Diversity skills such as communication, teamwork and leadership are essential to ensuring that people interact with one another in ways that respect and value differences. Communication is essential to provide each co-worker or team member with the necessary information as efficiently as possible. Different types of communication exist, such as written, verbal, and behavioral, and each form sends a message to a person or group of people. Teamwork is necessary to combine the efforts of multiple individuals to achieve a highly desirable goal. Each individual performs a specific task that is combined in a total team effort so that the overall work is much easier on each person and nobody is overloaded or stretched too thin. Leadership helps provide guidance and problem solving tactics to the individual or team. Proper leadership can ensure that the group is efficient and works well together to achieve the goal. Improper leadership can cause deficiencies and problems that may or not be able to be overcome.

Diversity consciousness is very important for expanding the opportunities for success that we have in the future.  Diversity consciousness helps to enhance the person’s diversity skills; it expands the person’s horizons and empowers them through knowledge; and it promotes personal growth and helps to strengthen the social networks that can be beneficial down the road in a career.  Without diversity consciousness, an individual is not knowledgeable of cultural, racial, and sexual differences and will have a very poor social network to build upon in the future.