Leadership and Organizational Culture
Leadership and Organizational Culture 2
Leadership: Defined 3
Overview of Leadership Theories 4
Leadership Characteristics and Skills 5
Organizational Culture: Defined 6
Functions of Organizational Culture 6
Organizational Culture and Leadership 8
Do organizations shape leaders or do leaders shape organizations? 9
How do leaders outline and entrench culture or individuality? 10
Conclusion 11
References 13
Introduction
Leadership and organizational culture are the facets of the same coin. One becomes handicapped without other and vice versa. The future perspective of the organization is envisioned by the members of the organization in terms of services and products their company will offer to consumers. Along with that, the production and distribution channels of yield and mutual expectations from the organization as a business group are also anticipated in the process. Generally, the ‘vision’ of the company is developed on the ethics and behavioral aspects of an efficient leader. The word ‘Leader’ has various subsiding meanings within it. A leader can be a mentor, a manager, a motivator, an enthusiast, and a person in-charge of mission, vision and objectives of the business. The vision of a leader also has an effect on the organizational culture. The subsequent paragraphs will assist more in going deeper into this aspect of business.
Leadership: Defined
Leading is the capability of a person to inspire people for providing sky-scraping performance and furthermore enabling all to present their thoughts in the decision making progression. Every individual is different and thus his respective leadership style is also different. This makes it a tough task to present a compatible definition of leadership. Since ages, various researchers have defined leadership in their own way. In proposition with Stogdil, “Leadership may be considered as the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal-setting and goal achievement” (Stogdil, 1950). From this definition, three common elements can be easily extracted which are present in all the other definitions of leadership. They are influence, group and goal. Thereby, it can be further explained as the leadership is a process of influencing others by inducing them to perform in a definite way. Moreover, that influences procedure taken up by a leader generally happen in a group of people and motivation or leadership instinct can come from anyone in the group. Lastly, a leader sways the performance of group members in the course of goals with which the group is countenanced.
Some of the theories of leadership consist of (Driscoll & Hoffman, 2000), (Jones, McChrystal, Kung & Griffith, 2002)
Leadership Characteristics and Skills
A leader is effective if he is equipped with specific characteristics features and skills. With the aid of these aspects of his personality traits, he can easily accomplish his organizational objectives and thus bring great heights of success within the business (Kilmann, Saxton & Serpa, 1986, p-87-94).
Organizational Culture: Defined
The place of work atmosphere created from the dealings of the human resources in the office is generally termed as organizational culture. Organizational culture is defined by the entire life occurrences, strong points, flaws, education, background, and so forth of the employees. Whilst executive leaders take part in a large role in defining organizational mores by their acts and leadership, all employees have a say to the organizational culture (Driscoll & Hoffman, 2000).
Levels of organizational Culture
(Source: Driscoll & Hoffman, 2000)
Functions of Organizational Culture
There are some intentional as well as some unintentional functions of organizational culture when perceived within a business context. It is thus sometimes becomes tough to observe, map or measure organizational culture in a definite way. Organizational culture can support or else conflict the structure of the organization depending on the requirement and work setting. Yes, few common functions of organizational culture can be discussed briefly as (Jones, McChrystal, Kung & Griffith, 2002):
Behavioral Control
The unpredictability of the behaviors of the workforce is generally controlled by the system of organization. There is a list of certain accepted and few discarded acts proposed by the leaders of the organizations. To make this task at ease, organization set up rules and regulations, procedures and standards along with several consequences for compliance and non-compliance. This system of formalization comes under the formation and implementation of organizational cultural mores. In a way, this step provides informal direction to all the employees of the company.
Promotes Stability
The business world is full of transitions and transformations. It has been observed that an organization will only succeed in its performance if it maintains certain characteristic aspects of work culture; despite all the ongoing transitions in external and well as internal environment. The organization follows the same behavior with the same mission, vision and goals and also all the issues and matters are essentially handled in the same way. An organization's culture is time and again deceased from "generation" to "generation" creating a comparatively high level of steadiness over time.
Presents Source of individuality
Individuals recurrently explore to describe their social identities. Occasionally identities are defined by functions or jobs, and in other cases people characterize themselves through their organizational association. When taking on an organization the same as a basis of identity, people are taking on the principles and achievements of that organization.
Organizational Culture and Leadership
It is believed that in order to recognize and address any sort of disparities among the existing organizational culture and any other which is perceived for future, the leaders of the organization should have a strong enticement. They should realize the impact they can have as cream of the crop in facilitating the culture of the organization, shaping the essential steps to create that culture, and intriguing the required act to form a strong organizational culture. Within a company, leadership is among those factors which influence the organizational culture mostly. Smircich (1983) talks about organizational culture and challenges it provides in regard to four important functions. They are: by providing an intellect of uniqueness to members, facilitating a sense‐making frame for organizational actions, reinforcing organizational worth, and serving as a system for shaping activities.
Competition also prevails in the business environment for a profitable organization. During this vital situation, if the steps taken by the leaders of the company assist in the development process, it will be a win-win situation for all the stakeholders of the company. Generally, the entire workforce and mentors of a business work around the predetermined goals and objectives. To sum up, collective work steps in that direction will form a high-quality organizational culture.
Do organizations shape leaders or do leaders shape organizations?
This is an ongoing debate from years, but still no definite answer is declared so far. If all the state of affairs is considered collectively, then it can be easily seen that it is a bit of both. There are several leaders who have been in actuality effectual in one organization, and identified as failures in another, in spite of working at the same position level (Jones, McChrystal, Kung & Griffith, 2002). Even as there is a lack of cause and effect in the writing, there is adequate in current theory to seize the analysis that leaders outline culture, culture shapes leadership conduct.
