News and knowledge from the UVA Darden School of Business.

Expert

Martin N. Davidson

Johnson and Higgins Professor of Business Administration

Davidson is an expert on global leadership and how to manage diversity to generate superior performance, pioneering an approach called Leveraging Difference. He helps senior leaders develop the skills they need to thrive in global environments.

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“Positive weird” needs to be another focus as we seek to understand how to create better organizations and communities that bring out the best in both marginal and dominant members.

Getting diversity, equity and inclusion right in any organization is a function of change, which is hard. Here Darden experts provide practical insights on leveraging deviance in ways that empower individuals, the benefits of unconscious-bias training, mentorship and sponsorship, and how to have constructive (if potentially tense) conversations.

Getting diversity and inclusion right in any organization is a function of change. It’s about overcoming barriers, getting people out of dominant paradigms about diversity, and empowering people to understand diversity and inclusion as part of the overall livelihood of their organizations. That means providing models and templates that get results.

The argument in favor of diversity and inclusion is robust. The benefits are clear. As our populations change, diverse groups of talent are emerging, and they are emerging fast. However, corporations and businesses are still lagging hard behind the pace of this change. So what’s holding us back?

Professor Martin Davidson writes on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and how corporate America will chose to invest in progress.

The social unrest of 2020 brought new attention to long-simmering issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in the U.S. and around the globe, and prompted many to seek to learn more about longstanding societal inequities — and potential paths forward. Six Darden professors deliver their thoughts and share additional thought leadership.

Do diversity and inclusion efforts do what they’re intended to? Professor Martin Davidson, Darden’s senior associate dean and global chief diversity officer, discusses workplace practices that encourage a culture of race-intelligent inclusion and greater understanding of the needs of black people.

Darden’s Martin Davidson and Lisa Cannell discuss the difference between mentoring and sponsoring women — and the importance of leveraging difference at work.