Louis Gerstner's leadership and diversity management at IBM

Organizational Leaders Who Manage Diversity Effectively

Louis Gerstner became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in the year 1993. Gerstner studied at Dartmouth College where he graduated magna cum laude. Subsequently, he attended Harvard University and attained an MBA in 1965. From there on, Gerstner joined McKinsey & Co where he worked as a management consultant. 5 years on within the company, Gerstner progressed to become one of the youngest partners in the history of McKinsey & Co and set himself apart by revamping the insolvent Penn Central Railway. Three years later, he joined American Express where he took the role of executive vice president and the leader of the firm\'s travel-related services department. By 1985, he became the President of the organization and in that role he managed to improve its performance through a 66% rise in corporate net income. By the time Louis Gerstner came to be the CEO of IBM, the company was going through a rough patch and was deemed to be the most difficult job in corporate America. Louis Gerstner is well renowned for playing the fundamental role of invigorating the ailing IMB during that period (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008).

Status of the Organization

Before the time Gerstner became the CEO of IBM in 1993, diversity already played a role in the organization in the sense that IBM had a lengthy history of enlightened management with respect to civil rights and equal employment. Going back from its early past times in the United States, IBM has been a forerunner in treasuring and placing great value of diversity in its workforce (Thomas, 2004). Approximately three decades prior to the implementation of the Equal Pay Act that assured equal compensation for both sexes, Thomas Watson, the President of the organization at the time guaranteed women equal compensation for equal work. Along these lines, in 1943, IBM elected its very first female vice president (Bauer and Erdogan, 2014). Moreover, three decades prior to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which provides women unpaid leave for the birth of a child, IBM once again made major strides with respect to diversity within the organization by providing the similar benefit to female workers. In turn, the company protracted this benefit period to one year in the 1960s period and furthermore to three years in 1988. In addition, IBM has been ranked amongst the top 100 companies on Working Mother magazine (Bauer and Erdogan, 2014). More impressively, the company has been part of this list each year since its very first time in 1986. In 2009, IBM went a step further and was awarded the top spot for multicultural working women. Taking these aspects into consideration, it can be perceived that IBM has always been a leader in diversity management (Ferris, 2004).

Philosophy

When Louis Gerstner became the CEO of IBM, he perceived one of his fundamental responsibilities as developing the organization\'s tradition determinedly founded in a philosophy that placed diversity as the channel between the workplace and the marketplace. Gerstner considered this philosophy to be vital in IBM\'s capacity to win the battle for international talent and success in a global marketplace (Maltbia and Power, 2009). Gerstner believed that there was a need to unravel and comprehend the variances amongst the different groups within the organization and come up with ways to appeal to a wide ranging set of employees and consumers. By the time Gerstner left his position as the CEO of IBM, he had managed to transform the company, having 370% rise in female executives, 233% increase in ethnic minority executives and also 733% rise in the number of LGBT executives (Thomas, 2004).

Strategies

When Louis Gerstner took over as the CEO of IBM, he had the sense that the company\'s senior executive team did not mirror the diversity of the market for talent or the organization\'s consumers and workforce. To remedy the imbalance, Gerstner initiated a diversity task-force enterprise that came to be a foundation of IBM\'s Human Resource strategy. Instead of trying to eradicate discrimination by purposefully disregarding variances among personnel, IBM formed task forces, and each of them laid emphasis on a different group, for instance Asians, women and LGBT. The main objective of the initiative was to unravel and comprehend dissimilarities amongst the groups and establish ways to attract a wider set of personnel and consumers (Thomas, 2004).

Gerstner formed eight diversity task forces centered on demographic groups, for instance women and men, in addition to Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, LGBT individuals, and employees with disabilities. In particular, these task forces comprised of senior-level, well-esteemed executives and higher-level managers (Thomas, 2004). In addition, members were tasked with obtaining an understanding as to how to ensure each consistency has a sense of being welcomed at home at IBM. Every task force carried out a sequence of meeting and interviewed thousands of personnel to attain the fundamental factors regarding every particular group (Bauer and Erdogan, 2014). For instance, the existence of a male-controlled culture, absence of networking prospects, and work-life management difficulties crowned the number of apprehensions for women. Asian personnel were most worried about typecasting, absence of networking, and restricted employment growth plans. African-American worker worries encompassed retention, lack of networking, and inadequate training prospects.

Fortified with a list of primacies, IBM launched a number of major programs and initiatives to take these issues into consideration. As an example, personnel in search of a mentor could utilize the organization\'s website to pinpoint one prepared and ready to offer direction and advice. What is almost certainly most distinctive regarding this approach is that the organization proceeded on each concern whether it was centered on actuality or perception. IBM came to the realization that a number of women were worried that they would have to relinquish leading a balanced life if they sought to be promoted to higher management positions, while 70% of the women in higher levels had children, signifying that perceptual obstacles can also function as an obstacle to employee ambitions. IBM management opted to handle this particular matter by having better communication with employees, in addition to augmenting their networking program (Bauer and Erdogan, 2014).

Current Status

In the contemporary, IBM perceives diversity in the same manner it perceives innovation, that is in the sense that both are fundamental to the efficacy and success of the organization. When the firm innovates, technology comes to be smarter for consumers and generates new prospects for growth. With the incorporation of diversity into the business, IBM generates better innovations and results. For a long time now, IBM has espoused diversity and it hands prospects for stakeholders and for the clients to attain their full potential (IBM, 2015). In the present day, IMB is a well-renowned leader in diversity despite the fact that its commitment is entury-long. The current CEO of the company, Sam Palmisano, is dedicated to continuing Gerstner\'s legacy of leading to leverage diversity with his plans to change the company to come to be an on-demand business and his emphasis is on innovation via collaboration. In particular, Palmisano asserts that diversity policies are centered close to IBM\'s heart as they have been all through the organization\'s heritage. Presently, IBM is creating a workforce in agreement with the global, diverse marketplace, to render better service to its consumers and seize a greater proportion of the on-demand prospect (Maltbia and Power, 2009). In conclusion, IBM\'s incessant and persistent dedication to diversity is one of the reasons why the organization can be accredited as a successful firm and one of the leading globally integrated enterprises in the world.