Leading For Change A Blueprint For Cultural Diversity And .

1. IntroductionAustralia is widely celebrated as a multiculturaltriumph, but any such success remainsincomplete. There remains significant underrepresentation of cultural diversity in the seniorleadership of Australian organisations. Oursociety does not yet appear to be making themost of its diverse talents.Doing so is important, not only as a naturalprogression of our multiculturalism, but alsobecause it is necessary. Australia needs adiversity of ideas, capabilities and culturalintelligence to navigate technological, social,economic and geopolitical changes.In 2016, for the first time, research provided astatistical snapshot of the cultural diversity ofsenior leaders in business, politics, governmentand higher education. As published in Leadingfor Change: A Blueprint for Cultural Diversity andInclusive Leadership, the story was an unhappyone. There was an almost total absence of nonEuropean backgrounds represented among thecohort of chief executives in Australia.During the past two years, more attention hasbeen devoted to getting cultural diversity right.There is growing recognition that efforts ondiversity and inclusion have focused primarilyon gender, and have downplayed or ignoredculture and race. This is a welcome, thoughoverdue, development.At the same time, concerns about culturaldiversity are still often assimilated intodiscussions about gender diversity. Forexample, while there are some similarities inthe obstacles for greater gender and culturaldiversity in leadership, the issues are by nomeans identical. There is a need to givededicated time and energy to cultural diversityin its own right.This report provides an updated overview of therepresentation of cultural diversity in the seniorleadership of Australian organisations. Applyingand updating the methodology used in Leadingfor Change (2016), it gives a breakdown of thecultural diversity of the two most senior tiers ofsenior management within the ASX 200 groupof listed companies, Commonwealth and Stategovernment departments and universities. Thereport also provides statistics for the culturaldiversity of the Australian Parliament.The findings of this report suggest we have along way to go before realising the full potentialof our multicultural population. If progress isbeing made on cultural diversity, it remains slow.We reiterate that improving the representation ofcultural diversity requires action at three levels:leadership, systems and culture. Through aseries of case studies drawn from Australianorganisations’ experience, we highlightexamples of how such concrete steps canbe taken.This report does not purport to provide anexhaustive treatment of cultural diversityand leadership. It aims, though, to provide areference point for understanding how we arefaring. This includes providing a classificationthat can assist in discussing cultural diversity.This report also aims to provide some thematicguidance to organisations, in light of currentdebates. In addition to the inherent challenge ofdealing with race and culture, a contemporarybacklash against diversity might also impedeprogress. In the United States, Britain andEurope, political debates have exhibited ahardening of sentiments against immigration andmulticulturalism. This has been accompanied bynotable campaigns against diversity initiativeswithin workplaces, including within Silicon Valley.There are signs that such sentiments may alsobe gaining strength here in Australia.None of this gives us a reason to abandoncultural diversity. The fact that something is hardto do does not in any way mean that it is not theright thing to do. But it does mean advocatesfor cultural diversity must be prepared to updatetheir thinking and reinvigorate their language.Leading for Change 03

