Organisation Culture – The Impact of Leadership in Shaping It

The term Organisation Culture is often bandied around but we pay very little attention to. Do we even know what it means? Organisation Culture according to VentureLine.com is defined as:

“The set of beliefs, values, and norms, together with symbols like dramatised events and personalities that represents the unique character of an organisation, and provides the context for action in it and by it”.

This culture implies there is structural integrity of organisation values with the business processes and behavioural patterns of the staff and theoretically accumulated shared learning from shared history. The development and continued evolution of the organisation culture is encapsulated within the survival, growth and adaptation of the organisation to the changing external environment. Thus, change management is one aspect involved in the evolution of the Organisation Culture (covered in a previous article on Understanding Change Management and Managing Change).

From the above paragraph, it is obvious that Leadership plays an important role in the formation of the culture.

"A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become, and to release their energies so they will try to get there."

--David Gergen¹

For the right kind of culture to be developed, the leaders of the organisation, i.e. the senior management, must be committed. They also need to lead by example which means not just “Talking the Walk” but actually “Walking the Talk”. In some organisations, the senior management staff are good at the former but not the latter. Furthermore the senior management’s leadership must be tied to aspects such as:

• 2-way communication
  The leader must be prepared to listen actively to communication from subordinates rather than just always disseminating information downwards. Information such as new hires, resignations should be communicated well in advance and not on a “need to know” basis. This is part of “change management”, preparing individuals for changes, even small ones, since people leaving or joining will entail change in the working regime. The BP merger with Amoco provides a very good case study of how leadership communicates effectively². Some communication is non-verbal, e.g. when "Walking the Talk" the leader communicates that he would not let his people perform anything that he is not willing to do. What and how the leader communicates either builds or harms the relationship between him and his employees.
  
• Fair and equal treatment of subordinates
  Treatment of employees must be consistent and fair, and this means giving constructive feedback and critical analysis in skilful ways, doing assessments that are based on facts, and having respect for the complexity of the situation. It means providing fair-minded treatment in promotion, performance appraisal, development, and having productive conversations, and creating effective structures that help people reveal their gaps and help the organisation learn from errors/ mistakes. Research has shown that most errors occur due to breakdowns in organisational systems; however, when an error takes place, individual culprits are often sought. Blaming individuals creates a culture of fear and defensiveness that diminishes both learning and the capacity to constantly improve systems, management processes and individual behaviour within the organisation³.

Finally, from my own observations, leaders that do not “Walk the Talk” are aware of the different Leadership Theories and Models such as Lewin⁴, what is lacking is the ability to properly apply them. What we need to focus on is Leadership Competency.

By Jeff Tang
Senior Consultant (CLC, PSB Academy)

¹ David Richmond Gergen (born May 9, 1942) is an American political consultant and presidential advisor during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He is currently Director of the Center for Public Leadership and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

² Ingalls, L. (2002) - BP Measures for Merger Integration and Culture Change. (http://archibus.dk/pdf/dynamic/success_story/76_1.pdf)

³ Refer to Dr. Allan Frankel’s work in patient safety focuses on leadership training, high reliability in health care, teamwork development, and cultural change
(http://www.webmm.ahrq.gov/perspective.aspx?perspectiveID=26).

⁴ Kurt Zadek Lewin (September 9, 1890 - February 12, 1947) was a German - American psychologist , known as one of the modern pioneers of social , organisational , and applied psychology and was one of the first to study group dynamics and organisational development .