When we are opening the door to diversity, it's really key that the organization be ready to not just accept the diversity—whether it's gender or culture, religious or linguistic—but to also embrace it and make it part of the team. So if I have a diverse team, as a leader I need to be able to understand their culture. I need to be able to tap into the diversity that each member brings in. The idea is that somebody needs to makes a decision, and it's a two-way process. As your colleague said, when the diverse member comes in, they need to understand that the organization has its own values. In the Canadian Forces, we value command structure. So if your commanding officer is a female and you are a male, you need to be okay with that, for example.
On March 26th, 2013. See this statement in context.