Not only is the world getting flatter, it’s becoming more colorful. As globalization becomes a reality, more and more companies will employ people of every race, nationality, religious background, and age group. These people will work side by side in the same office building, others a hemisphere away. That’s why if your company is still leading the old—white, male, authoritarian—way, you’re making a mistake. It would be great if you could magically fill your leadership ranks with men and women from different cultures, backgrounds, and traditions. But if that’s unrealistic, you can gain a lot by simply borrowing their techniques.

Today’s leadership models, although they may differ from person to person and method to method, generally have a common bias toward Western- or European-influenced ways of thinking. We’re leading as if our companies are filled with white men and that’s clearly no longer the case. Contemporary leadership theories exclude the enormous contributions, potential learning, and valuable insights that come from other communities.

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