Failures of Workplaces in Multiple Competitive Cultures

Values-based, character-defining spiritual leadership strikes a responsive chord in the minds of many coworkers in the modern American workplace. The idea of authentic communications between the leader and each worker seems somehow “right.” And, while not part of the lexicon of leadership until recent times, relating personal factors of values and character to effective leadership also fit the psychology of many work community members in work groups. However, the intrinsic logic of values in leadership does not necessarily smooth its transition to full use in many workplaces. For example, forcing a work community to allow several different and competing subcultural groups to continue to honor their diverse customs—i.e., the unreserved acceptance of the cultural values and behavior of all persons making up a given work community—has complicated the full implementation of this kind of leadership. Indeed, at times it has altogether thwarted implementation of values-based leadership. As leaders learn how to lead effectively in work communities staffed by people of broadly diverse gender foci, multiple ethnicities, and from multiple nationalities they can lead their coworkers to perhaps more effective performance. Before this result can be obtained, however, the problems associated with the modern workplace defined as a compound of many complex convoluted and competitive cultures each with multiple core goals and those of leaders must be identified and removed. Effective understanding of leadership in a multicultural work environment based on the leader’s spiritual self must include inquiry into the nature of multiculturalism per se. Of course leaders have always dealt with worker differences. Indeed, the leader’s key role is to bring unity to a disparate group of workers—to make a work community out of what began as an amorphous group of strangers.