Leadership in Action: Finding Yourself: How Social Identity Affects Leadership

OPEN CLIMATE

Organizations can promote self-awareness by establishing and maintaining a climate in which it is safe to discuss issues of social identity. One organization with which CCL has worked has a workers council and a diversity council that consistently raise questions about how people from different backgrounds see organizational events. The two councils have become forums in which the sharing of feelings about social identity is encouraged and employees can ask difficult questions about how others see them in light of their memberships in particular social groups. Employees have been known to ask whether others would have responded to them differently if they were from a different social group and to question whether opportunities and ...