When different scenarios of the best leaderships are being considered, it can be observed that culture has a great impact on it. This is the statement around which the research study will proceed. This is a progressing topic, which has gained the attention of most of the organizations and is still revolutionizing the world each and every day. This subject of leadership has progressed and gained the attention of many wise people. Even it has been observed that in 2008, 14,139 books were present on best book selling web page Amazon.com and later on in 2009 this quantity raised to 53,121 books and shows that we can consider that there are more books related to this topic, in near future than the people who read them (Grint, 2010). The interest and urge has boosted in these few years.
In modern world, new ideas and innovations are being given high preferences. To entertain anyone, though can be your customer or a client, it is essential to have unique benefits and also have a unidirectional, focused idea which impresses the world and empowers a business. The companies are considered to be successful if they do not deviate from a path and bring innovations walking on the same path. Now, this is where a leader is though required, who is familiar and has a great practice of the initials of his or her organization.
A leader is always expected to be a person who faces the challenges; especially the increasing daily challenges (Fuglsang, 2008). A leader has to face every challenge by putting an impact on other employees. This is very important to study how the most subtle part of any society, i.e. culture affects a leader. When the stress level increases and no one has the answer it is the leader who still has to keep the whole scenario in his mind and let the world see a stable image out of it.
Background
Leadership and Organization:
The world is now becoming a global village, and with this, it is becoming as small as it can be. The trends are being set and the most basic necessity of the post Leadership is being adopted by every reputable organization. When recruiting employees, nowadays, the leading quality is being preferred the most by every institution because they expect the employee to lead with the culture in the prescribed way (Ozdemir, 2010). Rules and regulations can never be implemented in an adequate manner until they are being judged by entities who know the bounds of the procedures being carried out by the organization.
Every organization is different when it comes to the point of the type of operations performed, industries it is associated to, standards of the maintained commitments and being adhered to the core values. There can be many internal and external factors which make them differentiate their practices on the basis of them. Most of these factors are based on the culture of the organization. The requirements developed for a system are moulded and maintained under the light of certain cultural aspects (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). These cultural aspects are the unique features which can and usually affect the execution of a system.
What is culture in an organization
The beliefs of an organization are highly credible when dealt in an efficient way. It is the subtle issue which can create a sceptic image in the external and internal environment of any organization. Vision and mission are the two parts which we all know when dealing with any working business, but we do not take the actual meaning of it. And yes, the actual purpose of that is to define the culture of your company, firm, institute or business in the eyes of your stake holders. Every company though designs the culture but the point is, do they implement the leadership skills considering those beliefs?
A highly important and influenced part of the project is the culture of the organization. It can change the whole scenario of the project or procedure. If it is not let to be remaining and flow in a consistent way then this can create the worst impacts which are not even perused by the leads.
For getting the best results in a project or work it is highly essential that the work force is satisfied by the environment. The environment is made and built by the social characteristic, and here the most influential one, i.e. the culture.
We can also perceive it as the culture of any society are so made and inculcated by the head lead, which imposes the rules and makes it work the way he requires them to be. So, the style which leader choses is strongly associated with the cultural norms he is trying to impose on the working environment.
Culture is divided into small clusters of performances which will be viewed and discussed in this study. The impact in the eyes of the consumer will so be made. Thus, it can be concluded that, culture is the attitude and traits faced by any organization and so have to be given a keen concern to make lead the organization to prosper in future.
Impact of Culture on an Organization
In every business, culture has a great impact on the overall structure and working of an organization. This defines the goals and the practices which are being conducted and aimed by the stakeholders of the business and consequently by all the other employees. These stakeholders are never bounded to customers, employees, distributers, trade unions, suppliers, shareholders, regulatory agencies and government (Maak & Pless, 2006).
In this organization, it is a leader who is responsible to maintain a balance in between demands and the value and organization is performing. And this is highly dependent on the skills of a leader who should have all the reports regarding the high-performance system of that organization (Sergiovanni & Corbally, 1986). The leader has to keep all the cultural practices in mind, because this is a topic which cannot be ignored by country or any organization. It is examined in this paper, that to what extent, a culture impacts the business leaders.
Problem Discussion
One of the important entities in an organization is a leader. It is a leader who faces or estimates the risks before and after a procedure, or looks around the trends and risks which can be ration and to find the solutions of such tasks, is the responsibility of a leader (Robbins & Coulter, 2007).The management of a business portrays many aspects of an effective leadership. It covers the traits and commands and also how it varies in every single industry. In the various parts of literature, the role of culture, putting an impact on the organization (and so a business leader) to focus on growth and expansion, has been found. But when we study the leadership style which should be adopted with each varying culture, there is no such literature that fulfils this requirement.
