Discovery of Organizational Culture for Leaders

"Wealth in the new regime flows directly from innovation, not optimization; that is, wealth is not gained by perfecting the known, but by imperfectly seizing the unknown."
Kevin Kelly

Effective leaders understand the relevance of corporate culture. Trevino argues that it is critical to understand both formal and informal systems when studying organizational culture. Research has shown that senior leaders often perceive that organizational ethics is “lovely at the top.” This may be a crucial mistake in strategy.

Let’s analyze this closer. Cameron and Quinn, authors of Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture, maintain that such subunits like departments and teams have their own unique culture. For evaluating organizational culture, the authors advocate using the Organization Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), which assess six elements of organizational culture; it is based on a hypothetical model known as the Competing Values Framework. The OCAI is useful in identifying the major approaches to organizational design, stages of life cycle development, leadership roles, and management skills.

Past research by Quinn and Rohrbaugh identified 39 factors that contribute to organizational effectiveness. From the statistical analysis, these 39 factors were narrowed down into two major dimensions that were organized into four clusters. One dimension focuses on flexibility, discretion, and dynamism from criteria that emphasizes stability, order, and control.

The latter dimension focuses on an internal orientation, integration, and unity that emphasize external orientation, differentiation, and rivalry. When combined, these two dimensions form four quadrants that have a distinct set of organizational effectiveness indicators. The OCAI provides a good tool for any effective organizations. High performing leaders understand how to measure and influence organizational culture.

Communicating Your Organizational Values: Maximizing Performance

“There are no warlike people - just warlike leaders.”
Ralph Bunche

What’s the big deal about organizational values? Well, let’s explore personal and organizational values interaction. Although each of these variables is independent, there’s clearly a relationship. Obviously, an organization can be corrupt while followers are not. For example, review all of today’s corporate and government scandals; the leaders were scoundrels, not the employees. With this understanding in mind, let us focus on how organizations influence follower’s value systems. Organizational culture relates to the underlying set of key values, beliefs, and norms shared by the workforce. Organizational culture development is amazing since different people have varying values.

In a perfect world, organizational changes are gradual; however, the growing demands of a turbulent, unpredictable environment are causing organizations to make radical and rapid changes. This places a heavy burden on organizational value systems. For example, an organization that advocates employee loyalty finds itself outsourcing its employee core functions. Is it fair to believe that employees may find organizational values hypocritical? This situation places organizational leaders, primarily front line supervisors, in a precarious situation. If not carefully watched by management, this situation could create relational breakdowns.

Therefore, in making changes to technology, procedures, and people, organizations must be careful to maintain this optimum balance in their shifts in values. Walk cautiously with your values. Start today!

Leadership and Organizational Tools

There are so many books, seminars, coaching, and consulting practices based on leadership and organizational development. There are many forms of leadership and organizational development models such as transformational leadership, executive coaching, Six Sigma, TQM (Total Quality Management), business process improvement, learning organizations, and systems thinking to name a few. Some of you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of authors, seminars, coaching, and consulting practices claiming to have the answers for improving your leadership and/or organization's performance.

I used to be one of those individuals, as I too was initially overwhelmed by the number of books, speakers, and seminars pertaining to leadership and organizational development. However, I soon realized that life, learning, and leadership is all about taking in knowledge from multiple sources and then deciphering for yourself what works best for you and your particular situation. Whatever improved my personal leadership, I incorporated in my repertoire. Whatever did not work, I allowed to fall into the recesses of my subconscious so that I could retrieve it in case I ever needed it in the future.

There is so much knowledge available in the world in regards to leadership and organizational development. However, all of this knowledge may not be beneficial to our particular situation or life. Therefore, we must obtain this knowledge with a discriminating eye, assessing multiple leadership models from multiple sources, looking for those tid bits of information that can improve and shape our lives and organizations to be what we want them to be. However, for this to occur, we must overcome our intimidation and immerse ourselves in the vast genre of leadership and organizational development for optimal absorption.

Personally, I try to read as many books and articles on leadership and organizational development as my time allows. In addition, I still attend leadership and organizational development workshops and seminars because even though leadership and organizational development is what I do, I can always learn more.

My personal leadership development is the result of all of my years of academic study coupled with my ongoing appetite for learning about leadership and organizational development. The books, coaching, seminars, and blog are expressions of what I have learned and continue to learn. I am sharing my insights with you because I know that leadership and organizational development does not occur overnight, rather it consists of a continuous immersion of both your conscious and subconscious into the depths of who you are and how you relate to the challenges of the world you live in.

By immersing yourself in all of the leadership and organizational development training offered by the various leadership development outlets, you will provide your conscious and subconscious with a steady diet of ideas that you can then pick and choose from. Immersing yourself in multiple leadership and organizational models will afford you the ability to pick and choose the ideas that work best for you. It is important to note that one model may work for one individual and not another. Also, a combination of ideas from several models may work better for you than someone else. Therefore, do not limit yourself to any one model, as there may be something you can learn about yourself, or your leadership from another. Always remember that leadership and organizational development is a life long learning process. If you truly want to develop your leadership, don't be intimidated by the vast amounts of knowledge in the field. Immerse yourself with a discriminating eye and come out a leader.

