Managing Leadership^®

A principle aim of the current series is to defend the argument that leadership is more productively viewed as a group – rather than as an individual – characteristic. This has always been a hard sell.

Leaders are people, the response goes, and groups are what they act on. Besides, the critics say, piling on, people have characteristics, not gatherings of them; and it’s at least pointless, maybe even dangerous, to impute human characteristics to groups.

While there is wisdom in this warning, it must not be allowed to blind us to its own limits. There is no escaping the conclusion that groups, just as nations and societies, do indeed have characteristics of their very own. Indeed, these can even appear to be quite distinct from those of the people who make those groups up, seemingly influencing them more than they do the very culture of which they are the composition.

We will begin this part of the discussion by stipulating to the general agreement that groups, organizations, corporations, and the like do indeed have their own distinct cultures. In very important ways, these are inwardly-oriented phenomena which help us interact with each other in collectively acceptable ways.

There can be general types of cultures that appear to be broadly typical of certain industries or regions – Silicon Valley and automobile manufacturers are perhaps two obviously contrasting examples. But there are also surprisingly distinct, and even mutually hostile, cultures within such groupings. Sometimes these might be supposed to reflect peculiar niches within the larger categories – both examples just offered can easily produce samples of this.

This phenomenon is common even within organizations. It is often ascribed to the nature of the professional field that dominates a particular department – accounting, engineering, HR, and the like.

But it also happens that strikingly different cultures develop in organizations that are so similar as to offer no outward clues as to how such an apparent divergence of group attitudes, mores, and customs could have developed.

This suggests two possibilities. One is that group cultures can cause the people in them to adopt specific and uniquely coherent approaches to their interaction in the group enterprise. The other is that these are not necessarily inevitable, mechanical outgrowths of some external determining factor, such as industry, region, or even local culture.

There’s another aspect of this that bears mentioning: group cultures are primarily, but not exclusively, inwardly focused. Groups have their own way – expressed by their members – of viewing the outside world, interpreting the various opportunities and threats it presents them, and even of evaluating individuals of other group cultures – evaluations upon which they act. Cultures – even group or corporate cultures – can be very powerful indeed. Perhaps even more so than we.

We will be looking at these ideas more closely in the next few days, in an attempt to see how they contribute to the argument of the larger discussion. Thank you for your attention so far, and please do stay with us!

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Today’s tips: Possibly the most succinct and effective method for detecting the presence, nature, and influence of a corporate culture is captured by Wally Bock, author of Three Star Leadership, in a comment made to last Thursday’s post. There is much to think about in his brief but potent advice, and not just about how to discover a group’s culture as an outside observer, but how to be a more insightful and effective inside manager. You will want to know, as well, that subscribers to Wally’s blog receive more such powerfully presented ideas in his weekly email newsletter.

And speaking of workplace cultures, please see this WSJ article about the best small businesses to work in. Note, for example the emphasis on joint decision-making in the first company highlighted - but be sure to observe how it is tied to the concept of employee-ownership.

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• Morale and mood
• Corporate culture
• Creatures of culture
• What is Organizational Leadership?
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