Effective Decision Making
Decision making is the most important part of the organizations (Ferrell et al., 2008). The leadership strategies on different levels are studied by the corporate sector to take out different crucial points out of it and remain to be focused on the goals. There are many new critical emerging challenges being face by the organizations and this is the best time to study and judge the link between the two overlapping concepts and their impacts over each other, i.e. leadership and culture.
If this relationship is not explored and studied, then the leadership of the businesses will remain intact and bounded to books, through which leaders will make decisions or by studying the leaders of other companies. This is never so fruitful, more than the point that a leadership has to be innovative and dependent on the factors being faced, and culture is one of them. If these differences are studied at first hand, it is believed that the leaders can make more staunch decisions which has an unique impact on the entity (here organization).
Problem formulation and Purpose
Identifying the problem is one of the crucial steps when formulating the study. It has been observed that most of the organizations do not give significant attention to the culture of the organization which can result into many problems like:
Un-punctual workforce
Workforce leaving their jobs
Recruiting again and again
Fear of working
Political influences
And so on.
The purpose or research, the research question:
After studying different points regarding the proposed study, it is now clear that it is important and beneficent to study the relation between the cultural variables and leadership styles. This is a topic of high concern for the present needs and hence the research question of the study is extracted to be as:
What is the likely impact of culture upon the leadership practices adopted in any organisation?
Importance of the question
A modern leader is expected to be the one, who brings innovations and formulates strategies with the same resources and skills that any other competitor has (Bienen & Walle, 1991). Creating confusions about the basic needs mostly creates uncertain results and can infer the whole goals of a project. It is essential that focused decisions and procedures are implemented so that the stakeholders may also fulfil their part of the work and meet requirements and expectations as they should be.
Focus of the Paper
The major purpose of this paper is to create a clear path which states that the culture of any society and an organization has a great impact on it and on the leadership style and hence only those styles must be adopted. If so there is a time that another leadership style has to be adapted, it must be made clear that it falls in the cultural premises defined by that organization or business (Robbins & Coulter, 2007) and is not deviated away from the visions of a particular business.
De-limitations
This is a bounded study, which remains in the premises of the two important facts which were and are considered by the organizations- leadership styles and culture. The requirements are not to be studied in depth to the further lines of subcultures because a single culture may distribute into multiple lines of the sub cultural issues dealt by it (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). It is done in order to make the confusions as limited as possible.
By considering the time duration and the resources available, only the core culture is discussed with different dimensions. Various examples have been taken from the sub cultures so that a significant idea and details are extracted from it. These effective examples make the study comprehensive and dynamic and so can convince the reader more easily with the reasoning provided in it.
Those cases which can create dogmatic effects and conclusions are kept away from the extracts and portions of the study. A highly neutral study has been developed to inspire the major portion of the readers and targeting the organizations around the globe. It is hoped that everyone agrees with the conclusions and recommendations being made at every level of the report. It is made sure that this study is legal, social and ethical.
Objective of the Study
The objective of the study is to give a solution for the leaders of the organization so that they negotiate effectively with the followers of each department and different cultural backgrounds. Though diversities can revolutionize the world but when it comes be and act as a centralized body with the focused objectives, the case has to remain intact. Transcultural visions have to be developed by leaders (Ting-Toomey, 1999), and are made sure that they make competent analysis for it by their skills in hand.
The world has become and interactive market, buyers and sellers interact easily and readily with each other. The completion is increasing every moment a new idea arises. For this the important part still lies that, how one should not forget the core values or the culture and still make their ideas to be known and famous.
Chapter 2
Literature Review
Introduction
As already mentioned in the above section, it is leadership which is essential for taking decisions in a business and there are numerous styles which can be studied because of the vast literature available on it (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). Moreover, the differences created by the cultures are studied so that the impact is clearly understood after reviewing the literature.
An overview of the whole study has been provided in this section by giving evident and existing models and theories which formulate the initials of the relationship which is present in between leadership and culture. This literature review provides the sources through which a conceptual framework can be developed (Fisher, 2007). Management is also interlinked with leadership to make it clear that these two terms are not at all overlapping.
Parent Disciplines or fields involved
In this study the parent topics which are studied are majorly related to the organizational structures, their cultures- constraints that come under those cultures, the managerial essentials required for the better team for which a Management book has been concerned thoroughly (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). Then Leadership is studied in which all the initials of the report are proven which continues with management and then defining the culture, a complete overview has been presented. From the styles of leadership, to the theories provided (Gill, 2006), all are discussed.
