Why Employees Must Embrace Their Immigrant Values to Unleash Their True Potential
How connected are you personally and as a leader to your immigrant values? When was the last time you thought about the influence of your immigrant values? How they have shaped your character and leadership in the workplace? How about those of your colleagues? If you are a leader in the workplace, encourage your employees to embrace their immigrant values so they can unleash their true potential.
Immigrants have created new opportunities for America’s corporations that have contributed greatly to the economy. These economic contributions have recently been prominently highlighted by a new bi-partisan policy group to change immigration reform (Partnership for a New American Economy), led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg along with other mayors and business leaders throughout the country. In fact, I would highly recommend that you download their recent June, 2011 report (The New American Fortune 500) that will help you truly appreciate the impact and influence of immigrants in America. It will help you understand why the immigrant perspective will be at the core of America’s economic and societal reinvention.
There is a tremendous gap in how America’s corporations utilize the immigrant talent population in the US. Not just those immigrants that come to the US to find a better life, but the immigrant that exists in all of us.
My organization works with corporations and their employees to become authentic leaders by understanding the competitive advantages of embracing one’s immigrant values. I have witnessed firsthand how people can unleash their true potential just by being their natural whole selves. For example, I will never forget when a Fortune 200 executive stated, “I am so proud to be Polish, yet I have always felt that I needed lead like the mainstream in order to be considered for leadership advancement. Not only will I begin to embrace my immigrant values, but I will become more integrated into the Polish business community. There is so much more that I can offer my employer by accepting my culture rather than trying to assimilate into values that I don’t really stand for.” This individual is now a senior executive at his organization.
When will you begin to unleash your immigrant values?
America’s corporations have not fully realized the true strength of their talent pool potential given the great melting pot that exists in America. In so many aspects of our society, leaders are waiting for solutions rather than creating them. Immigrants are naturally wired to create opportunities. Now that America is struggling economically and is now learning how to reinvent itself from developing countries throughout the world, America’s corporations and their employees must not only be more entrepreneurial in their mindset, but also more culturally intelligent about themselves and the demographic shift in the US. This is the only way for our economy to grow and prosper organically and for people to continue to create new opportunities and cultivate innovation.
Employees in the workplace must reconnect with their immigrant values and begin to recognize that their inherent cultural roots provide unique and sustainable sources of leadership and entrepreneurial strength. America’s corporations have historically taught their employees to think linearly (inside the box). Employees must now be taught how to rewire themselves to think with circular vision (outside the box) in a manner that allows them to live their authentic immigrant values in the workplace. We must all embrace the survival mentality of the immigrant in order to continually innovate and thrive in America – the same approach of our founding fathers and the original immigrants that made America and its leadership great.