The Inclusive Leader: An Applied Approach to Diversity, Change, and Management

By Dr. Amine Ayad and Dr. Emad Rahim

The Inclusive Leader: An Applied Approach to Diversity, Change, and Management is a unique contribution to the complex subject of diversity and leadership. Dr. Ayad and Dr. Rahim build on their vast and diverse experience to translate academic concepts of diversity and inclusion as well as leadership and management into practical roadmap for students, managers, executives, and business leaders.

This book is a renewal and expansion on their Amazon bestselling book Leading Through Diversity: Transforming Managers Into Effective Leaders where they revised and updated the topics of leadership vs. management, diversity and inclusion, change management, collaborative servant leadership, and team building. Further, they added new critical topics to leading in the new era, such as: diverse multinational organizations, and cyborgs and diversity and inclusion. Ultimately, this book goes beyond philosophical arguments of the past to applied management and leadership in action today and in the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Feb 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504300261

Dr. Amine Ayad

Dr. Ayad is a Scholar-Practitioner and accomplished business leader with over twenty five years of experience in developing and implementing strategies, designing and sustaining effective processes, engaging employees at all levels leading to improved top line and bottom line business results. As an adjunct professor, Dr. Ayad has taught at Strayer University in Columbus, Ohio, USA, Centennial College in Canada, Bellevue University, Nebraska, USA, and Colorado Technical University, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. He has authored and coauthored several papers on Business and Management in journals such as International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management, Journal of Management, International Journal of Project Organization and Management, and Quality Progress. Dr. Ayad has worked for Home Depot, Sears Holdings, and Walmart, where he managed thousands of employees and directed merchandise execution. Currently, he serves as a Senior Director of Strategy and Innovation for Walmart. He witnessed the advantages and disadvantages as well as the successes and disappointments of transformation at these companies and other retailers through teaching case studies for his MBA and doctorate students. Dr. Ayad graduated with honors from Oklahoma State University as a Civil Engineer. He holds a Doctorate in Management from Colorado Technical University. Dr. Emad Rahim is an award winning author, educator, researcher, entrepreneur and academic leader with over a decade of business development experience, operating a diverse portfolio of projects and programs in both the public and private sectors. Dr. Rahim’s servant leadership philosophy was developed through his work in human services where he served the needs of inner-city families and at-risk children for over 15 years. The same servant leadership approach that made him successful in human services also served him effectively in corporate business and academia. He was named the 2011 Beyster Scholar Fellow by the Beyster Institute at UC San Diego and Laureate Visiting Fellow by Laureate Education Inc., where he served as a visiting lecturer in East Asia and Latin America. Dr. Rahim earned a Post-Doctoral Diploma in Marketing and Management from A.B. Freemen School of Business at Tulane University and a Doctorate of Management from Colorado Technical University. He is an alumnus of the Leadership Greater Syracuse program (LGS), Cornell University’s Executive Leadership Series, Syracuse University’s E-nitiative project (Entrepreneurship Scholar), and the Gamaliel Foundation’s Advance Leadership program (President Barack Obama, alum). Dr. Rahim currently serves as University Dean for the School of Business at Colorado Technical University and the Chief Learning Officer at Global i354 LLC. He has also taught and lectured at Syracuse University, Cornell University, Colgate University, Cazenovia College, Morrisville State College, Walden University, Kaplan University and the Jack Welch Institute.

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Copyright © 2016 Dr. Amine Ayad and Dr. Emad Rahim.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-0025-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-0026-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016901313

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/04/2016

Contents

Chapter 1 The Art and Science of Leadership and Management

Chapter 2 Diversity And Inclusion as a Leadership Asset

Chapter 3 Leadership and Change Management

Chapter 4 Collaborative Servant Leadership as an Effective Leadership Model

Chapter 5 Leadership Tools & Team Building

Foreword

Like parents have done for generations, I watch my children at play and think about the world they will inherit. My grandfather, born in 1901, became a man in the roaring 20’s and subsequently had to raise a family through The Great Depression. His parents never could have imagined his burden. Nor could they have predicted how long he would have to work to reach a point of prosperity. My own parents, children of that Depression period went on to raise a family in the middle of the cold war with Russia -- a time when they saw their son growing up in a world with an abundance of nuclear weapons ready for launch at the push of a button. Each generation brings unique challenges and opportunities, and we depend on the thought leaders of the day to help us both comprehend our current state, and then begin to see with greater clarity what’s on the horizon. In their book, Leading Through Diversity: Transforming Managers into Effective Leaders, Drs. Amine Ayad and Emad Rahim provide us with some timeless lessons in leadership, change, and innovation while simultaneously developing their work with a key eye on how the steep slope of change today will ultimately reshape how leaders lead, both in contemporary times and in generations to come.