A critical analysis has been done of the literature which being gathered in this context. It is done to form a relationship between the parent fields that are; culture and leadership, through which the impact of culture has to generalize on the leadership style (Eagly & Johnson, 1990). Through this the whole purpose will be defined and a clear picture will be made. This analysis is done with each extract, so that the reader remains linked with the research question and the focus is not deviated.
Leadership and Leadership Styles
What is leadership?
If taken into simple words, a leader is a one who has followers (Grint, 2010), and guides, inspires and rules those followers. Many think that this word has no proper definition. This can be true and may it not be but the point lies in the perception of the reader and convincing party.
To define leadership is not a simple task as communicated by a researcher himself too and is said that the definitions of leader are present in the same quantity as the authors who have tried to define the word leadership (Stodgill, 1974).
Three constituents of Leadership
Leadership has numerous aspects and dimensions around which it can be defined and observed but there are three important constituents of the concept which entails inside the word leadership, as stated by Nahavandi (2006) as:
First is persuading the followers by the influence created by an innovative leader? A leader should not be bossy, instead should be a convincer in such a way that no ethical limits are crossed and no social community is hurt.
Then is the second type, which is result and goal oriented and is determined in the group which is performing the activity. This is the second style of leadership, which will be discussed further in detail, and according to this, aims should be maintained and achieved.
Then this is a formal structure which creates a command in challenge which has to be performed to give effective and efficient results. The results should be cost effective, and profit generators as seen in a business case.
Leadership a Trait
It has been a strong argument from the start that leadership is a trait which cannot be learnt or adopted but is God gifted. And therefore, a person cannot be forced to be a leader. A person cannot be spoon fed and be forced to have the best leadership skills to attract its followers (Caldwell et al., 2010). According to many other theories, leadership can be adopted and learnt too and is not limited to the God gifted theory. This is done on the assumption that, yes leadership can be learnt through training, getting knowledge and proper feedback.
So, with this we can conclude that leadership is another word for influence (Northouse, 2010) which is thus influenced by culture, as the conclusion of this study will state. A person may not be forced to be a leader but can be trained to be one of the best, only relying on the fact that he wants to be the best leader. It has been extracted and seen that, observation and interests of the person matters a lot in becoming a consistently decisive leader of any organization. If an innovative leader is bound by the limitations and differences in culture, that leader will fail to provide the benefits.
Impact of a leader
It is the idea and innovations of a great leader which move the followers to a stage where they cannot ignore the words spoken. The emotions portrayed by a leader can persuade the people to implement the strategies; such leadership is known as primal leadership (Askenas, 2008).
The example of such statement can be taken from politics. Many leaders like the currently elected President of United States, has given the followers a reason and incentive to follow him. The emotional content can be studied in the example of the sub-continent, where Muhammad Ali Jinnah, emotionally persuaded the whole dispersed crowd to be free and live with their own cultures. Yes, the leader used the statements of culture, i.e. the important aspect of culture- religion was used for the separation of another country (Malik, 2006).
This proves that no matter what type of organization it can be, the leader can be the king of the crowd if he has control on the cultural aspect. The leader lightens the beacon which can spread the word in the whole crowd.
Theories of leadership
To have a clear understanding the word leadership, and to study the influences in a better way, the characteristics of the leader have to be studied by giving a closer look. Though Gill (2006) states that there is no such model or theory that fully comes up to the expectations of the concept leadership, but there are some theories which are given sheer value to define and elaborate the roles of a leader.
Firstly, before we study the theories of leadership, there are five approaches under which the whole theories work, and out of this five the major three have been discussed as:
Trait approach: this approach states that a leader is born and not made (Northouse, 2010) like the famous kings and scholars (e.g. Abraham Lincoln, Mahatama Gandhi, Napolean Bonaparte or even Joan of Arc),were born to bring innovations. This approach concentrates on what has to be done by a leader. A leader should be intelligent, confident, may have knowledge of the business- which is the essential constituent of the leader (Phatak et al., 2009)
Skills approach: As the name suggests, this approach does not emphasize more on personality but on the capabilities of a leader. This characteristic of the effective leaders, that they have skills (Gill, 2006). This approach makes it evident that knowledge and abilities are the required constituents of an effective leader (Northouse, 2010).
Style Approach: An important approach for the study being conducted here which says that the behaviour of a leader is important for any conduct being taken by him (Northouse, 2010). There are six styles according to Goleman (2001) which are state that a leader should be:
Visionary: ideas of implementing new and beneficent concepts. A risk taker.
A coacher: leads and trains the sub-ordinates.
Democratic: knows how to tackle the crowd.
Commanding: knows how to give orders to meet deadlines.
