Organizational Culture And Leadership Development

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).

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,

Organizations—irrespective of their sizes and areas of businesses—always take on their leaders’ personality. So, leadership development programs gain prominence in every organization. Research says that leadership training and development programs assist in maximizing productivity, promoting harmony within the organization, and shaping up a positive organizational culture. It is; therefore, said that the future of an organization rests on recognizing and identifying leaders.

Leaders that demonstrate a commitment to behaving in an ethical manner are viewed as trustworthy and subordinates gravitate toward them. Ethical leaders have a foundational belief in honesty and trustworthiness and disseminating these principles throughout the organization. This paper will present ethical leadership models as tools for merging diverse cultures into the existing organizational culture. An overview of which leadership models, styles, and traits are most commonly accepted as ethical across the greatest array of social cultures will be discussed. The paper will culminate with a selection of a particular leadership model as a tool for shaping organizational culture and the rationale for selecting that model.

Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and discipline . . . Reliance on intelligence alone results in rebelliousness. Exercise of humaneness alone results in weakness. Fixation on trust results in folly. Dependence on the strength of courage results in violence. Excessive discipline and sternness in command result in cruelty. When one has all five virtues together, each appropriate to its function, and then one can be a leader. — Sun Tzu

Edgar Schein is a respected expert on organizational culture and leadership. He has written numerous books including “Organizational Culture and Leadership” (Schein, 2010). This specific publication outlines a structure for rapidly assessing the culture of an organization. The second method is administering the “Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI), a statistically normed and validated survey used for organizational consulting and change purposes” (Balthazard, Cooke, & Potter, 2006, p. 712).

Culture influences leadership in many ways, so it is helpful to first understand what culture is. According to our text culture is defined as the learned beliefs, values, rules, norms, symbols, and traditions that are common to a group of people (Northouse, 2016). Culture is the way of life, customs, and script of a group of people. Different cultures have different ideas about what they want from their leaders, but by understanding cultural differences leaders can become more empathetic and accurate in their communication with others. It is clear that different culture groups desire different leadership behaviors when they are looking for an effective leader. Surprisingly there were effective leadership attributes that was identified as universal characteristics. Positive leader attributes include being trustworthy, positive,

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.

This article seeks to understand the two-way, intrinsic relationship held between culture and leadership. Topics include three types of culture which may have a mediating effect on the practice of leadership; regional culture, business sector culture, and organizational culture. Organizational culture is then examined in the context of culture’s effect on leadership, and leadership’s effect on culture. Suggestions for further research into these areas are presented.

From a talent management perspective, the deployment of a well-designed leadership development strategy not only plays a critical role in deepening the bench of leadership talent, but can also facilitate a common and widespread understanding of the organization’s strategic vision and its culture. Since strong leaders are important at all levels of an organization, leadership development opportunities must be made available to everyone and not just a handful of individuals at the top. Research conducted by the Chartered Management Institute of Britain found that 75% of people consider their manager to be the biggest influencer on their career. In order to be an effective leader, one not only needs to be emotionally

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.

Consequently, leadership development requires that organizations take a strategic approach such as coaching, training programs, mentoring, and/or virtual learning. A critical analysis and evaluation of what I learned regarding leadership development is that organizations must evaluate organizational needs and individual skills and competencies; assess an individual readiness to learn; create performance measures and evaluation criteria to measure training and learning effectiveness; create an organizational culture that promotes continual learning, training, and development; shared-vision; establish effective organization communication practices; build trust and create a sense of agency among employees; build and develop relationships with employees, stakeholders, and leadership; and listen to and engage employees in the learning process (Bennett & Bierema, 2010; Crossan, Vera, & Nanjad, 2008; Duff, 2013; Linley, Govindji, & West, 2007; Rupp, Gibbons, & Snyder, 2008; Strand, 2014; Wankel, 2009; Welch, Grossaint, Reid, & Walker, 2014).

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).

Organization development grew out of the human relations traditions of the 1940s and 1950s, and it has had enormous influence on management practices and thinking about how organizational effectiveness can be achieved. Critical manpower and resource shortages faced by all organizations, public and private, during World War II and in the immediate post-war years stimulated a search by social scientist and managers, separately and in cooperation with one another, for effective means to maximize the utilization of existing individual and organizational resources. (Ritcher, I 2007). Organization Development was by tradition about planned change efforts, instituted to enhance organization effectiveness within the context of the traditional, hierarchical, management-as-experts, top-down era. The legacy of leaders and organizations developed in this context remain. Organizational Development is about how organizations and people function and how to get them to function better. Organization transformation signals the need to transform mindsets, engage people and make the deep shift to the ongoing mutual learning environment needed for the long-lasting change characteristic of our world today.

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.