Our natural tendency is to judge other groups less favorably than our own. This tendency is the source of ethnocentrism, the belief that one’s own group, culture, country, or customs are superior to those of others. Two related dynamics are prejudices and stereotypes. A prejudice is a preconceived judgment, opinion, or assumption about an issue, behavior, or group of people.¹⁶ A stereotype is a positive or negative assessment of members of a group or their perceived attributes. One example of stereotyping in the United States involves Muslims. Many Muslims living in the United States fear that because some Muslims are high-profile terrorists, Americans might tend to stereotype all Muslims as terrorists. U.S. Muslims represent more than 6 percent of the U.S. population; they constitute a disproportionate number of college graduates, professionals, and business owners in American society; and they are responsible for only a negligible amount of crime. Many argue that stereotyping all Muslims as terrorists is drastically unfair to the U.S. Muslim population. A recent study by the Pew Forum found that, of all groups in the United States, Muslims experience the most workplace discrimination.¹⁷

Overall, it is important for managers to know about such negative dynamics as ethnocentrism and stereotyping so that they can monitor their own perceptions and help their employees view diverse coworkers more accurately.

When verbalized or acted upon, these negative dynamics can cause discomfort and stress for the judged individual. In some cases, there is outright discrimination. Discrimination is the act of treating an issue, person, or behavior unjustly or inequitably on the basis of stereotypes and prejudices. Consider the disabled person who is turned down for a promotion because the boss feels that this employee is incapable of handling the frequent travel required for this particular job. The boss’s prejudgment of this employee’s capabilities on the basis of his or her “difference”—and implementation of the prejudgment through differential treatment—constitutes discrimination. Or, consider an older worker who is turned down for a job because the manager thinks the worker is too old for the job. The actual turning down of the potential employee based on this managerial feeling could be considered age discrimination.¹⁸

Discrimination occurs when stereotypes are acted upon in ways that affect hiring, pay, or promotion practices—for example, when older employees are steered into less visible job assignments, which are unlikely to provide opportunities for advancement. Other challenges facing minorities and women include the pressure to conform to the organization’s culture, extreme penalties for mistakes, and tokenism. Tokenism refers to being one of the few members of your group in the organization.¹⁹ “Token” employees are given either very high or very low visibility in the organization. One African American male indicated that his white female manager “discouraged” him from joining voluntary committees and task forces within the company—and at the same time, in his performance appraisal she criticized him for being “aloof” and taking a “low-profile approach.”

In other cases, minorities are seen as representatives or “spokespeople” for all members of their group. As such, they are subject to high expectations and scrutiny from members of their own group. One Latino male employee described how other Latinos in the company “looked up to him” for his achievements in the organization. In general, ethnocentrism, prejudices, and stereotypes inhibit people’s ability to accurately process information.

Sometimes, however, people of color are the most compelling spokespersons in promoting the issue of diversity. In 1983, an African American lawyer in New York named James O’Neal founded a program called Legal Outreach to increase diversity in the legal profession. The program helps African American students in New York elementary schools prepare for careers in law. Legal Outreach’s comprehensive program includes after-school academic support, workshops that teach study and life skills, college preparation courses, field trips, and more. Now nationally acclaimed, the program has succeeded in sending more than 300 students to college, two-thirds of them to some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions. Eighty-five percent graduate in four years, and more than one-third go on to graduate or law school. Legal Outreach stands as a model of a pipeline diversity program for other cities to replicate.²¹

Rosabeth Moss Kanter has researched the pressures women managers face. In her classic study of gender dynamics in organizations, she emphasizes as one of those pressures the high expectations women have of other women.²²

Women in organizations confront gender-role stereotypes, or perceptions about people based on what our society believes are appropriate behaviors for men and women. Both sexes find their self-expression constrained by gender-role stereotyping. For example, women in organizations are often assumed to be good listeners, an attribution based on our societal view that women are nurturing. Although this assessment is a positive one, it is not true of all women or of any one woman all the time—hence the negative side of this stereotypical expectation of women in the workplace.

Women professionals, for instance, often remark that they are frequently sought out by colleagues who want to discuss non-work-related problems. Women managers also describe the subtle sanctions they experience from both men and women when they do not fulfill the expectations that they will be nurturing managers.

A serious form of discrimination affecting women in organizations has been dubbed the glass ceiling.²³ The term refers to an invisible “ceiling,” or barrier, to advancement.²⁴ This term, originally coined to describe the limits confronting women, is now also used to describe the experiences of other minorities in organizations. Although both women and men struggle to balance work and family concerns, it is still more common for women to assume the primary responsibility for household management as well as their careers, and sometimes they are denied opportunities for advancement because of this stereotype.

Sexual harassment, another form of discrimination, is defined as any unwanted sexual language, behavior, or imagery negatively affecting an employee.²⁵ According to the Equal Opportunity Commission, sexual harassment may include requests for sexual favors when such favors explicitly or implicitly become a term or condition of an individual’s employment or education. Managers must keep in mind that although sexual harassment more often targets women, men can also be victims of sexual harassment in the workplace or educational settings.

Racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities also confront inhibiting stereotypes about their groups. Like women, they must deal with misunderstandings and expectations based on their ethnic or cultural origins.

Many members of ethnic or racial minority groups have been socialized to be members of two cultural groups—the dominant culture and their particular racial or ethnic culture. Ella Bell, professor of organizational behavior at MIT, refers to this dual membership as biculturalism. In her study of African American women, she terms the stress of coping with membership in two cultures simultaneously as bicultural stress.26 She also indicates that role conflict (having to fill competing roles because of membership in two cultures) and role overload (having too many expectations to comfortably fulfill) are common characteristics of bicultural stress. Although these are problems for many minority groups, they are particularly intense for women of color because this group experiences negative dynamics affecting both minorities and women.

Internalized norms and values of one’s culture of origin can lead to problems and misunderstandings in the workplace, particularly when a manager relies solely on the cultural norms of the majority group when dealing with people not of that group. According to the norms of American culture, for example, it is acceptable—even beneficial—to publicly praise an individual for a job well done. However, in cultures that place primary value on group harmony and collective achievement, this way of rewarding an employee will cause emotional discomfort because the employee will fear that, if praised publicly, she will “lose face” in her group.

Being a woman and the member of a minority group can present a double hurdle in investment banking. For this reason, leadership at Morgan Stanley initiated its Emerging Manager Program to identify and support up-and-coming asset managers, particularly women of color. The program seeks to partner with and provide capital to asset managers in underrepresented segments (such as women-owned and minority-owned businesses). The goal is to increase the number of female and minorities in asset management, thereby creating a broader pool of talent and, ultimately, enhancing business results.²⁷

Older workers are a significant and valuable component of the labor force.²⁸ Approximately 16 million Americans over 55 years of age are employed or looking for work. Older workers are becoming an important labor force component. From 2002 to 2012, progressively fewer younger employees were available for hire because of the slow population growth between 1966 and 1985. During this same period, the pool of older workers available for hire increased faster than that of any other age segment and comprised more than 19 percent of the labor market.²⁹

Anticipating this simultaneous shortage of younger workers and increase in the number of older workers in the labor market, many managers have recommended that now is the time to start recruiting older workers.³⁰ Successful tactics for recruiting older workers include asking for referrals from current employees, using employment agencies, contacting local senior citizens community groups, and surveying members of various churches. Advantages of hiring older workers include their willingness to work nontraditional schedules, their ability to serve as mentors, and their strong work ethic. Disadvantages of hiring older workers might include their lack of technology experience and possible increased benefit costs to the organization due to their health-care needs. Once hired, management must focus on meeting the needs of older workers. For example, management must understand issues such as job preferences and that the personal needs of older versus younger workers are normally different. As a result, management will normally have to take special steps to meet the needs of the two different groups of workers. However, such steps will help management retain older workers and encourage older workers to be as productive as possible.³¹

Older workers face some specific challenges because of managers’ views of older people. Stereotypes and prejudices link age with senility, incompetence, and lack of worth in the labor market. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an expert on senior executives and older workers, compiled research findings from several studies of older employees. He found that managers view older workers as “deadwood” and seek to “weed them out” through pension incentives, biased performance appraisals, and other methods.³²

Actually, Sonnenfeld’s compilation of research indicates that even though older managers are more cautious, less likely to take risks, and less open to change than younger managers, many are high performers. Studies that tracked individuals’ careers over the long term conclude that a peak in performance occurs at about age 45 to 50, and a second peak occurs at about age 55 to 60. Performance in some fields (e.g., sales) either improves with age or does not significantly decline.

It is thus the manager’s responsibility to value older workers for their contributions to the organization and to see that they are treated fairly. This task requires an understanding of, and sensitivity to, the physiological and psychological changes that older workers sometimes experience. Supporting older workers also requires paying attention to how performance appraisal processes, retirement incentives, training programs, blocked career paths, union insurance pensions, and affirmative action goals affect this segment of the workforce.

People with disabilities are subject to the same negative dynamics that plague women, minorities, and older workers. For example, one manager confessed that before he attended diversity training sessions offered through a nearby university, he felt “uncomfortable” around disabled people. One disabled professional reported that she was always received warmly over the phone and told that her background was exactly what the company was looking for, but when she showed up for job interviews, she was often rebuffed and informed that her credentials were insufficient.

Many companies, though, are rejecting such negative dynamics and taking proactive steps to employ workers with disabilities. For example, Walgreens Company, the nation’s largest drug store chain, proactively pursues the hiring of workers with disabilities. The company’s 670,000-square-foot distribution center in Anderson, South Carolina, which services stores throughout the southeastern United States, was designed to be adaptable to the needs of workers with disabilities. Nearly half the facility’s 700 employees have a disability of some kind, such as autism, mental retardation, and hearing or vision impairments. The facility’s success has prompted the company to increase its hiring of candidates with disabilities. Careers and the Disabled magazine named Walgreens the “Private-Sector Employer of the Year” for its commitment to hiring and promoting workers with disabilities.³³