In her book, Managing Diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace, Michalle E. Mor Barak talks about how ancient Chinese tradition divides people into categories based on four qualities: Shi (scholars), Nong (farmers), Gong (artisans) and Shang (merchants). The belief is that to be a fully effective leader, one must acquire the " . . . vision and ethics of the scholar, the appreciation and respect for basic human needs of the farmer, the creativity and drive for excellence of the artisan, and the ambition of the merchant (in order) to make a profit."

Within an organization, a few qualities must be homogenous—held in common by all. These are values, vision, and commitment to the team. However, in most areas, hiring for diversity is the wisest course of action. The strongest environments are inhabited by leaders with varied expertise, experiences, backgrounds, and temperaments.

Future leaders will define diversity management as "making quality decisions in the midst of differences, similarities, and tensions." This definition will allow them to deal with all kinds of discussions involving differences, similarities, and tensions and to see themselves as engaged in diversity management.

Leaders cannot help becoming aware of the craft's ability to assist in unraveling and creatively conceptualizing complex situations. As a result, they will count on the craft when approaching any situation where diverse perceptions, purposes, people, or other differences create substantial complexity. This will be true not only when the issue is race and gender complexity, but also when the complexity is created by diversity mixtures such as customers, mergers and acquisitions, and differing geographic business locations.

For future business leaders, the state of business, and our country, we need to get beyond seeing diversity as just achieving the desired profile-whether it be racial, a gender balance, or even a certain age mixture. We assume that if we get rid of all of the "isms" -racism, sexism, and so forth-that everything will be okay. Wrong. If you don't know how to manage a diverse workforce, you won't move your company forward. The challenge becomes: Can you, as a manager, create an environment that allows you to access talent, however it comes packaged?

...The biggest misconception companies have about diversity is that it is politically correct terminology for affirmative action, that it's a politicized concept. If that's how your company embraces diversity, you're up against a brick wall. Let's be clear. There is diversity-achieving the "right" racial or gender profile-and there's diversity management. The latter takes a set of principles and combines them into a framework that can be used by the CEO, managers, and other executives to enhance their business decisions,

We act as if diversity training is a shot to protect you from the measles, rather than preparation to allow you to go out and address diversity effectively. Most of what's done under the rubric of diversity training is fundamentally awareness training. One of the big challenges we have is getting people beyond awareness.

I always tell people, if you think everything is about race, you're going to be in a perpetual state of rage. If you think nothing that happens in life is about race, you are in a state of vapor. It is a matter of balancing this business of race and what role it plays.

There is no shortage of black leaders - they are in every field, every walk of life. Our only shortage is in the perception that fails to recognize the black leaders in our companies and communities.