Equipping managers to lead a diverse workforce

Abstract

Managers often lack the skills and confidence to deal with issues of everyday management such as poor attendance, failure to meet agreed deadlines or to reach required standards of work when these issues involve a racial dimension, or staff respond with counter complaints of harassment due to their sexuality or accusations of insensitivity to their disability.This is a case study of how a large complex social care organisation went about designing and implementing a leadership development programme to equip managers with the skills and confidence necessary to effectively lead a diverse workforce. The case study shows how Lancashire County Council has used executive coaching, management learning sets and mentoring, linked with equality and diversity training and exploiting the potential of the intranet to deliver a co‐ordinated management leadership development programme. The success of this approach has implications for all organisations that have a diverse workforce.

Citation

McPherson, B. (2009), "Equipping managers to lead a diverse workforce", Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 37-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/17570980200900014