Essay on Organizational Climate vs. Organizational Culture

Organizational leadership and culture has been a major issue in today’s highly structured organizations. This has necessitated that organizations understand in depth the inter-relation between culture and organization on strategic leadership. Is it that the leadership determines culture or the culture determines leadership behaviors? While many argue that the leaders have absolute control and influence the direction of organizational culture, research actually shows that leaders themselves are greatly influenced by variables and situational setting in any organization, implying that it is valid to say that leadership itself receives significant influence from organizational culture (Waldner & Weeks, 2006).

Soldiers react to the climate of an organization, which in turn creates a culture. Climate is the feeling or attitude a Soldier has about their organization. If a Soldier has ill

*  People Shape the Culture. Personalities and experiences of employees create the culture of an organization. For example, if most of the people in an organization are very outgoing, the culture is likely to be open and sociable. If many artifacts depicting the company’s history and values are in evidence throughout the company, people value their history and culture. If doors are open, and few closed door meetings are held, the culture is unguarded. If negativity about supervision and the company is widespread and complained about by employees, a culture of negativity, that is difficult to overcome, will take hold.

The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,

The organizational culture of the Army and its inherent values system that is as old as the Army is. Even though the current set of Army Values is just now entering its third decade they do well to encompass prior institutional values of Duty, Honor, and Country. Climate lasts only as long as the commander or leader who affects it and therefore, temporary.

“Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations” (Baack, 2012). These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Culture plays a huge role in the guiding of the behaviors of employees of an organization. There are three stages of culture that interact with one another to influence the behaviors in the organization. These stages are: observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values.

Leadership style is the driving force behind an organizations effectiveness and overall success. Leaders control the heart of an organization; they control the direction, values, and employee’s level of commitment to the organization. Consistency and reliability are key traits that followers look for in a leader. Team members need to understand and know that the actions of their leaders will be within the expected realm of who they are and how they have presented themselves. A leader’s inconsistency could be viewed by followers as unreliable, unpredictable, and hard to follow. So how does a leader navigate an organizations multi-faceted culture while cultivating success and effectiveness?

In this paper I will discuss the effects and responsibilities leaders have on an organizational culture. I believe leaders have an enormous effect on the well-being of an organizational culture. Leaders must take an active role within their organization's culture. Whether positive or negative, in an organization, things tend to follow suit "down hill." A leader has the power and influence to maintain, create, or repair an organizational culture. However, this can prove to be a delicate and challenging task.

In today’s dynamic business environment leadership must understand the value and importance of their organizations’ culture. While it may never be formally defined, leadership must have a vision of their intended culture and a plan for creating and maintaining it. This vision will serve as the potter’s clay that determines everything from the dress code to the organizational structure. This paper examines two methods organizations can choose to create and maintain a healthy culture.

Organizational leadership and culture has been a major issue in today’s highly structured organizations. This has necessitated that organizations understand in depth the inter-relation between culture and organization on strategic leadership. Is it that the leadership determines culture or the culture determines leadership behaviors? While many argue that the leaders have absolute control and influence the direction of organizational culture, research actually shows that leaders themselves are greatly influenced by variables and situational setting in any organization, implying that it is valid to say that leadership itself receives significant influence from organizational culture (Waldner & Weeks, 2006).

An organization’s culture shapes the attitudes and behaviors of its employees by defining boundaries, providing a sense of identity and stability. It also establishes a standard in regards to what employees should say and do. Culture can be transmitted via stories, rituals, material symbols and language. Culture within an organization is no exception.

Edgar Schein, a famous theorists dealing with organizational culture, provides the following definition for the term: "A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems that has worked well enough to be considered valid and is passed on to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems." (organizationalculture101) However, organizational culture is more than sharing assumptions used by a group to solve problems; it is the combination of the points of view, ineffectual processes, education, backgrounds of all the staff which are part of an organization way of doing things. Corporation culture should uncover from the board of the directors to the rest of

The shared characteristics and, in some cases, perception of employees create what is known as organizational culture. A strong culture constructs a unified employee atmosphere, whereas a weak culture lacks a shared sense of distinction between employees. An employee’s heritage or individual culture, although different than, affects the overall organizational culture of companies. Like society, sub-cultures exist within organizations. Formed by departmental function, geographical location, and/or the personalities of employees, sub-cultures include employees who continue to adhere to the organizations’ overall culture, but have additional independent characteristics. Employees’ individual heritage, along with the culture and

Organizational culture has an effect on the effectiveness of leadership. If the organizational culture is strong, it could influence the way leadership is created. If it is weak, the leadership models will also be imagined and implemented in different ways. Therefore, we will be able to find which key factors will positively or negatively influence the leadership effectiveness.

Existing culture can in times be very hard to continue with because of the change in the growth or in the strategic change in the organisation. At such appropriate web of culture is important to be identified or that can be a problem in the progress of the organisation. These identified elements will give organisation a bigger picture of what was going wrong and how can they change it towards betterment of the organisation.