The Motivation to Be Inclusive: Understanding How Diversity Self-Efficacy Impacts Leader Effectiveness in Racially Diverse Workgroups

Abstract

Diversity management is becoming integral to leaders’ success, given the influx of diversity in today’s organizations and workgroups. Yet, little is known about why some leaders and not others are effective at leading a racially diverse group of employees. To shed light on this important conundrum, we integrate social cognitive theory with the categorization-elaboration model of workgroup diversity (Van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004) to advance a theoretical model that identifies how leaders’ diversity self-efficacy may be positively related to followers’ evaluations of leader effectiveness. We further hypothesize that leaders’ inclusive leadership behavior explains why those leaders who feel efficacious in leading diverse work groups would be deemed more effective, particularly when these leaders’ workgroups are more racially diverse. Based on a sample of 101 group leaders and 1470 healthcare professionals who worked in interdependent workgroups to provide quality patient care (Study 1) and a sample of 135 leader-follower dyads from various industries (Study 2), our data show that leaders’ diversity self-efficacy was more strongly related to followers’ evaluation of leader effectiveness when there were higher levels of racial diversity within workgroups. The data also indicate that the extent to which leaders engage in inclusive leadership behavior can explain why leaders’ diversity self-efficacy beliefs are positively related to followers’ evaluations of leader effectiveness and that the mediation of inclusive leadership behavior is stronger when workgroups are more racially diverse. Our study highlights the importance of leaders’ diversity self-efficacy beliefs in fostering an inclusive and effective work environment.