Essay About New Beliefs And Corporate Culture

Culture And Defining The Role Of Leadership
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Culture and Defining The Role Of Leadership
Abstract
I believe a person can be taught to lead and manage but one cant be taught how to
effectively and successfully lead and manage. I dont believe the corporate culture of the
organization has to with it. I think leading and managing has to do with the individual person.
How that person is motivated, how that person sees him/herself. Can he/she lead
effectively or is managing the nitch that they have.
A Leader will effectively orchestrate change, create a vision, inspire people to follow the
vision and keep people focused towards an ideal future.
What is Culture?
I first want you to understand what culture is because to understand culture is to
understand the organization. According to Anthropologist James Sparely, culture is “the
acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate behavior”.
Culture can be interpreted in many ways such as national/ethnic culture, secondary or subgroup
culture, culture in the anthropological sense and the capital C culture.
The national/ ethnic culture is described as how one was raised as a child such as African
American culture or Chinese culture. This interpretation is a very narrow view because it is a
norm and it also raises challenges in our virtual team communication.
Secondary or sub-group culture is described as our social groups such as womens group
or golf group. Culture in the anthropological sense refers to behaviors one shares over time and
the capital C culture refers to the performing arts.
Individuals from different cultures vary in terms of their behaviors and communication
styles (Gudykunst, 1997). Edward Halls theory (1976) is that in order to understand the
communication and behavior of other cultures one must understand the context in which they
occur. These terms are referred to as High Context and Low Context.
High context refers to societies or organizations where people have close connections
over a long period of time. Many aspects of cultural behavior are not readily know because most
members know what to do and what to think from years of interaction with each other. Your
family is probably an example of a high context environment.
A High context situation can be difficult to enter because one has not been a part of that
society and does not have the internal knowledge to understand that group.
The High context group will likely have non-verbal language. An outsider will feel like
he does not belong because he wont understand that type of environment.
Low context refers to societies where people tend to have many connections but of
shorter duration or a special purpose. In these societies or organizations, cultural behavior and
beliefs may need to be spelled out simply so that those coming into the cultural environment
know how to behave.
Low Context situation is easier to enter for an outsider because one usually has a joint
task to accomplish such as our Learning Teams or large firms. One can form relationships fairly
soon in this situation.
(www.culture-at-work.com)
What is Organizational Culture?
Culture is the personality of an organization. It is comprised of the assumptions, values,
norms and tangible artifacts of an organizations members and their behaviors. Culture is
customs and rights.
Culture is the traditions and standards, habits of thinking, acting paradigms.
Members share their knowledge for socialization and their meanings for life. Organizational
Culture is the accumulated shared learning from shared history. Its implications are Structural
Stability and Patterning and Integration. Once Culture exists it determines the criteria of
leadership.
Great Leaders Create a Healthy Organizational Culture
Cultural beginnings and the Impact of Founders as Leaders spring from three resources:
1. Beliefs, values, and assumptions of Leaders (Founders)
2. Learning experiences of group members
3. New beliefs, values and assumptions brought by new members
A vision is necessary for effective leadership. The impact of the Leader