Edgar Schein claims that: "Culture and leadership are two sides of the same coin. When organizations start or when groups start there is always a leader who has a preferred way of doing things, and those preferences by definition are going to be imposed on the group members. If you don’t like the way I run this group, I’ll replace you. The leader’s values and preferences are the first ways that a group or organization does things and if that works it becomes eventually the culture of that group. So in a very real sense, founders and leaders create culture.”
Can the same be true for an organization within business ecosystem?
The historical "great man" model of leadership and more recent, related theories concerned with the traits, behaviors, or styles of successful leaders are more and more incongruous in the 21st century. Certainly, they are increasingly challenged by the notion and practice of distributed leadership. What leadership is at play is in any case a function of the configuration of an organization. Related articles titled Distributing Leadership and On Organizational Configurations are at http://www.adb.org/publications/distributing-leadership and http://www.adb.org/publications/organizational-configurations.
Dear Michał, I do endorse the claim of Edgar Schein on leadership. But your point is also valid in a way culture and leadership are interwoven. Success of the leader in one culture may lead to complete failure in another culture. It signifies that culture has a dominant role in leadership effectiveness. However the Fiedler's "Contingency Theory" and Blake & Mouton's "Managerial Grid" when taken together can play significant role and also can act as absorbent of culture and many a times may lead to "Transformational Leadership".
In sofar as an initial leader's personal culture (and biases) may shape the initial culture of an organization this may be true. However, using the analogy of a 2-sided coin is far too simplistic.
When dealing with humans or organizations there are always more than 2 sides. So I much prefer to think of individuals and organizations as multi-faceted gems. Each facet contributes to the overall brillance and value of the gem - perhaps the contributions are not equal, but they do contribute to the whole. And sometimes flaws in those gems are revealed through specific facets.
Thus, a leader's emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, etc all contribute to their overall leadership abilities and how they shape an organization and influence followers. The flaws of leaders can be observed through leadership characteristics / traits. And even the most brilliant of gems contains flaws, as do all leaders.
Mark...
In my opinion they aren't the same coin, leadership is a combination of characteristics where controlled by culture. particularly, leader behave accordingly to the current culture. For the culture its a combination of values and believes where control others behavior.
Indead both of them cam complete each other.
Interesting insights. I believe that culture and leadership are affected by each other. There is a mutual interplay between the 2. When the 2 match, we see spectacular performance results for the organization.
Whether one prescribes to the "great man theory" or transformational leadership or distributed leadership school; culture and context are important in leader effectiveness.
I agree with Schein that the founders and (original) leaders will create the culture of the organization. However, as others have already mentioned, the culture will evolve over time and space. The original culture is obviously more likely to endure if the organization remains successful.
The examples mentioned by Perikles highlight 2 ways that culture is likely to change: 1) poor performance will trigger changes in the leaders who in turn are likely to encourage "doing things differently", and 2) international expansion will confront differences in national/societal cultures which usually requires adaptation of the organizational culture.
Disney's theme parks exemplify the 2nd type of needed change. Disney has always had an American CEO and leadership style, but it has had to adapt its culture to succeed overseas. Its failure to adapt sparked major problems with EuroDisney / Disneyland Paris. In contrast, comprehensive adaptation to Asian cultural values and norms has been a key success factor for its theme parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Lots of interesting points, and to elaborate on the original question; "Are culture and leadership two sides of the same coin?". I certainly see that both sides enter the equation, but surely the organisational culture leadership establishes, for the fixed purpose of realising their specific corporate vision; I see more as a by-product of leadership responsibilities/function rather than as both sides of the coin.
Dear Micahal,
You have received some good answers to date.
I do not think your metaphor helps. What is it you are really asking?
Regardless, at face value, the short answer is: No! They are quite distinct and separate! Culture is a context and collective; Leadership is force and invariably enacted by an individual (or small groups of individuals) within a collective.
www.justinjenk.com
For me, culture is an emerging feature of a group of people. It's true that leadership style may influence culture in a team, a site or a large organization, but the culture it can contribute to may also be at the opposite of the leader's will, as can be seen in unions fighting against leaders initiatives.
That's why the "real world" at the operator's level is quite often different from what leaders imagine it is...
In situations where there is no leader, a culture may emerge anyway (see the hippie movement in the 60')
In the domain of safety, we distinguish safety culture (an emerging feature, which influences individual behavior but cannot be measured "per se") and safety climate, which isdriven by management and can be measured.
In today’s world, sustainable culture is a culture of change. Transformational leadership doesn’t fit into Shein’s claim. Contemporary leadership’s goal is building culture of transparency and sharing, and inclusion is a key to it. Shared values are critical for organizational culture. It means that culture is not based on the leader’s preferences, but on the leader’s abilities to structure individual preferences in order to serve common goals. It is very well explained by C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan in The New Age of Innovation (Chapter 7. Dynamic reconfiguration of talent). I quote from this book: ‘The key message is that for the transformation to be effective, managers must focus on mobilizing talent rapidly from both within and outside the firm. That flies in the face of formal hierarchies and silo-based behavior and thinking. People need to have common values that allow for continuous change to be seen as positive and necessary. Formal organizational structures must give way to a focus on individuals and their skills, behaviors, and attitudes’.
In my opinion culture and leadership are complementary to each other. While in initial phases of the organization, the culture perpetuated by the founder may persist, it will eventually metamorphose based on the decision making pattern , value system ,as well as the concern of the organization for all the stake holders' value. Finally, an inspiring, facilitating and inclusive leadership only creates a conducive organization culture and leads the organization towards development, growth and sustainability.
