The challenge of managing diverse teams Assignment - 1

The challenge of managing diverse teams - Assignment Example In an argument by Robbins et.al (2011) a diverse team creates an advantage in an organization since numerous task can be completed by different team members without the requirement of incurring training costs. For instance, my industry has a massive customer care department which requires interaction with different cultured consumers. Having team members communicating in different languages naturally increases the efficiency of the customer care approaches. Another advantage is that a leader can effectively carry out division of labour and specialization based on the strengths of the employees (Robbins et.al, 2011). In addition, this is done without creating requirements from employees that may be beyond their expertise and skills. A major disadvantage of diverse teams is that the leader would be massively tasked in understanding the specific needs of each team member. Additionally, barriers to effective team management would be not be able to be addressed in a general manner making the leadership position more challenging. Diverse teams also create the requirement to alter an organization culture to suit a wide range of personalities as a human resource appraisal technique (Harvard Business Press, 2013). For instance, people from different cultures in my industry may require different workplace specifications for them to perform tasks as required. Satisfying individual needs is a difficult requirement. The ability to bring together people from different backgrounds, disciplines, cultures, and generations and leverage all they have to offer, therefore, is a must-have for leaders (Ibarra & Hansen 2011). From the argument, it is evident that the ability to manage diverse teams is an important leadership requirement. The same argument is supported by Mullins (2010) who points out that the failure to effectively manage diverse teams is a failure on the part of the leader considering that the impact of the failure directly affects the input of the