Social Identity: Knowing Yourself, Knowing Others

Social Identity comprises the parts of a person's identity that come from belonging to particular groups, including age, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and socioeconomic status. Your social identity informs how you lead. The social identities of those around you affect how they view you as a leader and how they views, and thus work with, others. This guidebook includes questions and activities to help you develop your awareness of social identity. Armed with that knowledge, you can decrease the likelihood of misunderstanding, increase your ability to be open to different perspectives, and enhance your skill at accurately interpreting situation that call on your ability to lead.

This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) has generated, since its inception in 1970, through its research and educational activity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands of managers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared-in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. CCL is not simply a collection of individual experts, although the individual credentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and working together to understand and generate practical responses to today's leadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the series is to provide managers with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL's mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide.
We think you will find the Ideas Into Action Guidebooks an important addition to your leadership toolkit.

Kelly M. Hannum is an enterprise associate in the Global Leadership and Diversity and the Design and Evaluation groups at the Center for Creative Leadership. She holds a Ph.D. in educational research, measurement, and evaluation from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.