Career In Organizational Leadership

Are you a born leader and looking for an executive position in leadership? A career in organizational leadership can put you in a position to work in many different industries.

Organizational Leadership and Supervision is a specialized, people-oriented approach to the practice of supervision. Organizational leadership professionals work in the capacity of planning, organizing, leading and coordinating the activities of a business or organization. Theses leaders are employed to meet current and future challenges facing their organizations, and they utilize their analytical skills to come up with the best solutions to the problems.

An Organizational Leadership program provides students with a diverse liberal arts curriculum that allows you customize your course of study to meet your individual career goals. You degree program will focus on the social, cultural, and organizational aspects that organizational leaders have to deal with. Some coursework in your program may include organizational theory, organizational ethics, organizational communications, and leadership. In addition, you will need to take classes in team building, human behavior and organizational ethics. Many leadership programs focus heavily on professional development, organizational dynamics, business trends, and long range planning. Overall, this major program is designed to prepare you to lead others effectively, in any industry.

Degree programs in leadership can help professionals cultivate the skills they need to succeed in today's highly competitive business environment. Professionals with a degree in Organizational Leadership can find more opportunities for career advancement or promotions in their current industry.

There are many salary variations in the field of organizational leadership. Those who work in the non-profit or charity sector will find significantly lower salaries than those who work for major corporations or business organizations. For example, organizational consultants make around $85,600 a year, organizational development managers make around $90,000 a year, organizational development specialists make around $70,000 a year, and chief organizational leaders make around $128,000 a year.

Organizational development through Personalized Supplies

Is your company not doing well as it should? Maybe you need personalized supplies to give to your employees and keeping them happy to work for you. In this article, it talks about the using Personalized Supplies in enhancing employee's productivity and organizational development.


Personalized supplies are commonly given out either to attract new customers or reward loyal ones. But another key purpose of personalized promotional supplies which is often left out is for the development of your organization by improving your firm's most important asset: your employees.

A company's overall efficiency is highly dependent on its employees. A productive employee means a productive company. This is the reason why the Human Resource Management (HRM) is very important for the development of any organization. Sustaining productivity and retaining high-performing personnel are two of the key result areas (KRA) in HRM. And these two KRAs can positively be affected by the use of personalized company supplies within the organization.

Employee productivity and retention are two factors that are very dependent on the organizational culture of the company. In theory, molding the existing organizational culture into a positive and healthy version may look easy. As a plethora of readings just call for restructuring of flow charts, multitude of trainings and team buildings, and a touch of inspirational talks from the leader to do the trick. But in truth, it takes a lot of time and effort to attain the desired organizational culture that can foster productivity and retention for your employees. These grueling efforts require the presence of two important factors for a successful transformation.

In essence, using corporate and personalized supplies can help improve the quality and productivity of the workplace. One needs to start the change today, and it starts with the leader and down to the organization's subordinates. This is a basic and a very simple solution that anyone can use to enhance the productivity of the employees and the company.

Managing Organizational Change

The life cycle that is within any business consists of a variety of changes, growth spurts and the need to keep everything stable. As a business grows and changes, is also the need to ensure that the opportunities are taken care of effectively. Managing organizational change in the correct manner is one that allows for everyone who is working within the business to have the opportunity to grow with the business and to do so without resistance or difficulties with the changes.

A business can go through several effective organizational changes, all which are designed to enhance a business and to helps it grow. However, the need for change is sometimes stopped or moves into a yield because of employees, leaders and individuals that don't completely understand the change. Along these lines, the culture may not be as accepting of the alterations that are taking place within the organization, which can lead to discomfort and individuals who are no longer satisfied with the work place. Making sure that this is taken care of first ensures that the right change moves into any business.

The main component that any organization will want to look at when moving towards organizational change is to use innovation when building what is needed within a company. This provides specific needs to take place within the business without having as much resistance as would take place otherwise. Starting by seeing where individuals are in relation to the company provides the best insight into this. For example, taking surveys or filling out a questionnaire will help to see where an organization and it's employees are at.

After there is a complete analysis of the employees, leaders and individuals that are within the work area, there can then be a plan of action to begin implementing the necessary changes to help with business growth. When doing this, the leaders will need to use a step by step process that will help everyone in the business to understand what is occurring. This includes training, knowledge, research and step by step plans to get everyone moving onto the same page. This is where the innovation comes in, so that everyone in the company is comfortable with the changes that occur.

If you are in a business that wants to see how the implementation for managing organizational change occurs, than you can begin by looking at concrete examples of companies who have effectively grown into a new image and internal environment. For example, McDonalds has used concepts with organizational change to ensure that employees benefit from the changes, combined with innovation of the procedures used to build substantial growth for the entire company, from customers to individuals that are affiliated with the restaurant.

