Managing Leadership^®

Like many terms used in business – “leadership” and “leader” come to mind – “corporate culture” is peculiarly plastic. It can mean anything we want that is vaguely related to the way people relate to each other and their work. The result is that it can be difficult to discuss without finding that we are talking past each other. At the same time, overzealous efforts to keep terminology clear can be, more or less, unenlightening.

For example, consider an organization where the atmosphere seems to change dramatically when a new CEO comes in, only to change back when the next turnover at the top occurs. What does that mean? Did the culture really change twice? Or did it not change at all, but something more superficial, transitory – reactionary – took place? What’s more, who cares?

There may be at least two reasons to pay attention to this. One relates to a principle purpose of this site, which is to attempt to explore and explain the strategic role of the manager. A key to helping the manager effectively express that role is to get him or her to abandon the false promise of singular individual leadership; in the context of the current discussion, its claim that culture arises from the leader.

It doesn’t. Reactions to the leader emanate from the leader, but not culture. A new boss can come in and alter the atmosphere and working environment in an organization – negatively or productively. But to imagine that this is a fundamental change in the corporate culture orchestrated by the “change agent” is to set into motion dynamics that gravely distort the relationship of the boss to his or her position, duties, and with the organization. It also misleads us as to what has actually been going on.

Look at what happens when that boss leaves. Does the “culture” sustain itself, revert to previous form, or does a new sort of reaction develop in response to the presence of a new but differently assertive boss? If something like that happens – and it almost always does – then we don’t have durable and productive cultural change or evolution; we have erratic and dysfunctional swings in corporate mood.

We might have less of this if the boss focuses on the work rather than on his or her presumptive over-arching personal influence – or stops operating on the basis of an assumption that the assertion of this personal influence is somehow vital to the very organization and everyone whose fate is bound up with it. Unfortunately, however, that is a what our “leaders” are taught by a great part of the academic and advisory structures that create and nurture them.

But what if that’s not what happens? What if the next boss recognizes the value of the elements that have been introduced, studies and builds on them, and works to make them more enduring features contributing to organizational competitiveness? We still have a degree of change that hasn’t necessarily entered the fabric of corporate culture, but in this case, who cares? In such a situation, we are dealing with phenomena that are being treated not as personal artifacts, but are being managed as organizational assets. Time will tell if they become culturally transmitted mores, and in the meanwhile the firm will benefit from its experiments with them.

But it more typically is important to be able to note the difference between environmental reactions arising from singular leaders, and corporate culture transcending individuals and even generations of employees. A good case in point is the American automobile industry, since it is in the news lately.

The Big Three have seen strong personalities over the past several decades, some even so prominent as to appear to personally embody the firms they led. But looking back on the industry as it was prior to and since them, would anyone really argue that they had left a lasting effect on the cultures of their firms? Or is it more reasonable to interpret them as temporary deviations from a fundamentally powerful – albeit increasingly dysfunctional – culture that has brought the entire industry to its knees, and not for the first time?

This points to reasons why it is important not to mistake mood for morale, or passing atmospherics for real cultural change. Because if we are in need of such change, we are in need as well of a more realistic and serious approach to effecting it than simply expecting it to imprint itself on us from the radiant character of whoever happens to be the boss.

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Today’s tips: Speaking of distorting dynamics unleashed by the dysfunction expectations we are encouraged to have of leaders, please see Miki Saxon‘s article on where all of that is taking us – a strongly expressed and effectively organized assessment of the current situation.

Then please stop over to see what Wally Bock has to say about recent listings of management “gurus” and how practicing managers should view the lists and approach the prescriptions of their occupants.

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If you look at the contents section on the sidebar of the main page of this site, you will see a listing of the article series that have been published here. You can click through to view summaries of the pieces, and then read the full series or selections that are of most interest to you. Enjoy!

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