Affiliated with work: never ignore work.
Pace-Setting, i.e. values time.
So these were some of the approaches and now the theories of leadership are as:
Contingency Theories
As the word explains the meaning 'to be dependent on something is the meaning of the word and so the theory surrounds it (Lloyd & Rothwell, 2007). Whatever an entity is or will be is because of the rules and regulations made by the surroundings. This is an important theory with respect to the topic of the study as it says that there is that the role of leadership varies with the change in surroundings (Gill, 2006). Well this shows that with the change in environment culture and other consequences, the roles and styles of the leadership changes.
New theories Leadership: transformational theory
This type of theory states that the interest must be developed and stimulated in the colleagues, raise the abilities and potentials of the followers as well as the colleagues, aware them with the threats and weaknesses as well as the strengths which can boost the company and last but not the least motivate the workers consistently (Bass, 2002).
There is a new range of transformational leaders, which is seen to be entering the twenty-first century (Western, 2008) and has been seen that new concepts of culturists entering the fields so that more effective environment is seen as a positive response.
Two-Dimensional Model of leadership
In any organization, people and production are the two dimensions of the leadership (Blake & Mouton, 1982). These are the two major concerns of the leader, to satisfy people or workforce of an organization or to generate revenues. This model is workable, again, when the workforce and the other environmental factors are friendly. If we do not consider these important dimensions of Leadership, we cannot conclude the prospective results.
Leadership styles
This is an essential review for the topic being discussed in hand because it will later on tell how the different styles are linked with different cultures of an organization. According to the research led by Kurt Lewin (Lewin et al., 1939), there were three basic styles of leadership as shown beautifully in the daigram:
http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadstyles.gif
Source: Leadership Styles of Principals (Mehrotra, 2005, p.8)
Autocratic or Authoritarian Leaders
In this particular style of leadership, tasks are assigned to the employees working under the team leader (Mehrotra, 2005). In this you motivate the employees instead of being harsh on them; one has to make sure that every aspect of a projected work is being performed accurately and efficiently. Spies can be used to keep a check but the workforce is not disappointed by being rude.
It is the point when person has all the authority in command and tends to be the part of the challenge as a single entity. It is generally applied on cases where you have less time or the work being done is of high calibre and does not require any kind of dis satisfaction for the client or any stakeholder of the business. The other appropriate situation where it can be used is when the entire work schedule is in the hands of the team leader (Lewin et al., 1939).
Participative or Democratic Leaders
In this style the decision is being taken by the leader, with the support of one or two other employees (Lewin et al., 1939). This is not a bossy style of leadership and is totally a cooperative one. It is generally preferred because in this everyone feels involved but yet it depends on the nature of the decision being made.
Female leaders are expected to be more participative and democratic in their style of leadership (Eagly & Johnson, 1990) and are more transformational then men (Eagly et al., 2003). This shows that gender plays an important role in leadership and yes it depends again on the culture of the organization that what type of dominance they accept.
Free-rein or Delegate Leaders
A totally opposite style while related to the first one in which the leaders asks the employees to take the decisions while he or she is not around (Lewin et al., 1939). In this way, it can be judged that who can be the future leader and also the work is broken down into sub-structures which schedule and makes progressive improvements. Secondly, if there is a lot of politics involved in the culture of an organization this can turn into a worst nightmare of the employees. Because their leader, can even blame them when things go wrong- by giving them a chance to get blamed.
Each leadership style has a different effect on flexibility, responsibility and other variables of the effective leaderships which enforce a great effect. Similar is the case with all of these three major styles mentioned above (Mehrotra, 2005).
Conclusive deduction
Normally, it has been seen that all three styles of leadership are practiced by the businesses and yes this gives the most effective results too, but when the influences of culture, as mentioned in the later parts of this review, will be studied, it will be seen that culture has a great control on the leadership style, and yes the culture is developed by the whole upper-committee of the managerial forces (Kozak, 1998).
The roles of a manager:
A manager is a leader?
A manager is usually confused with a leader. It is hard to determine and distinguish mostly that is the manager in command the actual leader. But yes, when we study the duties and performances of the managers we may also say that a manger can be a leader but it depends and so, not every manager is a leader. A manager is a role played by an employee in the hierarchal structure of an organization (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). It has only some limited powers which are used only to complete the work and make their subordinates work in an effective way.
The table as shown below, entails all the responsibilities of the both the managers and the leaders and in this way clarifies the overlapping misunderstandings which are created by the minds of the people:
Source: Data taken from Gannon University Magzine (Kozak, 1998).
