The relationship between a leader and the culture of an organization can be dynamic and difficult to understand. This relationship becomes very important as a leader attempts to change the culture of his/her organization. Edgar Schein (2010) provides a useful framework outlining mechanisms leaders can use to embed and transmit certain values and assumptions that shape an organization’s culture. Schein (2010) presents this framework as a means for a leader to embed culture after it has been established. This paper, however, will examine the usefulness of two specific mechanisms in affecting a culture change within an organization.
Changing culture can be difficult. The process for change must not only include rules, systems, and procedures,
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Allen, Smith, and DeSilva (2013) explain that understanding the psychological climate within the organization can do this. The psychological climate is an individual’s perception of the work environment, which, together with all the other members’ psychological climates, forms the organizational climate (Allen, et al., 2013). Because the members of an organization must accept change, Allen et al. (2013) state that it is important for leaders to try to influence the psychological climate to increase the readiness for change and for organizational …show more content…
Just like any other belief or assumption, the leader can specifically pay attention to aspects throughout the organization to support the message that change is necessary and possible. The leader can find ways to include discussing change with subordinates, and consistently highlight where and how the change will improve the organization. Furthermore, the leader can point out deficiencies and reiterate how the change will specifically relate to improvements in the everyday work environment. Paying attention to things that will support shifting the psychological climate, and increase the organization’s overall readiness for change will allow the leader to gain essential buy in from the individuals that will actually have to change their
Change affects more than just a program or a process within an organization, change affects employees, collecting data on employee’s readiness and willingness to accept a change will help leaders know if the organization is socially ready for change (Cole, Harris, and Bernerth, 2006). A change might be positive for an organization but if the employees who will be affect by the change are lost in the process then it could create a greater issue than not making the change. Leadership needs to communicate and inspire the employees to be positive toward the change, seeking to enhance their job satisfaction not make changes that will increase their desire to leave. This data is best collected early in the change initiative allowing leadership to properly cast the vision while addressing concerns. This requires leadership to create platforms for employees to engage in the change initiative freely (Ford, 2006). Employee attitudes can be measured through these dialogues providing leadership with necessary measureable data (Hughes, 2007).
Have you ever attempted to change the culture or behavior within an organization? Many think that when they become the boss of some form of business they will easily walk into that organization and be able to impose their will. I feel that is easier said than done. In this paper, I will apply a strategy to changing the culture within a real world situation of my choice. Furthermore, I will explain why I would choose to use these ideas as my strategy and discuss how the application of these ideas tie to the six influence sources given by the authors of the book Influencer. By using the authors ' theories and ideas, I will best ensure my success as a leader attempting to make a change.
In order to lead and be successful you have to be willing to embrace change. Myatt (2012) explained that “leadership demands fluidity, which requires the willingness to recognize the need for change, and finally, the ability to lead change”. Change needs to be recognized in every organization. Organizations must undergo change to subsist. Each area of an organization needs to be assessed to lead change properly. Lastly, the change process must be managed. It is demanding that change agents are arranged for success and not failure by providing them with the proper tools, talent, resources, responsibility and authority necessary for the job (Myatt, 2012).
Change is a fact of organizational life that develops in response to interpersonal, cultural, environmental, and other external factors that fluctuate and change for various reasons. Employees can display varying levels of resistance ranging from aggressive resistance to apathy (Spector, 2012). Resistance is a concern because it undermines the effectiveness of the change implementation process, but there are tools available which leaders can utilize to reduce this possibility. The essential tools will be discussed in this paper along with the reasons for utilizing them in a change implementation process.
Change is something that must continually happen within an organization for them to be successful and become complacent. Organizations must continue to evolve and promote learning throughout as a priority to everyone. A culture must be fostered that all employees buy into, such as the culture at Facebook or Google. People must want to work where they are and enjoy what they do to not resist change as it occurs. Change in organizations is inevitable and it happens whether people want it to or not. People will get hired, fired, promoted, and rewarded for different things over the course of time. These are changes that must happen to foster a reputable organization.
As the world is changing at an incredible pace (Kotter & Cohen, 2002b), the way leaders approach change varies widely (Black & Gregersen, 2008). No organization is immune from the impact of globalization. Organizations must increasingly cope with diverse cross-cultural employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, and creditors. In its infancy, a business culture reflects the characteristics of the organization’s most dominant personality, the leader (Bohl, 2015). The leader’s vision of what the business culture should be is often a cultural paradigm in their heads, based on their experiences in the culture in which they have grown up in (Schein, 1983). Culture is an abstraction, yet the forces that are created in social
The second section of this essay's main body is about managing organizational culture. In this section, the topic about if it is manageable will be discussed firstly from two different opposite aspects. Nevertheless, instead of further questioning on the `unmanageable' theories, this essay takes a managerial aspect approach. This emphasizes on what are supposed to be done to take control on managing and changing organizational culture. However, cultures cannot be fully controlled from any aspect.
