UCLA's management school has for years hosted executive training sessions for African Americans, women, Latinos, lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgender people. This week, the school convened its first-ever workshop for disabled executives, filling what experts say is a void.
The five-day event closing today at the UCLA Anderson School of Management brought together disabled supervisors from a number of companies to hone their leadership skills, plot career goals and build support networks.
"This is kind of new territory," said Peter Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute, a disability research center at Syracuse University. "Most people with a disability have been historically out of sight and out of mind."
Although many companies have made concerted efforts to recruit disabled workers in recent years, those employees often face a glass ceiling when it comes to advancement. Yet when people with a significant impairment are in positions of leadership, Blanck said, their presence makes the organization's culture more tolerant.
The 25 workshop participants, all seasoned managers, came from companies that helped sponsor the workshop, including AT&T Inc., Merck & Co., Google Inc., PepsiCo Inc. and Motorola Inc.
The participants each had different kinds of disabilities but the leadership skills they were learning could be used almost anywhere, said Patty O'Sullivan, a human resource manager at Agilent Technologies Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif., and one of the participants.
O'Sullivan attended an Anderson School seminar for female executives six years ago but believed that she didn't bond with the other women. The goal was "to teach women to speak powerfully," she said, "but as a deaf person, it didn't fit me."
Her feedback led Anderson's administrators to organize the program for disabled executives.
"This week the void will be filled," O'Sullivan said.
Role models and mentors are important for every manager, said Laurie Dowling, who directs Anderson's executive education programs. But disabled employees, like those in other underrepresented groups, may not have bosses or sponsors who can sing their praises and help them take advantage of opportunities often filled through word of mouth, she said.
"The people who've gone before us can often give us important advice about how to handle challenges, and they are the people who can help teach us how to blow our horns," Dowling said.