It is not essential that a leader gets a distinguish place in the organizational structure or corporate hierarchy. It is the characteristics and expertise of an employee which may make him or her leader but not a post. Most of the times it has been observed that the culture demotivates them and also may not know what their repute is but the reality is that they have a whole set of followers behind them. They have a direct relation with each and every employee and if they are not allowed to be the leaders of the organization, it does not matter because they still are the most favourite leaders of their own set of followers. Leaders so deal with people (Bertocci, 2009) which is not necessary that managers also do. They can be a leader, when they bring creativity in their work but as far as the post is concerned, they only manage their specialized field as usually governed by the leaders. Some types of the managers are: IT managers, Financial Managers, Marketing Managers and so on. These are some common posts filled in almost all the organizations.
It can be observed that yes some managers can be a leader too. And if they do so, this can be the most influential act and may affect the executional processes of an organization and the reward of coercive power is added to this role with the addition of expert and coercive power practices (Robbins & Coulter, 2007). This shows that if managers adapt the position of the leaders they can increase the whole working of an organization.
The technical and educational honour of each manager differs with the level of work being performed by each manager. Similarly each industry, organization or firm varies from each other and the roles can so change with these variations. On contrary to this fact, the duties and activities performed by a leader also change with the change in industry as each sector or industry is unique. It is the job assigned to the top management to define visions and to implement those visions, a leader is needed (Bertocci, 2009).
Management and satisfying variables
Organizational culture has always been putting an impact on the performance and has been clearly providing evidences which can impress the other management fields (Denison & Mishra, 1995). According to Lund (2003), the relationship between culture and leadership or job satisfaction has not been ever implemented. The behaviour of the staff though plays a distinguished role, and this has to be studied and analysed and management. This does not make them leaders but only the analyst who conclude the performances of the staff but yes, they are responsible to maintain the culture.
Organizational culture
What is culture
It refers to those values and obligations, which are or have been already stated by the social norms or the environment of any society. The cultures of each country and even each house differ because it varies consistently from person to person (Hughes et al., 2009).
It gives the knowledge to the people that who they are, what their behaviour should be and what values they should adopt and then it is ascertained that the morale of the workers is kept up to the level as par required (Harris et al., 2004).
In organization, culture is the set of values, rules, legal contracts and regulatory context which may also be part of the national culture. So the behaviour of the entity is essential for flourishing the economy (Harris et al., 2004)
How culture varies differences created by diversified cultures
The culture varies from time to time and even place to place as discussed in the previous and further contexts. There are many differences which can be raised while different cultures are being followed, or a new culture has been adopted. These differences as stated by Rugman and Bewer (2001) are:
The first essential thing which affects the culture and is a part of it is the language. The intercommunication between the employees is highly fluctuated with the differences in language (Daniels & Radebough, 2001)
A harmony should be established in the culture like that of Japan which prevails with the culture of Mother Nature.
In the Light of culture
The environment and the policies governed by any organization are based on the cultural norms and that is why a leadership can never be successful until, it is related to culture, as mentioned in Organizational Culture and Leadership (Schein, 2010).
.
Dimensions culture
Culture is a vast topic but the basic dimensions of culture are as (Vinken et al., 2004):
Universalism vs. particularism which refers to the legal terms and conditions. The rules defined by the organization.
Individualism vs. communitarianism which refers to the conflicts that occur in the desires of the individual. There can be numerous conflicts which can cause a shadow on the practices of an organization.
Specific vs. Diffuse refers to the involvement of different minds.
Neutral vs. Effective is related to the emotions of an individual.
Achievement vs. Ascription the personal status and orientation is assigned in this.
Time Constraint is one of the most effective tools and which gives an orientation of the present, past and future.
Internal vs. External refers to the strategies and planning which is conducted in an organization.
When all these dimensions of the culture have been discussed and now, by halting and considering the definitions and styles of leadership being discussed above (Vinken et al., 2004), it can be clarified easily that a leader, can never have an effective leadership, until and unless the limitations and aspects of culture are explained in a prescribed manner.
Now we can easily conclude that, leadership is nothing without the cultural definitions than though yes we can say that culture has a staunch impact on the leadership styles. In the above mentioned points, all the dimensions and their hidden variables have been highlighted and they are illuminating the fact that organizational culture is one of the cores of the whole scenario.
Cultural Diversity
The cultures, as discussed, are diversified in nature. They need to be handled and be kept in mind by the leaders so that they can adopt the diversified leadership styles easily. If we take each country as an organization, then again we observe the same points as we are discussing for the businesses.
