Leading Diverse Teams to Drive Innovation

Digitalization expands companies’ possibilities to create value. In global markets, we need diverse teams to develop those possibilities and foster innovation. The first step to value creation during digitalization in tech is to understand there’s a need for leadership and empowerment of diverse teams to drive innovation. Mariana faces leadership challenges daily, and she shares her stories on leading diverse teams to drive innovation. 

#1 Value-based Leadership for Effective Diverse Teams

 We used to spend 80% of our time working with people in our surroundings with similar cultural backgrounds, this has changed: “I work with colleagues in the US or China and speak to them on a weekly basis”, Mariana says. Today, an independent, task-driven working mode and mindset in an homogenic environment doesn’t suffice to create value. We must learn to lead and collaborate effectively across diverse teams.

What are the key ingredients to leading diverse teams to drive innovation? Mariana’s led people with different cultural backgrounds in numerous countries in tech. She says:

“One of the most important aspects of leading a diverse team is to know your values, and to stick to them.”

When Mariana started working, she promised herself to be authentic, transparent and honest with herself first, with her team and superiors. These values help her foster collaboration and increase the team’s ability to innovate.

#2 Balance Compassion with Value-based Leadership for Effective Collaboration

Sticking to your values isn’t always straightforward. Finding the balance between being authentic and considering contextual needs is the toughest job in leadership, Mariana says. You want to be true to yourself but also consider the context you’re in. The key to striking the balance is compassion. “Being authentic is fighting for what you believe in, but this does not mean, you think that you are always right.”

When you compliment authenticity with compassion you create an open and collaborative environment.

This can help you break hierarchical barriers, because your attitude changes from me versus you to How can we tackle this issue together? This is crucial to effective collaboration and innovation. 

Listen More to Dismantle Hierarchical Barriers

“Listen more than you speak.”, Mariana says. Listening opens our minds and allows us to understand different perspectives. This fosters compassion and connects us to people. When you are able to step into the shoes of others and you build a common goal you can dismantle hierarchical barriers more easily. “Whether you are speaking to the CEO or a student, listen and meet them at their level. Stay true to your values, just don’t forget the others”, she says. 

Today, active listening skills are more important than ever as digitalization reaches a turning point with COVID19. Remote collaboration has increased. Working together and leading diverse teams remotely has gotten even trickier. Our ability to understand someone by reading their body language is reduced. Honing our active listening skills and developing compassion is essential to leading diverse teams to drive innovation.

Is Your Team Challenging Your Perspectives?

Mariana takes it one step further to break hierarchical barriers. She applies a listening-technique that helps her ensure that her team is challenging her perspective. She builds a scenario of a problem being discussed, listens to the feedback, then, she’ll build a different scenario contradictory to the one she just presented and listens to the feedback. She can use this approach to understand if her team isn’t merely validating what she’s saying. This increases her understanding and engagement of her team members and is only possible given the high level of trust she’s already built within the team.

#3 Build A Learning Culture to Empower Teams 

As a leader, another way to gain perspective and lead diverse teams to drive innovation is to encourage learning through trial and error. Encouraging teams to learn and to take ownership to experiment requires a leadership team that is willing to learn from setbacks as well. This isn’t easy, Marianna says. We get emotional about what we believe in and fight for, she explains. Role-modelling the right behavior comes with coaching peers, colleagues or managers who haven’t changed their mindset and behavior around failure, yet. This is challenging, but necessary to cultivate a learning culture where diverse teams feel safe enough to experiment and innovate.

Manage Emotions and Give Feedback To Foster A Learning Culture 

If we seek to be leaders that empower diverse teams to drive innovation fostering a learning culture is key. And learning from failure requires the ability to manage our emotions. We must learn to control the impulse reactions to setbacks and to deal with the feeling: I did not expect this, and I’m frustrated about the outcome. Giving mindful feedback to a colleague is one way to deal with an overreaction to a failed experiment.

Mariana explains that when you break paradigms—push new behaviors forward, such as accepting setbacks—it can feel like some colleagues go against you. Try to refrain from thinking that people’s behavior is malicious. Don’t take it personally, and focus on a mindset that allows for objective interpretation. Give the person feedback once you’ve gained distance. Here’s an example of how Mariana gives feedback: “I respect you, I admire you for what you are, but I didn’t have the same feeling from your side when you didn’t receive the answer that you were expecting.” 

Critically Reflect on Your Behavior And Challenge Your Beliefs to Learn from Failure

Learning from failure is another key aspect of leading diverse teams to drive innovation. Gaining insight from setbacks requires not only the ability to manage emotions, but to question them. Did I overreact? Why did I overreact? Why is it hard for me to accept and learn from this outcome?

Acting from a place of good intent and compassion leads to heightened connections, but this takes knowing yourself first.

Critically reflecting on your behavior and challenging your beliefs is key to developing your mindset and learning from failure. Do your beliefs still serve you? Or are they hindering you and possibly the team?

Digital transformation demands that we have honest conversations with ourselves and the people we work with. This requires that you know your values and you stick to them, that you listen and lead with compassion, that you manage your emotions and grow a (renewed) willingness to learn from failure. 

Sounds like a lot. It is.

Change is hard and it takes courage and a lot of work to lead and empower diverse teams. But once you’ve figured it out, it is so fulfilling.

What are your key lessons on leading diverse teams? And what has changed with all this remote activity?

To all my readers, stay safe and until next time,

Helena