Organizational Culture And Leadership Of The Private Sector Within Malaysia

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).

Organizations often encounter challenges and issues pertaining to the relationship between leadership styles and organizational culture. Whether the organization falls within the private, non-profit, or government sectors, similar concerns can many times afflict its operational success. This quantitative research study replicates the Kest study that suggested further research into the relationship

Levitt (2014) defines culture as the coherent, learned, shared views of a group of people and about life’s concerns that ranks what is important, furnishes attitudes about what things are appropriate, and dictates behavior. Macy’s corporate culture possesses a diverse leadership team to target their diverse customers and locations. Diversity, based on experiences and passion, gives the Macy’s leadership team new perspectives to promote successful business. Levitt (2014) suggests organizational diversity can be considered as a mixture of people with different group identities working in the same social system. A multi-cultural team of Americans, Italians, Germans and Swiss would adapt well in the rich bouquet of culture in Zurich, Switzerland. As a new team leader, the biggest concern would be establishing integrations between the different cultures working together at Macys.

Managers in today’s world are important assets to the multicultural organisations. Leadership styles of managers are highly important in terms of managing the team of followers, which has a correlation to the productivity and results that the team would achieve in the future. By having good management, it contributes to the success of the organisation. Hence, it is vital to identify the different leadership styles especially in different cultures to suit the working environment and culture of the organization. In the present multicultural global business industry, cultural differences can come in the way of the success of project completion (Anbari, Khilkhanova, Romanova, & Umpleby , 2009) . It has been claimed that rigid leadership does not promote motivation and creativity, therefore, managers should lead by flexible leadership and be culturally sensitive, adapting to different cultures, for the team to be able to move forward and reach their goals (Anabri et al. 2009). The way a manager’s leadership takes place also affect’s the experience of the employees at work and the relationship between the manager and the employee. Jariya (2012, p66) states that ‘different cultures differ in the values they endorse, people from these cultures often interpret the same managerial practices

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,

In any organization it is essential to understand the relationship between organizational culture, leadership behavior and job satisfaction. This understanding allows management to know what cultural factors drive the organization and can be used to align the organization with its strategy allow for a good reward system. Culture within organizations is important as it plays an enormous role on whether employees are in happy and safe environments and can perform at the full capacity. Strong cultures are based on two characteristics, high levels of agreement among employees about what’s a valued and high level of intensity about these values CITATION Cha03 \l 1033 (Chatman & Cha, 2003). Although it seemed as if it had a great culture

“When Cultures Collide”, Richard D. Lewis charted 24 leadership styles from around the world and I noted some similarities of the leadership styles that he made between an American and British that echoed that of a Kenyan and Tanzanian: British managers are diplomatic, casual, helpful, willing to compromise, and seeking to be fair, though they can be ruthless when necessary. Unfortunately, their adherence to tradition can result in a failure to comprehend differing values in others. American managers are assertive, aggressive, goal and action oriented, confident, vigorous, optimistic, and ready for change. They are capable of teamwork and corporate spirit, but they value individual freedom and their first interest is furthering their own career

Upon researching I found a three perspective model showing the relationship between leaders and organizational culture. The first is the "functionalism perspective." The functionalism perspective basically entails that "a strong culture depends on a strong leader or a strong leader can develop a strong culture. Leaders have choices and can influence the firm through their actions or decisions." (Zhang, Tsui, Wang, Xin, n.d., p.5) With the functionalism perspective it is believed that the leaders, who are in the head positions, have all the power in molding and changing an organization. There are numerous factors and the leader must know how to manage them.

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).

From the results, I learnt that I do not have a strong preference for any particular organisational structure or culture. This was not a surprise to me as I discovered from my experience in multiple corporations that most combinations of organisational structure and culture can be successful given effective leadership. However, I did notice a similar trait in all the effective leaders that I have worked with. They all possess excellent interpersonal skills that enable them to understand their followers’ sources of motivation to work. From a cultural perspective, I believe that this is my biggest challenge to assimilate which is why this concept became my chosen area of research.

A major challenge for today's global leaders and organisations is culture. Because of globalisation, there are a growing number of international organisations with increased awareness of cross-cultural situations. Tavanti (2005: 7) further states that in the ever-changing work environment and global society, the development of cross-culturally competent leaders will be an essential challenge for effective leadership practises.

This report is comparison between Hofstede and GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organisation Behaviour Effectiveness) research on Culture and Leadership. Hofstede and GLOBE is similar, they both investigation the behaviour of organisations in different countries and across culture. But the way and research scope still quite different. In this report we will summarized and reviewed the theoretical dimension of various culture and leadership. Include the deficiencies in Hofstede’s work which the GLOBE study sought to address.

In times of rapid globalisation and economic development growth, the environment of business has become more and more complicated as a huge number of firms want to globally expand their businesses. Subsequently, the managerial implications of cross-cultural management is the challenge of this development. As Abbe (2007) states, cross-cultural leadership has developed as a way to understand leaders who work in the global markets. Culture is the “software of mind” that can influence people’s patterns of thinking and behaving.

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.

The leadership behaviours of corporation leaders can affect its culture by influencing the members of the corporation from top-down. Culture is taught to employees by those in experienced managerial positions; so regularly practised that it becomes the norm, and is then emulated by new employees who continue the behavioural patterns (Hellriegel et al. 2004, cited in Mishra & Raykundaliya 2011, p. 87; Kruger 2003, cited in Mishra & Raykundaliya 2011, p. 87). As Shim and Steer’s (2012, p. 585) article observed in Toyota,