Organizational Culture and Leadership, 5th Edition

10HOW LEADERS EMBED AND TRANSMIT CULTURE

In the previous chapters we saw how founders of organizations start the culture-formation process by imposing their own beliefs, values, and assumptions about how things should be done on their followers and employees; we then reviewed all the external and internal issues that have to be addressed in creating an organization. A culture is now well on its way to being formed. If the founders or their successors believe that they are on the right track in how they have solved the external and internal issues, how do they consolidate and embed the new structures, processes, beliefs, and values? Founders and subsequently appointed or promoted leaders have available to them many mechanisms and processes to articulate and embed the culture they have created.

How will founders and formal leaders know whether or not to aggressively embed their beliefs, values, and assumptions? The main short-run criterion is the external one of whether or not the organization is succeeding. But many of the beliefs, values, and assumptions have long-range consequences. How should those be assessed? Should a leader who believes in teamwork impose team processes, team incentives, and team rewards? The primary internal criterion both for founding something new and then embedding it in the organization’s structures and processes should be to examine the degree to which those beliefs, values, and assumptions are in alignment with the macro cultures in which the new ...