Leadership Role in Shaping Organizational Culture Essay

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Introduction

The role of leadership in shaping organizational culture is vital as Dr. Marsh shows in his own case study in which he examines ways to increase employee engagement and create a process for effective performance management for virtual workers. While effective leadership can provide some solutions to the challenges of shaping organizational culture (Chang & Lee, 2007), even Marsh admits that it is rare to solve every problem. Understanding what works and what does not is, in many ways, a lifelong process. But that is why the case study is so helpful: it allows for reflection. This paper will reflect on Dr. Marsh’s challenges and discuss the leadership style I would adopt to influence the organization’s culture. It will also identify an organizational change model that I would use, and how I would infuse positive social change into my leadership style and organizational culture.

Dr. Marsh’s Challenges

The big challenge that Dr. Marsh faced was the fact that he was managing a virtual team: these were workers who were essentially spread out all over the world. They were not part of a physical environment and therefore were less engaged in a literal sense with the organization. This made it difficult to promote employee engagement in a fundamental way and to measure performance in a practical way. Dr. Marsh had to develop methods for increasing employee engagement in a virtual team and for measuring worker performance to identify problems before they had a negative impact on the organization’s objectives.

Dr. Marsh ultimately solved these problems in a number of different ways. First, to promote employee engagement he developed a website where his virtual team could go to hangout online, chat with one another, receive direct communications from team leaders and receive support. This site helped workers to be more integrated, connected and engaged with their work. Second, he trained team leaders who could facilitate the development of individuals, assist them in their own challenges, and promote the vision of the organization. Third, he organized the structure so that he could see, according to metrics devised to measure performance, when operations were meeting objectives, when problems might lie ahead, and when an investigation needed to be launched. Marsh learned that by investigating issues early on he could more readily address problems before they became major obstacles and prevent issues from snowballing.

One challenge that Dr. Marsh was not successful in overcoming was the challenge of communicating the vision to the virtual team. Marsh recognized that the reason he failed here was that he did not return to the vision once it was communicated. This caused the vision to be lost among many workers. Because it was not something that was constantly kept in front of the virtual team in communications, the sense of the vision for the organization was not a mainstay among the team.

The Leadership Style I Would Adopt to Influence the Organization’s Culture

Transformational leadership is the style of leadership that I would adopt to influence the organization’s culture.

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Numerous studies have shown that transformational leadership can be an effective way to lead organizational change, positively impact a workplace culture and even assist in the management of virtual workplaces (Alos-Simo et al., 2017; Atkin-Plunk & Armstrong, 2013; Bradley & Charbonneau, 2004). Warrick (2011) notes that “that transformational leaders are leaders who are skilled at leading, championing change, and transforming organizations” (p. 14). They do this by communicating a vision to workers, providing support where it is needed, inspiring and motivating workers via incentives—both intrinsically and extrinsically (Gerhart & Fang, 2015), and by educating the workers on the need to achieve the organization’s objectives. The transformational leader shows respect and deference to the worker and like a servant leader puts the needs of the individual before his own. The transformational leader knows that for the organization to achieve its goals, it has to have workers who embrace the vision that it has for itself.

The leader must be able to communicate this vision, describe it, show why it is good, educate workers as to how it can be achieved, provide support for them when they struggle, and motivate them in every way possible or in whatever way they need. This is essentially what Marsh does on a macro level by providing support through the website and via team leaders, communicating the vision, and intervening and investigating to make sure no one is falling behind whenever the metrics signal that a particular team member is going to run into trouble. Transformational leadership

Organizational Change Model

The organizational change model I would use would be Kotter’s 8-step model. This model gives an effective strategy for acknowledging, addressing and managing behaviors, overcoming resistance to change, and helping to align workers with the overall aim of the organization (Hornstein, 2015). The 8 steps of the Kotter model are:

1) Create a sense of urgency

2) Create a guiding coalition

3) Create a vision for change

4) Communicate the vision

5) Remove obstacles

6) Create short-term wins

7) Consolidate improvements

8) Anchor the changes

How I Would Infuse Positive Social Change into My Leadership Style and Organizational Culture

Infusing positive social change into my leadership style comes by instilling trust among stakeholders: by creating a process by which performance can be effectively measured and by which employees can be effectively engaged, social change becomes a reality. The organization is there, after all, to effect social change—that is the reason it exists. If its purpose was to maintain the status quo, it would not have needed to be developed in the first place. Every organization makes the claim that it offers something new to the world, something the world needs, something it does not already have, and something that will improve the lives of those who partake of the service that the organization offers or the product that the organization sells. By facilitating that process….....

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