All people resist change even from the top of the organization down to the level of people doing the work for many reasons, mostly due to the way it alters the company’s culture. For instance, people resist change because of the uncertainty it brings, like fear of losing their jobs, fear of their capabilities, and even outcomes or failures of the past, or to challenge managers in proving the decision is wrong. Even CEOs will resist change if they see no rewards (Tanner, 2017). However, this list could go on, especially with the global economy, the rate of technological growth, change, it is enviable for companies’ survival, and change should not be resisted. Thus, the bottom line is management should expect resistance to change and learn how to manage the resistance, and provide and get feedback from all of those who are involved in identifying the gaps to why the people feel the way they
When I think of implementing culture changes I think of a book written by David Marx. In David’s book Whack a Mole, he discusses the notion of just culture. In many companies, there tends to develop a “no harm no foul” attitude, and other times, when something goes wrong, we tend to point the finger and one person (2009). At NASA there seemed to be a culture which censured the voice of the dissenter. People who though it appropriate to stop and not move forward until something was fixed correctly were pushed out of the way in the name of progress and mission. Intangible assets such as shared values, and rites and rituals become a cornerstone to a company’s culture. People should be encouraged to speak up with what they think might be an issue without judgement. When deciding how and what to change at a company, we should look to exchange processes. How organizations communicate is a cornerstone to positive change. Starting with feedback and exchange processes. Interdependence tells us that we should collaborate as one unit because as an organization people rely on each other. At NASA, Engineering must communicate with manufacturing, and manufacturing is involved with finance. Negative entropy is another tool which could have been by NASA to promote cultural change. When companies, or even departments within an organization close themselves off from the rest of the organization (Miller, 2015). In the case of the Challenger crash, could the O-ring issue have been resolved if other people had been empowered to speak up, and leaders required to listen? Business operations don’t always run smoothly; and It’s simply a fact that people in any organization will make an error. Fortunately, we can mitigate the risk, or the number of times errors can
Most employees will feel lost and discourage therefore is necessary for leaders to motivate and strive for greatness through frustrating times. During this time leadership qualities are put to the test in which human capital will determine if leaders can be great or will struggle and fail. A good leader through times of change must have a clear understanding of the situation and the amount of work needed to complete the transition. Learning in depth or having basic knowledge of the system and how it would be expected to work. If leaders lack communication and are not focused during the transition then the change will not have the outcome that is
Leaders have influence the organizational climate and can change the command culture. However to accomplish that they have to first understand the existing organizational culture within which they are operating. Culture is the behavior characteristic of a particular group. In an organizational setting, leaders have to be mindful of this cultural factors in the context that is sensitive to the different backgrounds of team members to best leverage their talent. There are three levels of culture. First level is the Artifacts. This is the surface level. It includes all phenomena that one sees, hears, and feels when one encounters a new group with unfamiliar culture. Second level is the espoused values. These reflect the original values. Third level is the basic underlying assumptions. These are what were once hypothesis, supported only by a hunch or a value, come gradually to be treated as reality. Climate, in the other hand, is a prevailing trend of public opinion or attitude in a given organization at a given time.
Prevention of resistance is most effective when implementing change. Preventing the weight of inertia in a workplace allows the change to happen in a timely manner with minimal problems. As Lee (2004) emphasizes, leaders have the ability to effect change and performance. If someone is accountable for outcomes and poor habits, outcomes will improve. The manager must show a caring attitude over the process of change and welcome any positive innovation. This caring attitude will become contagious to the employees working under him and become a priority to them as well. Approaching the change in an accepting, open-minded manner can decrease the vulnerability and frustration associated with change. How the change is presented can make the biggest difference in the outcome of the change. The manager must show that blaming will be avoided at all costs. One will only ask why, not who, to avoid the feeling of belittlement. This can allow employees to become comfortable with voicing their opinions and mistakes, which can allow an even greater range of improvement. The manager must also encourage...
Culture is “a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organisation and guides the behaviour of its members” (Schermerhorn et al. 2011). It plays an important role in any organisation. For instance, in Woolworths we can se...
Transformational leaders and managers who have strong lines of open communication with their employees have been shown to lessen stress and resistance during organisational change (Nging & Yazdanifard, 2015). Heckelman (2017) outlines four tools that best equip managers for dealing with organisational change:
The employee reflects change in an organization as a shift of role, responsibilities and skill. However, in an organizational level its refers change as a framework structure around the changing needs and capability of an organization to perform. Both employee and organization’s perception of change are needed to ensure the change is successful. Brown (2011) reported that “the role of change as a corrective action often affect patterns of work or values, and in consequence meet with resistance” (p. 144). Once an organization and its member decide to conduct a change program, they intensify the forces that driving the change. The life cycle of employee’s resistance is necessary in accomplishing change in an organization. There are five important phases in a life cycle of employee resistance to change in an organization, namely introduce the change, forces of change emerge, direct conflict happens in an organization, residual resistance appear in an organization and lastly, establish the change. (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).