Making sure that you are able to build your business through different time frames, as well as through resistance, is what will ensure business growth. Understanding the abilities needed for managing organizational change ensures that everyone within the work area will stay comfortable and will have the ability to continue to move forward with the organization. The result will be the ability for the business to reach it's full capacity within the market and to continue to grow as a company.

Change Management Leadership

Many small businesses experience change. Change leadership is the art of helping your team through the change management cycle. Each person shows different emotions and behaviour during change. It's perfectly normal to experience a real mix of emotions. Not everyone feels all of these feelings intensely and people don't go through them by numbers.

THE STAGES OF CHANGE

Change transition can be divided into a series of stages.

• Initial equilibrium stage

• Separation stage

• Crisis Stage

• Rebirth Stage

• New Equilibrium stage

Initial equilibrium stage -

This is the starting point. It's a period of relative stability; everyone knows what's expected and has a clear picture of the future of the organisation and themselves.

Separation stage -

This is the stage where people react as if nothing has changed. They haven't yet come to grips with the changes and continue trying to solve problems like they did in the past. Sometimes they will try to do the same that they did before but better and or just work harder.

Common things you will hear people saying at this time are "Why does nothing go right any more", "What's happening to us" "We're working our butts off but nothing is working".

The sorts of behaviours you see at this stage are increased stress, incomprehension, inhibition or hyper-activity. It's common to see a drop in staff motivation, a rise in absenteeism, lack of involvement in work, feelings of despair, less laughing and joking, loss of teamwork or socialising, decreasing identification with the organisation and its values. Quiet or explicit job hunting starts at this stage.

Crisis/confusion stage -

This is often arrived at suddenly with no possibility of turning back. It's the "last straw" that triggers something off. Suddenly people realise that the world's changed.

The sort of behaviours you see are doubt, questions, anxiety, anger, shock, confusion, resignation, uncertainty, insecurity, intense stress, a deep feeling of loneliness, a feeling of being abandoned, or being left to their own devices.

People often think that they're not normal, that there's something wrong with them and that they're incompetent. People know that they have to act or react but find it impossible to do so, as they no longer know where to focus their energy.

They can become blaming and angry. People can feel "in limbo" or make unusual outbursts of frustration and anxiety.

The crisis phase doesn't last long and generally continues to acceptance of the situation and the release of creative energy. When this happens, the person then sees the crisis as an incredible opportunity to change things. You may see a large scale "tidying up" of the way they act and organise themselves.

A feeling of new freedom may appear. Confidence comes back and the person begins to realise that they can once again act on their environment. They move from apathy to hope or even enthusiasm.

Rebirth Stage -

"A light appears at the end of the tunnel" is a common saying. Whatever the words used the person has the feeling that they're "getting out of it". They're aware that not everything that they attempt will work, but they're convinced that they'll be able to find ways of getting a grip on what's happening. People in the rebirth stage are often impatient for progress and are hopeful about building new trust, relationships and achievement.

Rebirth is a fragile phase, in which doubts sometimes persist and recur. This is especially true during group transitions - as people in groups tend to be at different stages. People in a group who are still in the crisis or separation phases tend to see those in the rebirth phase as behaving erratically, as though they're making the impact of change worse.

New equilibrium -

This is where the person's comfortable in their new environment. It's common to find people joking about their experience of change or even making fun of their behaviour during the change.

ANOTHER MODEL IS THE STAGES OF GRIEF CYCLE.

• Denial or disbelief - denial that loss has taken place (i.e.: it will be over soon, apathy, numbness/ fear, not showing up for meetings, overly busy with routine tasks, less socialising, procrastination).

• Anger (i.e.: being irritable, contemplating sabotage, being confrontative, appearing "short fused").

• Bargaining - unrealistic attempts to get out of the situation or to make it go away, making big promises or trying to strike a special deal

• Anxiety - silent or expressed fear of the unknown and probably difficult future or catastrophic fantasies

• Sadness - everything from silence to tears

• Disorientation - confusion and forgetfulness, feelings of being lost and insecure

• Depression - feeling of being down, flat, feelings of hopelessness and being tired (e.g.: being un-talkative, seeming apathetic, missing work, appearing listless, looking sombre)

• Acceptance - changes are accepted and people move forward to new possibilities.TIPS FOR HANDLING CHANGE

1. Determine exactly what's going to be different for you as a result of the change. Work out what you are likely to gain and lose in the process. Actively seek out information about your losses and figure out what's over and what isn't.

2. Acknowledge that it's Ok to ask "What about me". Approach your supervisor regarding concerns.

3. Recognise your feelings as being normal symptoms during the change process and not something personally wrong with you. Accept the need to go through a period of mourning and let yourself go through that process.

4. Give yourself quiet time and space to de-stress and think. Take time to step back and take stock of who you are and where you want to be in life.

5. Create literal and symbolic boundaries between the past and present.

6. Set short-range objectives for yourself to help restore feelings of achievement and movement.

7. Recognise the impact that colleague's reactions are having on you.

8. Deliberately balance work and family issues.

9. Seek confidential advice from Human Resources or the Employee Assistance Service when required and not when too late.