June 16, 1:29 pm
Do leaders shape cultures?
Someone recently asked me “Do leaders shape cultures, or do cultures shape leaders?”
My answer is “both.” From one perspective, a leader should be influencing an organization’s culture, otherwise the leader would be a follower (of the culture). For example, while serving aboard a destroyer during my time in the US Navy, I experienced leadership from several different commanding officers. Each influenced the ship’s culture in dramatically different ways.
On the other hand, employees also influence culture. At one company I know, some long-time employees started coordinating elaborate pot-luck going away parties when one of their co-workers retired. The pot-lucks were quite popular and became an integral part of the company’s culture. The leader of that company saw the importance of these rituals, and invested himself in seeing they were well-publicized. He even started devoting funds to help make them more special.
Perhaps one of the biggest problems for companies is when new leaders do not bother to study the corporate culture before trying to influence it. Consider some of Jack Welch’s disciples. Many from his top team were recruited to lead other companies, only to flop because they thought they could transfer the type of culture Welch had created at General Electric.
One Welch protégé, Gary Wendt, took over at Conseco but was unable to grasp its culture. Sure, he issued a lot of corporate memos, but he drove the company into Chapter 11.
Robert Nardelli was the Welch protégé that took over at Home Depot, but failed to grasp the customer-friendly, decentralized culture that had propelled HD to success. By trying to import GE’s centralized, technocratic approach (and cutting costs by increasing the percentage of part-timers), Nardelli alienated customers. The financial result? Home Depot’s stock price spiraled to less than half of its pre-Nardelli value.
I could go on, but you get the point. Leaders should be able to shape their corporate cultures, but they also need to pay close attention to what people like about their culture. It’s got to work for everybody, or it’s not going to work at all.
Filed in Motivation, Management, Leadership, Team Building, Workplace, Corporate Culture
Intriguing post Dan! I think you are right that the answer to your question is both. I find that an organization’s culture can greatly influence the way a new manager feels he or she is expected to lead. However, once a manager is settled into their role, their own personal behavioral styles and values can have a great influence on the culture of the team they lead which in turn can impact the culture of the organization as a whole.
I’ve shared your post with my readers in my weekly Rainmaker ‘Fab Five’ blog picks of the week (found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2010/06/the-rainmaker.html) so that they might noodle on this intriguing question.
Be well!