Power, Culture, and Race

By Dr. Ayanna R. Cummings

Dr. Ayanna Cummings is the Founding Director of Tapestry Consulting, LLC. She has over 20 years of experience as a diversity consultant, specialist, and trainer. She has previously worked with R. Thomas Consulting of Atlanta and Blackbird Leadership of New York City, and her current appointments include serving as Founding Director of Tapestry Consulting, LLC and serving as Diversity Specialist with Terry University Systems. Her scientific research seeks to examine the plight of, issues affecting, and identification of solutions relevant to African-Americans and other diverse groups. Her research findings give her unique expertise in diversity, equity & inclusion training and consulting. Dr. Cummings holds a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the City University of New York Graduate Center in Manhattan as well as the MBA in Marketing from Clark Atlanta University. She also holds the SPHR Certification, and serves as Director of Operations and Human Resources at Moore Law, LLC, a boutique law firm in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Cummings is a Presidential Scholar alumnus of her beloved alma mater, Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, where she was inducted into the Forty Under 40 Honor Society in 2018. She is a proud active member of the Pi Alpha Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and serves as Adjunct Faculty member within the Psychology Department at Georgia Institute of Technology where she is currently conducting research on racial bias in the performance appraisal process. Her research will be presented at the 2020 American Psychological Association Virtual Conference in August. She is the author of the book, Power, Culture and Race published in 2018 and republished in 2020 by Xlibris, as well as My Swan’s Song: The Drummer Played as Maya Said and Co-Author of Thirty Something Wit and Wisdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664122468

Dr. Ayanna R. Cummings

Dr. Ayanna Cummings is the Founding Director of Tapestry Consulting, LLC. She has over 20 years of experience as a diversity consultant, specialist, and trainer. She has previously worked with R. Thomas Consulting of Atlanta and Blackbird Leadership of New York City, and her current appointments include serving as Founding Director of Tapestry Consulting, LLC and serving as Diversity Specialist with Terry University Systems. Her scientific research seeks to examine the plight of, issues affecting, and identification of solutions relevant to African-Americans and other diverse groups. Her research findings give her unique expertise in diversity, equity & inclusion training and consulting. Dr. Cummings holds a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the City University of New York Graduate Center in Manhattan as well as the MBA in Marketing from Clark Atlanta University. She also holds the SPHR Certification, and serves as Director of Operations and Human Resources at Moore Law, LLC, a boutique law firm in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Cummings is a Presidential Scholar alumnus of her beloved alma mater, Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, where she was inducted into the Forty Under 40 Honor Society in 2018. She is a proud active member of the Pi Alpha Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and serves as Adjunct Faculty member within the Psychology Department at Georgia Institute of Technology where she is currently conducting research on racial bias in the performance appraisal process. Her research will be presented at the 2020 American Psychological Association Virtual Conference in August. She is the author of the book, Power, Culture and Race published in 2018 and republished in 2020 by Xlibris, as well as My Swan’s Song: The Drummer Played as Maya Said and Co-Author of Thirty Something Wit and Wisdom.

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Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Ayanna R. Cummings.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 08/07/2020

Xlibris

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 – DIVERSITY

SEGUE INTO THE DISSERTATION STUDY

CHAPTER 2 – OVERVIEW OF MY RESEARCH

CHAPTER 3 – POWER

CHAPTER 4 – ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

CHAPTER 5 – LEADERSHIP

CHAPTER 6 – DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the generations of true soldiers in the struggle for our civil rights and human dignity. To the leaders on whose shoulders I now stand, I thank you for your perseverance, fortitude and tenacity despite the ills you faced and which plague our society to this day. You are a source of great strength, pride and goodness of character. I admire and salute you for all that you have done and continue to do for our people, for this nation, and for the generations that are to come.

So here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to peace.

FOREWORD BY DR. ROBERT YANCY

Dr. Ayanna Cummings’ book on Power, Culture, and Race, is a serious and scholarly attempt to understand the dynamics of leadership style in organizations, and indeed in the American political and social landscapes, also.

In every productive organization, the challenge exists to optimize two related, but different, criteria, effectiveness, and efficiency. That is to say, that the product the organization produces must perform or operate properly, and in a manner consistent with the expectations of the customers. It must work. That’s called effectiveness. In a great many cases the effectiveness of a product is critical. Airplanes must not fall from the skies, for example. There are an infinite number of other cases that could be cited where effectiveness is critical. At the same time that the organization has to address product effectiveness, it must also commit itself to organizational efficiency. That is to say that the product must not cost too much to produce. Even if it works, it might not sell, if the cost, hence the price, is too high.

In the Industrial Economy that characterized 20th Century America, most consumer goods were physical products that could be mass produced on factory assembly lines. Workers in these factories were given very limited discretion. Effectiveness was a function of product design. Efficiency was paced by the assembly line. Entire academic disciplines were developed to prescribe worker behavior and to limit worker discretion. These would include the field of Industrial Engineering and Operations Management.

