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Culture & Leadership (Culture & leadership are two sides of the…
Culture & Leadership
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HOW IS CULTURE FORMED?
- THE ASSUMPTIONS, BELIEFS, VALUES of FOUNDERS
- Leaders create a culture when they form groups/org through their personal visions, goals, beliefs, values & assumptions.
- THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE of GROUP MEMBERS
- If the resulting behaviour leads to "success" (group accomplishes tasks & members feel good about their relationships to each other) the founder's beliefs and values are confirmed and reinforced, and most importantly, come to be recognised as shared.
- With continued reinforcement, the group will become less and less conscious of these beliefs & values, and it will begin to treat them more & more as nonnegotiable assumptions. As this process continues, the assumptions will gradually drop out of awareness and become taken for granted. They then become part of the identity of the group.
- Once established, the org. culture has a certain inertia, and the culture survives beyond individual members, perpetuating the culture and shaping the org.'s interpretations of its enviro & responses.
- ASSUMPTIONS of NEW MEMBERS
- As the org. cycles through change through beginning, growth, maturity & decline, the assumptions of new members & leadership will allow the org. to respond to its changing enviro.
Once culture exists, it defines the criteria for leadership
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Behaviour is not a reliable indicator of culture b/c there are other factors that determine behaviour aside from culture
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PRIMARY & SECONDARY EMBEDDING MECHANISMS (Schein 2004): PRIMARY:
- behaviour
- responses
- policies/processes
- decisions
- responses to critical incidents + org. crises
- allocation of rewards/status
- selection & promotion of workers
- role modelling, teaching
SECONDARY:
- physical enviro/design
- rites, rituals, stories
- org. structure
- espoused values/philosophy statements
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Elements of culture that serve as defence mechanisms (to help the org. continue to the next stage) are likely to survive and get stronger
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Cultural change mechanisms can be linked to the org/ state (i.e., founding/early growth, mid-life, maturity/decline).
Mid-life org.
- Founders may not be around, which reduces stabilising effects of est. culture
- leads to questioning of culture & status quo
- new leadership succession must, therefore, be designed to enhance cultural aspects that provide identity, distinctive competencies & protection from anxiety.
- Significant questioning of est. culture
- develop insight, identify adaptive & maladaptive cultural responses & integrate & reinforce new adaptive culture aspects
Mature Org.
- Develop positive sets of ideology & myths, generating a formal "espoused theory"
- This may be in conflict with the org.'s practice & internal inconsistencies may be exposed.
Cultural change can be brought about by bringing in outsiders
Appointment of new CEO (leadership) challenges the status quo & generates conflict
If the new CEO is successful, new assumptions & behaviours will begin to be embedded
Some research suggests a certain level of turnover is good for innovation & renewal (provided the replacement is targeted), but leaders need to be prepared to deal with the anxiety/conflict this approach generates
Declining org.
- Org. need to make strategic choices & adapt their culture to the enviro or they will fail
- Over time, shared assumptions can become a liability because of their strength (the way that assumptions facilitate or inhibit interactions between the org. & its enviro)
- Even if a sig. no. of employees understand this it doesn't mean they will want to change.
The essence of leadership is the creation & management (maintenance & destruction where necessary) of CULTURE
Leadership defines culture & once established, culture defines leadership in addition to adaptation to changing enviro