Diversity, social capital, and leadership practices: building inclusive learning organisations

Despite the increasing diversity of US society, educational and economic organisations have been slow in developing leadership practices that respond to diversity. The association between diversity and social capital in organisations has received relatively little attention. The Pathways program is discussed in this paper as an example that treats diversity as a social force in order to develop leadership practices that make learning organisations inclusive of diversity. The argument is offered in this paper that treating diversity as social capital results in "leading for diversity" – building learning organisations based on trust and cooperativeness.