This is an interesting question, especially because today we face not only significant changes in the dynamics of leadership and culture, but also in the relation between them. I agree with both Irina Bazileva and Jakarkanti Dattagupta in their views, but I would like to show some new aspects. Cuture is a result not only of the leadership, but also of the influence of the country culture, country legislation and globalization. Between leadership and organizational culture there is a continuous interaction, and changes in leadership influnce the organizational culture. The leadership dynamics is the driving force of organizational change while culture dynamics is slower and may be an inertial force.Thus, even if leadership and culture may be conceived as complementary aspects of the organizational life, their dynamics is different and areas of influnce are different. Transformational leaders have a great influnce upon the culture transformation and alignment to the new vision of organization.
To my opinion the answer is no. Culture and leadership are two different concepts with different theories behind them. More than that, we do not have clear cut definitions for any of them. There are studies that relate the two and examining how culture affect leadership style. They definitely are not the same.
Actually, Jay Hall from the University of Texas did some interesting work in the 80s on an integrative model of leadership that used existing theories, had a large data sample backing it up and did show a relationship between leadership and culture. He suggested that leadership mediates culture. The related book was called Models for Management, the structure of competence. Long out of print, but an interesting read if you can find it.
I also agree that the two terms are not well defined in the research, but as a practitioner, I tend to be a little more practical about the two phenomena in order to help organizations trying to improve both.
I agree with all the comments above the there is a relationship between leadership and culture, and indeed, a correlationship, but they are not the same thing. I believe, based on real experience, that leadership behaviours (not just of the CEO or executive) are the biggest driver of organizational culture, mediated by various influences such as country culture, generational differences, etc. I well remember a client from several years ago - the CEO and his team expended many resources on developing and fostering a safety culture. They were genuine about this. Yet the company safety record was dropping. Looking in from the outside, it was much easier for me to see the issue. This was leaders and managers emphasizing the need for fast turn around times in processes. People responded to that, often by cutting safety corners. The leadership behaviours outweighed the espoused culture and created the real culture. Changes to leadership behaviour brought about changes to culture.
Interesting question about leadership and culture and in my view they are often related but different aspects of an organisation. I use the concept of leadership as
"Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things.
Leadership is about building an inspiring vision and where you need to go to "win" as a team or an organization;
It is dynamic, exciting, and inspiring"Culture is "the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society"In my previous role we had a leader (CEO) and leaders of teams and organisational wide and sometime team visions. We had public service values but did not have a defined culture that people were trained in or could articulate as our culture (the way we do things) for new staff. One culture that I used with my team was "The Fish Philosophy" which worked well and was linked to monthly recognition and awards
Very true, Perikles. I often talk with students about a book by Bruce Chatein titled Songlines. It's about his travels in Australia and a key element of the book is the songlines that run all over the Australian land. You cannot see them. They are only in the songs handed down from the ancestors. By singing them, Aboriginal peoples can find their way across vast lands. The songlines indicate where and in what direction to go or that one shouldn't go. They identify markers that help people navigate.
I see organizational culture like songlines that help people understand and navigate the organization. There are no written directions. Policies etc may provide some markers, but the land between the markers is unmapped in tangible terms. Becoming socialised to the organization means learning the songlines
Culture provides the invisible framework for doings things right. That is what a manager does. A leader does right things. Leadership and culture cannot be Heads and Tails. Naivelly: If Leadershi is the Head, does that make Culture the Tail? Among immense number of definitions of organizatinal culture, one decimates it to ways people relate. Leadership is an influencing relation. This is one of multiple leadership definitions. So, only if you deduct from two intentionally chosen definitions you can find similarities between Leadership and Culture.
Research paper on success of Six Sigma where leadership is one of the critical success factor concluded through statistical data that success of an initiative is influenced by leadership but not cultural impact.
By definition, culture is the accumulation of the our practices, beliefs and norm. You and I as individuals we do not have a culture, it is a belief, however we are group people either in society or in an organisation share a similar believe, hence we develop that accumulation into a culture.
Culture and leadership goes hand in hand ; the type of leadership will determine the type of culture that the organisation has. When we change a leader and bring in some one with a different belief, there will be a learning curve between the leader the followers and eventually the organisation.
What I have observed over the years relating to this topic of leadership and the corporate culture is that, within large organisations leadership is not a position, but rather a title that is fought for or bestowed upon.
Establishing a corporate culture within an organisation could be seen as an exercise in risk mitigation. For example, if leadership wishes to establish a safety culture within the company; this is due to their attempt to avoid health and safety risks. If the company wants to establish an ethical culture, this would have a connection with avoiding internal loses, or external legal, political, or reputation risks.
The creating of a workplace culture where you are required to be punctual and work your hours efficiently, as in the case of a traditional workplaces. To creating a workplace culture where there's freedom to come and go, as in the case of some IT companies. These cultures are established as an effort to avoid such risks as loss of productivity, or lack of innovation, or the risk of staff turnover.
There are many other examples of the many different areas of corporate culture that are popular in modern time, and relating to sustainability and the environment, or with some more trendy ones such as, gender neutral language.
It doesn't matter which corporate culture you identify. They all have some relationship to risk mitigation as a reason they are established.
But the most important point doesn't relate directly to establishing a corporate culture, but more to do with the leadership discussion, and their influence on corporate culture
The fact is that if the leadership of an organisation are mafia; it's not hard to guess what the culture of that organision will be...
"But the most important point doesn't relate directly to establishing a corporate culture, but more to do with the leadership discussion, and their influence on corporate culture " - this in essence is a very critical understand - well put; Anthony Paul Evans