In one of my classes we had the Dean of Paul college at UNH Deborah Merrill-Sands speak with us about her life and her leadership style. She is a very successful and passionate person who has had an interesting life consistently dealing with conflict from others in her own field. The most addressed topic she spoke to our class about was the bias that consistently flooded her way as a women leader. She spoke about two case studies where the only difference in the two were the names of the manager in it one was Dan and the other was Danielle. The overwhelming majority of the cases with Danielle had very negative attitudes and responses about her leadership style and the case with Dan like his leadership style. The most shocking part is that it was both women and men who have this natural bias towards women leadership in the study. These natural biases are awful in the business world. People must do there hardest to see things with an open mind and leave any prejudice out. My teacher also spoke about this topic when dean Merrill-Sands was in and said that "most people have this natural bias but its about ignoring it and being open minded towards it" He also talked about a college who was said to be the least bias leader they know and his response was "I am extremely bias I have just learned how to control it and be open better then most people. Overall if we can erase or ignore our personal biases the workforce can be much more diverse creating a better environment overall.
I like the Dean's response - admitting that he is biased. I am convinced we are hard-wired to be biased based on my study of evolutionary psychology. The question is, can we overcome our biases - or as the Dean said, control it. Until the relatively recent history, it was considered a virtue to overcome our animal instincts. I find that is less so today.
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