The need of distributing and managing work
It has been observed that in most of the places, the cultures are adopting gender equality. Human Resource management has been implemented in the 20th century, so that the workforce is managed effectively. Productive activities are now managed easily by the organizations. This human resource department also develops training and educational programs through which more and more people are hired and trained to be competent enough and struggle in the corporate sector. Many foreigners were hired by many countries to fulfil the requirements of the organizations, by hiring the intelligent section of the whole world. The concept of the "Global Leader" (Phatak et al., 2009), has revolutionised the world because a great leader is thought to be the one who knows how to deal with every culture of the world.
Managing cultural diversities
The teams which are made in every business are the lead through which the cultures can be managed (Bon & Beatrice, 2011). These teams communicate in most efficient and effective ways but the point that rises is; how to tackle the gaps which are formulated due to the cultural differences and are formed by the minds of the people.
There are many causes which can create cultural differences out of which sum are mentioned as:
Impact of female gender entering the organizational fields
The culture was yet also affected when more female members entered the organizational bounds, and opportunities for females increased (Ramus, 2003). It was seen that almost 50 per cent of the population constituted of females, and even then, if they are not involved in the economic activities of a country, this could be wastage of resources. This made the stress level of the male members to decrease when the female members of their family started working. This increased the circle of earning and many new entrepreneur fields were also developed when the female lot entered the society of business. This wave was spread over the whole globe and it also changed the working environment of the organizations.
In the backward and under developing countries, it is observed that still female population is kept away to help in the economic progress of a country.it is not acceptable in the society that they work. These are the places and communities which still consider themselves as conservatives and fundamentalists and discourage women from playing the important role. This is not necessary that the whole country has same ideas about it but instead this is happening in advanced countries too. Now when the culture of any organization is concerned, this issue is the most crucial one because, a leader is not usually good with the female workers and neither man accept them as boss. Hence, it is observed that female workers in the managing league create problems. So the involvement of female staff is giving arise to many problems in this century (Hanekamp, 2007).
It has been an issue in early ages too, when women were not that active, but still were degraded if a single word of innovation was spoken. Ego killed many successes and lives. The case which signifies the deprivation of women is as:
"In the past Soveit period, gender discrimination was on its peak and women were not considered equal to men in personality, capabilities and characters. There were numerous articles which were issued in this regard because after independence it was observed that women predominantly were affected and were the target of poverty. Russia proved itself to be the first liberal community and considering the following case, they pondered and later on implemented a theme in which, it was made clear that women are the part of the liberal society of Soveit and are as free as any person, to work hard and earn for their survival" (Kay, 2000).
This case proves that women were and are not still accepted to be as equal as any men in the working environment.
There are numerous platforms which support the work of the females and they are dominant and better managers in that area as compared to men. These platforms vary with cultures of particular countries. Societies where women are not allowed to step out of the house, with the new facilities, work in houses should be arranged and they should be indulged in the economic activities. This is not a big deal in 21st century because many organizations have already made their work distribution in such a way that they can assign work to ht female staff sitting in homes and leaders are able to work with telecommuting the work (Saiyadain, 2009).
This shows that, female candidates can work, and further elaborations convince us that they can work as hard and appropriately, as any male worker either in a management league or in the other departments of the organization. So it should be made sure that this biggest social issue is thrown out of the organizational culture so that female participants are made to work and productive outcomes are achieved by using their knowledge as well (Andrew, Sirkin and Butman, 2007).
Benefits to employees
The culture of an organization is highly supportive for the employees; it can motivate them and even demotivate them. But the practice done in developed countries, that is making the employees feel that the organization cares about them and train them for health and safety, is the other thing which makes leadership easy (Jennings, 2012). In this way different kinds of facilities make the culture of the organization stronger and strong enough to effect the moods of the employees in such a way, that one does not require to think that what type of leadership is being held on their head.
The Private and public sectors both have to provide such facilities so that the workers are happy with them. Usually, it is seen in public sector jobs that incentives are provided and facilities related to family like education and health, is given because in such concerns the government is directly concerned and related to the workforce, and it is the job of the leader to provide with such an environment that everyone feels safe to work under him.it is the job of the leader to make solutions in such a way that they are not clashing with any un ethical task.
Language Problem
As mentioned earlier in culture, language is one of the biggest issues which hinders leadership and affects the working style of a leader. One is bound by the fact that he or she cannot communicate in a better and competent manner. Even when two big countries, like United States and Great Britain work together or their workers go to other's spot then the problems of language arise (Keyton, 2010).
Because of these differences, a Global leader has to be more competent and sharp to be adoptable and consistent enough that he or she does not have to be misunderstood while a style of leadership is being adopted (Keyton, 2010).
