style means she can deliver her work under any circumstances but with less focus on people.

Siriporn: Although she has a high tendency to be a fast-paced person, she may end up taking on a high workload due to too high a level of concern for others. As a consequence, she may not be able to effectively delegate, and empower, her team members, which may not encourage direct reports to fully trust in her.

Wannaporn: A highly reliable executive who tends to deliver completed and perfect work on time. At times, she may work slowly which will delay her from the original plan. She tends to be an introvert and a good listener with full awareness of her emotions, which reflect stress and constant worrying.

My analysis shows Ms Kaewta has her own work style that differs from those of her direct reports. For example, her leadership style is “directive” — high task orientation and low people orientation. She tends to maintain responsibility for planning and control, and issues instructions in line with own perception of priorities. But since the difference in orientation is not very high and her people focus score is almost in the middle, she seems to play a “big sister” role while getting the job done.

Servant leadership: In my previous article, I discussed the importance of support from one’s direct boss in successful executive development. Ms Kaewta is a good example. Her percentile scores tend to align with those of her people. Because of this, she can effectively handle her people and minimise conflict or difficulty.

Although she has medium to high percentile scores across the board, her adaptability score is low. This suggests that she does not want to change her way of working but will seek to change the way others work instead.

In addition, besides her humble manner, Ms Kaewta always treats her people with compassion. She does not try to provoke confrontation or conflict since her medium to high degree of “concern for others” and “diplomacy” combine for a soft style when handling people.

Her scores for analytical thinking and innovation reflect her tendency to use inductive or deductive reasoning while generating ideas, seeing new points of view. However, her cognitive ability score is low, in contrast with her numerical reasoning. Consequently, she accepts help from her people to complete tasks or projects as she intends when she realises she cannot complete them by herself.

What I’ve discussed above is just one part of the story. We also need to take a closer look at people’s actual behaviour. In the past, we assessed people only through our eyes and ears or through observation and face-to-face interviews. Since there are highly reliable assessment tools available, we should also use them to help predict people’s work styles. However, we cannot and should not rely on assessments or interview/observation approaches. They have to go together with the right balance of analysis.


Sorayuth Vathanavisuth is the Principal and Executive Coach at the Center for Southeast Asia Leadership (SEAL) and lectures at Mahidol University’s College of Management (CMMU). His areas of interest are corporate strategy, executive coaching and leadership development. He can be reached at sorayuth@sealeadership.com

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