Today the topic of diversity is clearly more important than ever. With factors like greater levels of international mobility, the ascent of the international middle class, and the ability to connect with one another in so many ways thanks to technology, leading organizations today with an eye on our own perspectives of diversity is extremely important. In studying the scholars of leadership and management over the last fifty years, it is clear that while there has been a great deal of attention to issues in multiculturalism and diversity, the focus unfortunately has revolved around the development of tolerance instead of an appreciation of opportunity. Simply put, many of our leaders from previous generations found themselves in charge of largely homogeneous teams who, when faced with small amounts of diversity, were asked to learn to be tolerant, understanding, and accepting of these differences. Today, however, the best leaders have come to understand that diversity is a value that must be purposefully pursued and carefully nurtured. If groups, for example, do happen to be largely homogeneous, wise leaders today understand that reaching out and actively creating a more heterogeneous and diverse environment ultimately improves productivity and the capacity to learn, grow, and innovate. The authors of this book understand this dynamic and their work here helps leaders continue to embrace this more evolved notion of diversity and what it means to leadership and change.

In this book, Ayad and Emad also shed a light on the importance of leading in a fair, transparent, and socially responsible manner. Clearly businesses today that don’t operate in transparent ways run the risk of being revealed and subsequently punished in the court of public opinion thanks to the geometric powers of social media. Leaders who don’t understand the importance of ethics, trust, responsibility, and service may not be in a position to be competitive in an international culture that understands that these factors are the currency of success in business today. Once again, this text speaks to these issues and the authors are uniquely positioned to reflect on not only the importance of these concepts but also the steps that leaders can take to bring these concepts into practice right away in their organizations.

Finally, this title offers the reader some well positioned and current thoughts on leadership and change management. Once again, in an era of unprecedented inputs, complexity, and diversity, leadership has never been more important. While management will always be important, making the right leadership decision during complex times where multiple choices abound, is a point well illustrated in this text.

This book clearly informs the ever-evolving body of work in areas of leadership, change, and innovation. Their work here and the strategies they recommend are ready for implementation today and will no doubt serve to inform leaders for generations to come.

Casey Reason, Ph.D.

President of Highpoint Learning

www.caseyreason.com

Foreword

Conversations around Inclusion and Diversity are often awkward and ineffectual. The motives are numerous and recriminations abound. The research and stories shared within The Inclusive Leader: An Applied Approach to Diversity, Change, and Management is a refreshing and innovative blueprint for today’s leader.

Diversity management, and more specifically inclusion is a key growth strategy in today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace. In an increasingly global landscape, today’s leader must have the political acuity and cultural competence to drive results and set the tone for how an organization treats its people authentically down to the roots of its business model. Companies that desire optimal positioning and relevancy will have to embrace diversity – in how they think, recruit, allocate, grow and innovate. Diversity is a reality that can no longer linger behind the window dressing model; rather it must become a part of the organizational brand that is created internally.

Dr. Rahim and Dr. Ayad have done a superb job in using empirical data and narrative to create a guide that offers concrete and actionable steps for leaders to follow and expand upon so they may leverage diversity as competitive advantage in the marketplace. The book helps leaders identify their ineffective practice and beliefs. If you are committed to an organizational belief system that harnesses the full potential its entire ecosystem, then, The Inclusive Leader: An Applied Approach to Diversity, Change, and Management is without question a required reading for current and future generation leadership.

Davine Bey, MBA

Director of Talent Acquisition, Cornell University

Co-founder, Global i365 LLC and CNY Inclusion Conference

Foreword

This book on diversity comes at an important time on our society. There is a current combative public discourse by prominent people with political and presidential aspirations about what kind of religions and what kind of immigrants are acceptable in America, which is a nation that was historically grown through the benefit of immigration. We are also engaged in a public civil rights dialog through lens of Black Lives Matter movement which is challenging the sense of duty, care, and intent of leaders that are paid by taxpayers to serve and protect. It is these historical events that make the knowledge in Ayad and Rahim’s book so critical for supervisors at all levels.

The increased level of global immigration and national diversity has created huge need for those with uniquely specialized expertise in understanding the nuances of diversity and inclusion. Managing diversity is very complex when you consider challenge of making personal and professional interactions highly effective with employees with different senses of identity, culture, gender, races, ages, religions, languages, and ethnicities. The complexity is that organizations are putting professionals in leadership roles that have often have comprehension of the vast innovation that occurs in organizational cultures that are diverse, welcoming, and inclusive. The knowledge required to skillfully address the complex issues of valuing and celebrating diversity are not often the content of business related academic degree curriculum and courses. Consider if you are coaching a basketball starting 5 where only 3 players are playing offense and defense, while the others are just present? Your organization could be functioning the same way if the diverse voices and contributions of all employees are consistently present or considered.

Often organizational management narrowly views leadership competency in diversity narrowly as actions that protect the company from discrimination law suits or as job duties that oversee all of the annual required mandatory Equal Employment Training. Savvy managers realize that a true commitment to diversity is not about confusing activities with results or Band-Aid approaches or even annual cultural activities like Martin Luther King holiday celebrations and ethnic themed pot luck dinners.

Ayad and Rahim’s book will give leaders the insight and wisdom that is required to be both knowledgeable in a time when this expertise is so vital and often absent in many organizations.

Dr. Darrell Norman Burrell

Certified Executive Coach and Diversity Consultant

Campus Director and Associate Professor, Florida Institute of Technology

Global Peace Maker Fellow, Claremont Lincoln University

2009 Presidential Management Fellow

Author’s Foreword

This book is a revision and addition to our previous Amazon bestselling book Leading Through Diversity: Transforming Manager into Effective Leaders. A revision because we have updated and expanded on the topics of leadership. An addition because we have added valuable material on diversity and inclusion. Our first book focused on