Stereotyping often elicits deep emotions that upset many of us in East Africa. Unfortunately, stereotypes remain a prominent reality in cultures around the world and of course right here in Kenya.
How many Business Daily readers remember feelings of frustration when denied a job or promotion while believing that stereotyping played a role in the denial of that opportunity?
Does anyone remember feeling biased against during school by teachers, at home by a neighbour, or in the security queue at the airport by a security professional?
Thankfully, not everyone in a culture utilises stereotypes in their own thinking. Do you stereotype your neighbours, colleagues, and friends? If so, what stereotypes do you hold about other types of people?
The practice of citizens stereotyping fellow citizens undoubtedly causes numerous issues in a nation.
Some examples include American stereotypes that exist between north vs south and black vs white. Europeans often stereotype based on fat vs thin and immigrant vs native.
South Asia struggles with stereotypes between light and dark as well as between castes while East Asia scuffles with rural vs urban and beautiful vs plain.
Then, here at home, the epicentre of stereotypes revolves around ethnicity or rural vs urban orientation.
Prior to the 2007 elections, many stereotypes often received humorous attention on television and radio. Those older among us remember the funny Redykyulass comedy antics.
Following the 2007-2008 post-election violence, celebrating cultural differences became more frowned upon and such differences gave root to more bitter stereotypes.
Now in 2023 given political fracturing, will we fall victim to deeper stereotype assumptions?
In creating stereotypes, we develop categories and assign traits. We next assign a person to that category based on our observations.
Then, we make assumptions that since the other person belongs to that category, then they possess the traits for that category of person.
Since I am a university faculty, let me pick on my category as an example. First, people may believe that professors are absent-minded.
Then, students in a class might note that their instructor is a professor. Next, the students may assign the traits of that category to me by thinking that therefore Dr Scott is absent-minded.
Unfortunately, assigning traits to all members of a particular group may lead to problems. Professional Kenyans often stereotype Tanzanians as professionally lazy.
Despite evidence of thousands of hardworking industrious Tanzanians, many here in Kenya still hold the stereotype deep in their subconscious.
So, suppose a Tanzanian, Mr Mruma, comes to work at a large bank in Nairobi. On the very first day on the job, his supervisor may begin to form expectations about him based on the supervisor’s own stereotypes.
Then, the supervisor’s behaviour throughout Mruma’s employment changes based on the earlier stereotype-based expectations.
Eventually, the supervisor’s behaviour begins to affect Mruma. Finally, Mruma might begin to stop working hard because he may feel “since everyone expects me to act lazily and treats me as such even when I am not, then I may as well just meet their expectations.”
The stereotypes lead to the negative performance of the individual employee that collectively brings down overall firm profits.
Psychologists refer to the above downward spiral as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Employees subconsciously act out on the expectations held on them.
It may require coaching and incredible self-awareness for employees to rise above the self-fulfilling prophecy expectations that those around them hold of them.
The stress associated with stereotyping leads to unhappy employees, a lack of organisational trust, and lower performance.
So as a manager, how do you stamp out stereotypes in your business? Start by realising the accuracy around stereotypes and training your employees.
Stereotypes often possess some accuracy, but also many distortions and errors. Clearly, the traits do not describe everyone in a particular group.
People tend to screen out information that does not fit with their stereotype.
As a manager, work hard to mix different types of people in your firm through team building, joint assignments, and geographic reassignment.
In thinking of steps to follow to reduce stereotyping in your firm and fix the negative effects of the practice, start with awareness training.
First, your organisational leaders should learn the effects of negative stereotype perceptions that hurt the business.
Then train your employees on cultural history that may lead to some stereotypes and then how to appreciate different cultures. Second, mix your employees so different categories work together.
Training and mixing along do not solve the self-fulfilling prophecy problem part of stereotyping. So, utilise Richard Durbin’s three-pronged strategy that includes supporting a learning orientation in your firm. Encourage learning about, not just mixing with, other cultures or people types.
Next, engage in contingency leadership styles. In other words, adapt your leadership style to the environment. Aware of stereotypes in Kisumu vs Nyeri, adjust your leadership styles accordingly in each location.
Finally, inrease employee self-efficacy. Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura developed the idea of self-efficacy to address how an employee perceives his or her ability to perform a task within a specific context.
While similar to self-esteem, self-efficacy differs in that it focuses on a specific task performance. Positively reinforce the employee’s ability to do the task. Publicly praise the employee for performing the task properly.
