In their article “Leaders Aren’t Great at Judging How Inclusive They Are”, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman examine how leaders’ self-appraisal results compare to their assessments by other workers of different levels from the same large company. This study builds on diversity and inclusion perspective and an evaluation of effectiveness in these criteria. This study demonstrates that leaders who consider themselves effective in maintaining diversity are the worst as rated by their co-workers. On the other hand, more effective leaders tend to underestimate themselves. Another finding, the correlation between valuing diversity and overall performance, is described next. The article also emphasizes that senior leaders are more prone to supporting diversity and inclusiveness as well as having greater overall leadership effectiveness.
I consider this research fascinating and showing somewhat unexpected results and findings. It would be difficult to dispute the conclusions of the analysis of such a quantity of responses, especially considering the assessment from two sides: self-rating and evaluation by other employees. I agree with the first statement in the article, as I am experienced in observing what is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. People with superficial knowledge of something tend to overrate their competence. On the other hand, people who are more experienced and knowledgeable about some issues tend to underestimate themselves. The statement that “inclusiveness and effectiveness track together” became a kind of revelation for me. Probably, the reason is that people who are free from prejudices tend to take a broader view of everything. This quality opens up more opportunities for them; they are able to see more options, strategies, methods and resources, and it reflects in overall efficiency. That senior leaders turned out to be mostly rated as overall effective and positive in practicing inclusion is surprising because they are expected to be more conservative. However, given that the company’s policy encourages diversity and inclusiveness, this fact is logical and expected. I found the statistics provided in the article to be interesting, and the correlations found were somewhat unexpected.
Work Cited
Zenger, Jack, and Joseph Folkman. “Leaders aren’t great at judging how inclusive they are.” Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2017. Web.