The world is becoming small and small as mentioned earlier (Askenas, 2008). People study from one place, and then work somewhere else, and then this is the major problem faced by many institutions. Here, we can take an example of an international company ABC which is currently working in a country DEF. It is an ABC company, origin from another country, and is situated on another country. Now when the workforce is hired, the labour can be from the native country, a leader is hired from a third country, and the company is originally from another country. Now the leader might communicate with the immediate juniors, but to communicate with the blue collared work force, may become difficult and as a result a communication gap may be develop. This communication gap may be so much dangerous that it can even the whole project or procedure which is under process. This shows, that such differences should be avoided.
Conclusion
Leadership style affected by culture
The strategic manager or the leader is the one who is responsible for creating, establishing and implementing strategies in the organizations. They should give a direction to the whole organization and yes they do give it, but on the basis of the culture that they adopt. Leaders are charismatic, persuasive and operative through culture (Thompson & Martin, 2005).
Dependency
The styles that a leader may adopt are totally dependent on how the culture of the working environment is. If the environment is too friendly the leadership will be democratic in nature- generally in most of the cases. If the environment will be strict then leadership will be authoritarian in nature and if the environment is care-free, there are less time constraints and internal external strategies do not matter that much for an entity then it will be the last style of leadership.
Role of management
The management is the one who is responsible to handle the different situations which arise in between the workforce. The culture of the organization should be managed though if it is still not the happy work place but still has to be kept in mind that is perceived to be the best workplace (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). And, not only perceived but also has to be made one of the best workplace to avoid failures.
The work can be distributed, but no matter how it is distributed, the elements remain the same on which they are dependent on. In this way a whole comprehensive structure can be developed and in the coming chapters, an analysis of this data will be done to answer the formulated research question in hand i.e. about how organizational culture impacts the work of a leader.
Chapter 3
Research Method
Research method is an important phase of every research project. It is no exaggeration to state that this phase determines the validity of research project. This phase highlights the true efforts made by the researcher in adding value to this study.
There are many research methods which have been devised with the dedicated efforts of the researchers. These methods are applicable to different types of research subjects and studies.
It is understood that research activity is conducted to bring something new to the literature and practise which may not explored as yet. The credibility of research is determined by the level of primary activities carried out during the research process. However, the essence of collecting secondary data cannot be undermined as it lays the foundation for developing the need to type of facts to be explored. In other words, without secondary research, primary research will not turn useful to the researcher as he may only be reinventing the wheel.
Keeping in view the nature of topic of this research study, the focus of the research is on secondary data collection. It is an exploratory research study whereby the focus is to collect secondary data and analyse it to validate a relationship between two variables. Since the topic is broad and encompasses the organisational level variables, it is difficult to get primary data for this topic. The researcher can contact organisations for their cultural aspects and leadership styles, but can not analyse the culture himself. He needs to believe in the information provided by the corporate entities either through their official websites, brochures or the vision and mission statements.
So the research method of this study consists of exploring as many organisations as possible to study their culture and leadership style prevailing therein. After obtaining this information, the researcher analyses it to develop a relationship between the two. This practice is repeatedly carried out for all organisations which have been explored for this study. The large sample size helps generalise relationship between the variables. It is also possible that there exists certain intervening and mediating variables which mould this relationship and these middle variables are also important to study (Sekaran, 2010).
There is an important reason behind not including surveys and questionnaires in this study. The reason lies in the fact that these two methods collect data from individuals and contain individual biases as well. It is quite possible that an environment appearing friendly to an individual may appear hostile to the other one. It is also possible that the boss-subordinate relationships also effect the perceptions an individual has about the organisational culture and its leadership style. It is, therefore, better option to conduct the analysis of organisational level variables through interaction with higher level management. The representation of views and desires of high level management is made through their corporate vision and mission statements, brochures and value framework.
It is clear in the light of above discussion that the research study is primarily an exploratory study based on secondary data collection and its strong analysis. When the nature of data is examined in the light of purpose of this study, it becomes clear that it is a qualitative study as all the variables under consideration are intangible. They are almost to be mapped to empirical data. Culture is an intangible construct and it cannot be measured in numbers. Likewise, leadership style is plotted on quantum with no specific quantities allocated.
As mentioned earlier, the research is based on exploring many organisations and analyzing their culture in the perspective of evaluating any possible relationship between leadership style and culture, the empirical findings can be about number of organisations which confirm this relationship and the number which deny it. This empirical analysis can be generalized to adequate number of organisations as the sample size is quite big and the organisations are heterogeneous. The heterogeneous organisations are specifically included in the study to see the impact of organisational nature in the validation of likely relationship. The impact is explored in the analysis section to know whether the dependant and independent variables are directly associated with each other or the relationship can be manipulated through some other variables. The presence of intervening variable is important to explore as it is the prime factor contributing to the originality of this research study.
