Discuss the Role Leadership Plays in Shaping Organisational Cultures

Leadership defined has two fundamental difficulties, firstly, similar to notions such as ‘love’, ‘freedom’ and ‘happiness’, leadership is a complicated idea that has subjective interpretations (Bolden, 2004). Everyone has their own understanding of what leadership is, based on a mixture of personal experiences and learnings.

Secondly, the way leadership is defined and understood through one’s influenced theoretical stance (Bolden, 2004). Those who view leadership as the outcome of individual characteristics possessed by a leader, whilst others perceive leadership as a social development that emerges from organisational relationships. Both are subject to co-exist as the development of organisational culture is largely related to its leadership, as well as the cultural aspect of an organisation has impacts on the development of its leadership. (Bass and Avolio, 1993).

Self sacrificing and leadership effectiveness plays a distinctive role in shaping the organisation culture, as many people are influenced by great leaders. Many stories about great leaders, be it political leaders, military leaders, religious leaders, or leaders of organisations, give an understanding of the self-sacrifice leaders were willing to make for the greater good (Van Knippenberg and Van Knippenberg, 2005). This demonstrates the clear understanding that people are inspired by self-sacrificing behaviours, by others and their allocated meaning/purpose to these specific acts. It is assumed that leaders have an insightful affect on their followers and eventually on organisational cultural processes. Theories of charismatic and transformational leadership (Bass and Avolio, 1993) suggests that general transformational and charismatic leadership is considered to di...

... middle of paper ...

...ledge London.

MARTINS, E. & TERBLANCHE, F. 2003. Building organisational culture that stimulates creativity and innovation. European journal of innovation management, 6, 64-74.

OGAWA, R. T. & BOSSERT, S. T. 1995. Leadership as an organizational quality. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31, 224-243.

PFEFFER, J. 1977. The ambiguity of leadership. Academy of management review, 2, 104-112.

POWERFUL, W. I. O. C. 2003. Leading by leveraging culture. California Management Review, 45, 20.

SCHEIN, E. H. 1992. Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture, Sage.

SMIRCICH, L. & MORGAN, G. 1982. Leadership: The management of meaning. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18, 257-273.

VAN KNIPPENBERG, B. & VAN KNIPPENBERG, D. 2005. Leader self-sacrifice and leadership effectiveness: the moderating role of leader prototypicality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 25.