There are personal and professional benefits for managers who take a leadership position on disability.

70% of companies taking part in the 2005 Disability Standard have board members who have responsibility for disability. [iv] Ever more employers are incorporating diversity standard into appraisals, remuneration and career development reviews.

Managers and supervisors who become disability confident gain technical skills in areas such as:

• people management,
• accessibility and usability
• complex change management programmes

Involvement in disability change builds interpersonal skills and personal development, resulting in managers with a more sophisticated understanding of human potential.

Self-awareness is a key component of emotional intelligence, a distinguishing feature of good leaders [v]. Disability confidence can help managers to understand and work within their own limitations - and perhaps even recognise that they are themselves, or someone in their family, is disabled.

In addressing the need for reasonable adjustments, managers learn to think laterally about job design, accessible technology and their working environment and to be able to communicate that understanding to colleagues, to their own line managers and to the senior team.

My professional involvement in disability has caused me to question assumptions, challenge long standing ways of doing things and encourage a markedly different approach to problem solving and team development.

Trevor Smith, Managing Director, European Technology, Goldman Sachs

Sources

1. [i] IFF research, 2005.
2. [ii] The Employers' Forum on Disability, the Disability Standard 2005
3. [iii] CiPD, ‘Adapting to Disability, It wasn't so difficult after all', 2001.
4. [iv] The Employers' Forum on Disability, the Disability Standard 2005
5. [v] Daniel Goleman (Harvard Business Review Jan 2004). * With thanks to Alice Maynard, Future Inclusion