Leaders are both the creation and the designers of the culture of an organization. As proposed by Luhmann, the ethics, symbols, beliefs, practices and work environment is reflected by the organization by its enduring identity in the business world (Luhmann, 1986). Leaders silhouette individuality, how the organization makes sagacity of its work and its setting, what associations matter, and what feedback reckons, what information is accessible and leaders’ vision and behaviors are formed by the organizations’ rules and boundaries.
In a report published by Milton and Westphal, all those organizations that supervise identity substantiation in work groups will be better capable to attain the assistance they wish (Milton & Westphal, 2005). When mutual effort is allied with organizational goals and objectives, performance will have a propensity to pursue. There are few others as well, who propose that organizations that facilitate collective adaptive identity, are more liable to be unbeaten (Malby & Fischer, 2006). That individuality is produced all the way through collective sense-making, manifestation, and verbal communication. The leadership responsibility, therefore, is to spotlight organizational thought, create organizational space, and have a say to the procedure.
How do leaders outline and entrench culture or individuality?
There are some primary mechanisms identified by Schein for embedding culture in an organization (Schein, 2004):
- Leaders should keep an eye on appraise and control
The leaders of a business group must pay keep an eye on the significant matters, troubles, thoughts, and opportunities. All these play a crucial role in forming anticipations and consequences of the business. Moreover, there is no record or else declaration for this, and also the course of development vary from one leader to another (Kouzes & Posner, 2007). The insinuations for existing administrators, and for budding prospect leaders, are incredible but often take place without drawing or notion. An ambiance of innovation and candidness to transform can be created by those agencies that persuade and authorize apt risk taking. Also, by those that utilize the sincere errors made by the employees the same as learning prospects. However, if an agency shows more focus on stiff course of actions, statements and severe responsibility for faults, then it can mislay focus on excellence policing and fail to benefit from valuable expansion opportunities.
- Leaders’ response to vital events
Crisis supervision and management are also vital for an efficient leader. The behavior modeled by a leader is generally observed and followed by all the associates of the organization. Generally, leaders practice the contemporary ‘what if’ scenario discussions to plan mock responses of critical incidents. Previous training, experience and knowledge generally assist a leader in doing so.
- Role modeling, training, coaching
The behavior of a leader is strongly watched by populace. Moreover, nowadays it has also become global. Even if the eyes are not present, still leaders are being watched by numerous people all around the world. Leaders should deal appropriately with their overtime and sick time. Not only this, they must show up on scene whenever the organization needs their service.
- Pragmatic way of allocating recompenses and grade
The reward giving practices of leaders may seem to be an inside affair but in actual sense lots of law enforcement agencies are observing it. Consequently, leaders must suitably utilize and reward the workforce with apposite standards and care, bands and appreciation. These are in one way dominant cultural currency.
- Observed criteria for staffing, selection, promotion, retreat and excommunication
Hiring and firing acts of a leader are equally significant in an organizational context of standards.
Promotions and particular unit selections are mainly ignored in terms of executive impact and the communication being sent. The whole process should be carried out with correct sense of fairness and without any doubt and partiality.
Conclusion
After going through so much discussion, it can now be easily said that leaders are being watched by every single entity of the world and thus their behavior and acts matter a lot. They should show ethical behavior and an acceptable way of conduct to the public. Based on their actions, the standards and principles of work culture within an organization are formulated. Hence, for the development of an apt organizational culture, the emergence and development of an effectual leader is necessary. This will also maintain effectiveness inside the organization.
The culture of every business organization institutes the outline, norms, and “traits” for itself and its affiliates. The organizational culture ascertains the setting that assists and empowers members or else restrains them by the formation of its rules, parameters, and customs. Leaders are the park rangers of an organization’s way of life and are the catalyst to organizational transform and expansion. Some squabble that an organization’s culture is the totting up of its member’s knowledge and organization history. Time and again its members cannot evoke the derivation and rationale of accepted actions just “we’ve at all times done it that way.” Organizational culture most commonly happens by situation and without preparation, even though planning and intentional concentration can pay huge payments.
References:
Driscoll, D. M. & Hoffman, W. M. (2000), Ethics matters: How to implement values driven management. Waltham, MA: Center for Business Ethics.
Jones, M.A., McChrystal, E., Kung, M. & Griffith, R.L. (2002), Florida law enforcement recruiting and retention series: Leadership and organizational support: Keys to retention. The Florida Police Chief, 28(9).
Kilmann, R. H., Saxton, M. J., & Serpa, R. (1986), Issues in understanding and changing culture. California Management Review, 28: 87-94.
Kouzes, J. M. & Posner, B. (2007), The Leadership Challenge. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Luhmann N. (1986), The Autopoiesis of Social Systems. Sage London
Malby R and Fischer M. (2006), Tools for Practice: an invitation to dance. Kingsham Press.
Milton L and Westphal J. (2005), Identity confirmation Networks and Cooperation in Workgroups. Academy of Management Journal Vol 28. P- 191-212.
Nelson, D.L., & Quick, J.C. (2002), Understanding organizational behavior: A multimedia approach. Mason, OH: South‐Western.
Schein, E. (2004), Organizational culture and leadership (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey‐Bass.
Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 339‐358.
Stogdil, R, (1950), Handbook for Leadership : A Survey of Theory and Research, Free Press New York.
