Leadership
Affinity-Based Leadership
Robert Rodriguez , 07-11-2010
Affinity-based leadership programs are calibrated to the challenges and opportunities faced by certain employee groups.
In 2008, I visited the University of California, Los Angeles to participate in its five-day Latino Leadership Institute program — a program designed by, prepared for and delivered by Latinos.
My experience at the UCLA Latino Leadership Institute has been a highlight in my professional career. Never before had I been in a classroom with 25 other high-performing Latino professionals, with an all-Latino faculty, looking at leadership issues from a Latino point of view.
During participant introductions, a couple of my colleagues expressed displeasure about participating in the program. One even said, “I’m not sure why I’m here and why my company chose to send me to this Latino program. Am I not good enough for a regular leadership development program?”
That question was answered by the end of the first day. Affinity-based leadership programs like the one at UCLA do address common leadership issues, such as decision making, change management, strategy creation, corporate culture and leading effective teams.
But this program was precisely calibrated to the challenges and opportunities faced by certain employee groups. It spent equal time addressing business issues and those issues and perceptions unique to certain groups.
For example, as a Latino professional in corporate America, quite often during my professional career I have been the only Latino on my floor, in the department or in a meeting. I’ve gotten accustomed to this, but it can be a bit isolating. When no one else looks like you and the things that are important to you are not important to anyone else, it can be lonely. In talking with other minority professionals, I’ve learned that the feeling of isolation is quite common.
You can imagine my satisfaction when we spoke about isolation during the UCLA program. We also discussed how to deal with the perception of tokenism, specifically how to deal with people who believe the only reason you received a promotion, or were hired in the first place, was due to some affirmative action program.
We spoke about assimilating versus acculturating, the lack of Latino role models and mentors, how to deal with bias and overcoming microinequities. But best of all, we learned more about Latino culture, how to leverage our ethnicity as a source of strength, and how to lead in an authentic manner.
Many topics covered at the Latino Leadership Institute and in similar affinity-based programs usually are not covered in general leadership development programs. Yet, for women and minorities, these are very real issues, and these topics are important and need to be addressed.
I am encouraged to see that an increasing number of diversity executives and business leaders are realizing that affinity-based leadership programs are indeed necessary, and I’m glad to see more and more programs popping up all over the country.
For example, UCLA also has a leadership institute for African-Americans, one for managers with disabilities and one for members of the LGBT community. And UCLA is by no means alone.
Dozens of other universities and leadership development providers offer affinity-based leadership programs, such as Harvard Business School and the Center for Creative Leadership. There are also stand-alone nonprofit entities such as the National Hispana Leadership Institute offering even more specific programs.
I am also glad to see the growing trend of corporations holding two- or three-day learning and development summits for particular employee groups. For example, I have presented in multiday Latino employee summits held at Pfizer, Shell and McDonald’s, to name a few.
Basically, I’m saying that if we believe the work experience for women and minorities may be different in corporate America, their development needs may be different, too.
Women and minorities are not equally represented at the senior and executive levels of management. We need to better address the unique needs they face so they can drive business results and better navigate the corporate environment. «
Robert Rodriguez is the director of the Kaplan Center for Corporate Learning at Kaplan University and author of Latino Talent: Effective Strate-gies to Recruit, Retain & Develop Hispanic Professionals. He can be reached at editor@diversity-executive.com.
