How Can I Effectively Lead a Diverse Team (Ask Bill – Q&A)

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Last Updated on July 9, 2024 by Bill Truby

Discover practical tips for effectively leading a diverse team with insights drawn from a wealth of experience in various fields. From appreciating differences to fostering unity, this advice highlights how to leverage diverse perspectives to create a stronger, more cohesive team. Whether you’re dealing with varied skill sets, backgrounds, or beliefs, these strategies will help you harness the collective strength of your team for greater success.

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Video Transcript

Here’s another in the series of Ask Bill videos. And remember, it’s not because I’m smart, ’cause I have gray hair, I’ve been around the block. I’ve seen so much that I use my cowboy background, my theology, psychology, and business background to pull from those experiences and that learning and give you an answer.

So I have another question here from someone who says, how can I effectively lead a diverse team? Now obviously, I have to make some assumptions here as to what diversity means in your situation.

It could be diverse skill sets, it could be diverse ages, races, locations, perspectives, political beliefs, all kinds of diversities.

No matter what the diversity, I have a simple little suggestion for you. Something you can do and it is to appreciate the diversity, the differences. Acknowledge them. But you celebrate the totality of, and the unity of, and the alignment of the team.

What do I mean by that?

There’s all kinds of ways that you can acknowledge the differences. For example, you’re in a meeting and something comes up and you’ve got the diversity of ages, you’ve got some teenagers and you’ve got some older folk and you’ve got some different disciplines, different people from different backgrounds.

Well you can say, so Tom, what do you think about that? You’ve got some gray hair, you’ve been around the block. What is your perspective on it? Or Sarah, you’ve been around here only a couple of weeks; you’re young. What is your perspective?

And you speak to the fact that we have differences. And differences are great because that makes us stronger and better.

There’s no one race, no one education, no one discipline, no one age group that’s better than another. We all contribute to the whole. And that’s where you begin talking about and acknowledging and celebrating the whole.

And you continue to speak about we are one. We come from different places, but we are one. And as this one team, this one group of people, we will support each other. We will teach each other we’ll. We’ll lean on each other to get the job done. ’cause together we can do it separately. We can’t.

And that’s the messaging that you put in your words when you’re meeting, when you are talking to individuals. You consistently champion those two concepts.

We are different and that’s good, but we are one. And that’s what makes it happen. That’s what makes us successful.

That’s a simple little suggestion. There’s many other things you can do, but that’s sort of a baseline of messaging that will be effective as you lead your diverse team.

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