Under principles of Scientific Management no attention was paid to the culture or ethnicity of the worker. It was all about specific actions. The assumption was that anyone from any culture could be trained to perform the prescribed motions and activities.

In 21st Century America, the economy is characterized more by the creation of intangible services rather than by tangible goods. In such an economy, it is more difficult for management to prescribe specific movements that workers make. Management increasingly has to prescribe the outcomes that define effectiveness. The worker applies his skill, knowledge, and experience, to the production challenge. Under such a scenario there is a much greater challenge for management to motivate the worker to want to do what management needs her to do. Therefore, effectiveness of communications and motivation are replacing time and motion studies.

The United States of America has a diversity of population unlike any large country in the world. In fact, it is estimated that the representation of minorities, as a percentage of population, will exceed that of the majority by the middle of the 21st Century. This diversity of population brings tremendous opportunity, and has much to do with the ability of our country to maintain a vibrant, entrepreneurial economy. But this diversity also presents challenges to managers and leaders of productive organizations.

For example, in a more homogeneous environment, there might only need to be a few approaches to managing worker motivation. In this context, the organization’s management techniques could be color blind. But when so many different sub-cultures are represented in the work place, and when workers are expected to bring their own skill sets and problem-solving abilities to the workplace, then managers must seek to understand and appreciate the influential factors that work for each culture and individual.

With this in mind, it is imperative that we identify modes of communication that resonate with everyone who is represented in the workplace. The organization and employer possesses legitimate power over its workers and members. It has the right to demand effective and efficient production. However, it has to rely more on worker initiative and motivation than in the industrial era when motions were prescribed and work was paced by machines.

This transition to more effective management styles is being approached reluctantly by many in business and in government. They insist that their communications with workers be colorblind and that no consideration be given to race, ethnicity, or sub-culture. This is necessary, they say, to avoid showing preference for one person over another.

Dr. Cummings argues persuasively that one size will not fit all. And in order to succeed, productive organizations (and governments) must make accommodations for the differences inherent in a diverse workforce and population. And in this significant research project, she attempts to shed light on those leadership styles that lead to more, or less, effectiveness and efficiency.

These considerations are not only relevant in corporate boardrooms, but have become increasingly relevant to the larger American society. As Dr. Cummings infers, there is evidence of reluctance on the part of the majority power brokers to transition to these new criteria. This new reality requires a significant amount of power sharing, where command and control was previously thought to be adequate. The ultimate challenge may not be whether or not managers and leaders of America and of American businesses will be able to adapt to this new reality and learn to communicate with more sensitivity, but whether or not they can overcome their preference for colorblindness.

INTRODUCTION

This book is the brainchild of a dissertation that was born from a discussion I had with my advisor, Dr. Harold Goldstein, in 2013. At the time, I had just passed my second doctoral exam and advanced to Level III (ABD) Candidacy for the degree, and was seeking an advisor and committee members to assist me by participating on my research review committee. Dr. Goldstein graciously accepted my invitation, and we discussed what interests me and the research passions I had developed during my matriculation at my beloved alma mater, City University of New York Graduate Center and Baruch College/CUNY. My first idea was to explore leadership issues; especially pertinent to me was the development of Executive minority leadership in today’s corporations.

Harold threw out a term to me that resonated in my ears during our conversation – he used the term power as he discussed recent literature pertaining to leadership issues. Because my studies had focused primarily on I/O topics rather than social psychology topics, I had not learned about the social power bases and their application in studies of leadership and management issues in our field. I liked it so much that I ran with it. Out of my first literature review came a broad exploration of the use of power in history to run businesses and governments, the abuse of power and authority, and other rather pejorative connotations of the construct.

Then I learned about the social power bases, and how effective implementation of the use of one form of power or another might actually enhance organizational effectiveness by increasing the likelihood that followers or subordinates would comply with a leader’s request. This led to my proposal of an interaction effect between power and culture in my dissertation investigation – the notion that a situational context will determine whether or not a leader’s use of one form of power or another is actually effective at garnering compliance and trust from subordinates. I added the trust variable because it is also a much-discussed topic in the extant literature surrounding leadership, ethics, credibility, and societal influences on trust of leaders in organizations and governmental institutions.

Indeed, the need for power is a basic human obstructive of other higher order needs, especially that of dominance over others (Refer to Murray, 1938). The fact that all humans possess some need for power over others is a shocking thought at first, but the ability to control the outcome of a situation in one’s own favor also plays out in other areas of human personality. One of these is the fundamental attribution error, in which we often attribute our own actions and behaviors to external influences whereas we attribute those actions and behaviors of others to internal causes (Refer to Heider, 1958).

I begin my discussion with a look into reframing the social lens with which we view the concept of diversity and how it can actually be an effective mechanism for change within organizations, when embraced and treated thoughtfully. In