2. MethodologyOur study examined the cultural backgrounds ofchief executive officers of ASX 200 companies,federal government ministers, heads of federaland state government departments, and vicechancellors of universities. It also examined thecultural backgrounds of senior managementat the level directly below chief executivesand equivalent – namely, group executives ofASX 200 companies, elected members of theCommonwealth Parliament, deputy heads ofgovernment departments and deputy vicechancellors of universities.1These cohorts were chosen to illustrate therepresentation of cultural diversity amongleaders in business, politics, government (publicservice) and civil society.2.1 Cultural backgroundand classificationWe consider cultural background to referprimarily to a person’s ethnicity and ancestry.The concept of ethnicity can be understoodto relate to a human group or population thathas a common origin, and which may exhibitshared defining features such as homeland,language, customs, historical tradition, religionand physical appearance.2 We regard ancestry –a person’s descent and family background – asinextricably tied to ethnicity.Our study adopts a classification that includes fourwide groups of cultural backgrounds, which wasfirst used in the Leading for Change report (2016):1. Indigenous background;2. Anglo-Celtic background;3. European background; and4. non-European background.04The use of this classification, and the way inwhich cultural backgrounds are grouped, doesnot imply the expression of an opinion on thepart of the authors about the recognition ofsuch backgrounds by governments or thestatus accorded to them. It does not implythat there are only four ways in which people’scultural backgrounds can be expressed orcaptured – using this classification does nothingto prevent or deny people from expressingtheir cultural background or heritage. We usethis classification simply as a conceptual aidto understanding the representation of culturaldiversity. It provides a means of aggregatingcultural backgrounds in a way that permits moresophisticated analysis than otherwise possible.The meaning of the classification can beexplained in the following way.‘Indigenous’ designates those who have anAboriginal or Torres Strait Islander culturalbackground.‘Anglo-Celtic’ describes those culturalbackgrounds that are English, Scottish, Welshand Irish.3 ‘European’ includes all Europeanbackgrounds other than Anglo-Celtic – includingNorth-West European (e.g. German, French,Dutch) and Southern and Eastern European(e.g. Italian, Greek, Polish).‘Non-European’ encompasses all other culturalbackgrounds, including South-East Asian(e.g. Vietnamese, Malaysian), North-East Asian(e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean), Southern andCentral Asian (e.g. Indian, Sri-Lankan, Afghani),Latin American (e.g. Mexican, Colombian),Middle Eastern and North African (e.g. Egyptian,Turkish), Sub-Saharan African (e.g. Nigerian,Zimbabwean) and Oceanic and Pacific Islander(e.g. Maori, Tongan).4

The use of any such categories necessarilyreflects the history of a particular society andthe preponderance of groups within it. Webelieve the above four categories – Indigenous,Anglo-Celtic, European, non-European – areappropriate in light of Australia’s demographichistory. In particular, they reflect the main wavesof immigration that have primarily shaped thecomposition of Australian society today.For some 60 000 years Australia was solelyoccupied by Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander peoples, until the arrival of the FirstFleet in 1788. With the colonisation of Australia,the population would become predominantlyBritish (English, Scottish, Welsh) and Irishin background. Scholars refer to Australiannational identity being shaped during its colonialera by an ‘Anglo-Celtic’ hybrid culture.5Such composition in the Australian colonialpopulation was reinforced by cumulativeimmigration from the British Isles. Significantnumbers of Chinese and other immigrantsarrived during the gold rushes in the second halfof the 19th century; there would also be manythousands of Pacific Islander workers who cameto Australia as indentured labourers in the 19thcentury, largely in Queensland. But immigrationrestrictions imposed by colonial and later theCommonwealth governments meant the culturalimpact of such immigration – namely, of nonAnglo-Celtic origin – was limited.The maintenance of the White Australia policyfor most of the 20th century meant thatimmigration was mainly from the British Isles –that is, until the post-Second World War period.The 1950s and 60s were years when significantnumbers of immigrants from Europe settled inAustralia. This would inject a new (non-AngloCeltic) European cultural component to theAustralian population.The next waves of immigration have been of anon-European origin, with the formal dismantlingof the White Australia policy in 1973, and thearrival of refugees following the conclusion ofthe Vietnam War and related strife in Cambodiaand Laos.The late 1970s and early 1980s saw some70 000 Indochinese refugees resettled inAustralia, with many more thousands of theserefugees’ relatives arriving in later years throughfamily reunion programs. This has also beenaccompanied by the arrival of immigrants fromother countries in Asia, as well as the MiddleEast, South America and Africa.62.2 Our process of classificationIn determining the cultural backgroundof Australian leaders in business, politics,government, and higher education, weexamined the following:a. publicly available biographical informationabout the individual (e.g. organisation websiteand Who’s Who entry);b. other relevant public statements that mayinclude information about the individual’scultural background (e.g. speeches andmedia reports);a. an individual’s full name and its origins;b. an individual’s place of birth; andc. photographs of the individual.Where possible, we have sought to findreferences to ancestry and cultural backgroundgoing back as far back as two generations (thatis, to a person’s grandparents). After gatheringthe available data, we then placed leaders’cultural backgrounds into one of the fourcategories: Indigenous, Anglo-Celtic, European,non-European.Such a methodology is consistent withac

Case Studies Case Study 1: Leadership Council on Cultural Diversity 19 Case Study 2: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 20 Case Study 3: Law firms 21 Case Study 4: Deloitte Case Study 5: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 23 Case Study 6: Commonwealth Bank of Australia 25 Case Study 7: The University of Sydney 26 Case Study 8 .