It is important to mention that the research study has unique incorporation of primary data whereby the views of successful top managers are added in it. These managers may have started their business from entrepreneurship and led it to the heights where they are ranked as business tycoons and industry leaders. Their styles and practices set best industry practices for other organisations to excel and lead. It is important to mention that their success may be a function of long struggle where by this research study is based on two factors of organisational culture and their leadership style. It is also important to mention that their leadership style may not have remained the same throughout their period of struggle in business. They may have adopted different style at different point in time and have experienced different responses therein. All these points are important to mention here to save the reader from the boas that a particular organisation or the leader is known for the mentioned style only. The examples included in this study reflect few aspects only which are relevant to this study only. The complete study of organisations and leaders may be broad enough no to be included in the scope of this study and is not relevant to include as well.
The researcher has tried his best to include al possible methods applicable to an exploratory study so that a reliable piece of information is generated in the business literature. Furthermore, the validity of study should be reflected in the business organisations which are not included in this study. It can act as a criterion to determine how generalised this research study is.
Chapter 4
Case Description and Findings
Each Industry has its own cultural bounds and is then involved in activities, which make it perform and grow the name of the industry. For example, if there is a software house, the environment and job specifications are different as discussed in the cases too. The rules which the whole firm has to bare are fluctuating and so is the attitude and results required by each leader. In this part of the report, the examples with organizational cultures and their impacts on the overall leaderships and then their performances have been discussed. The best example is taken of the IBM and then other big industries are discussed as:
The Case of IBM
History of IBM
The famous multi-national company IBM has focused on the importance of culture in every step of its progress. Ever since it has developed i.e. since 1911 (Ceruzzi, 2003), it has focused on technology which is the product but also on what matters the most to get productive outputs-culture has been made and given a status by this organization. IBM has not only fixed the cultural issues of its own organization but has also given cure for all other organizations to make their companies successful too. Maybe this is the reason that it is successfully running in different countries with same status.
The work of IBM on culture:
The importance of culture in IBM's working experience can be seen being implemented at different levels. First example is of IBM's President Mr Thomas Watson Jr. had established and studied the importance of convenience by introducing the professor RAMAC example in which by installing a 305 in U.S. pavilion, the importance of language variances was highlighted (Ceruzzi, 2003). This shows that not only in internal affairs but also externally, how much IBM cares about the communication gap and also defines the values it sets in its products.
There is a harmony maintained in the culture of IBM by setting some rules and trends for the employees which consequently makes it easier for the leaders, to implement their strategies. IBM has been using these techniques since 2002, and defines them to be beneficial for its success, and these techniques are as (Reger, 2006):
A new Terminology has been introduced, so that there is no communication gap and understanding work becomes simple and easy.
To understand cultural norms more effectively, new lenses have been introduced.
Expectations are more clearly clarified with the global employee's web which has widespread and now is easily handled by IBM.
If subtle misalignments are not addressed, the leaders can visualize them and provide the issues with their solutions.
Intangible studies of cultural effects are studied by IBM, so that they are kept in control.
This shows how, IBM has regulated the flow of culture, so that a harmony is maintained and the leadership styles do not have to fluctuate apparently, and consistent results are shown.
Tangible Culture
This is a concept introduced by IBM for business leader. It was developed when acquisition of $3.5 billion Price Waterhouse Coopers Consulting was being integrated (Reger, 2006). The rules of the game and skills which can be adopted are discussed in this term and these are inspired learning of IBM (Schein, 2004). A whole book has been published which is named as "Can Two Rights make a Wrong?" (2006) - by IBM to help the competitors and other organizations.
The visions of the CEO's about organizational culture
The importance of an effective culture in IBM can be viewed by reading the statements of the leaders of IBM, their CEO's. The culture of an organization makes it a loser or a winner as said by Sam Palmisano- the CEO of IBM (Reger, 2006). Then is the other story narrated by a Former CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner, who says that: before he joined IBM, for him culture was one of the important elements which gave success to any organization with strategies, marketing, visions, financials and so on, but when he entered IBM, this changed his perception and made it clear to him that it is not one of the aspects of the game played by an organization but culture is the actual game (Reger, 2006).According to him, the elements of culture are same everywhere but they do not result into same conclusions and mostly the important rules are ignored.
Procter and Gamble's Case
When this industry started in 1950's, it made a way to success by following the steps of organizational development (OD) (Schein, 2009). They made their own beliefs and rules for the successful running of the plant and then found a leader, who embodied all these beliefs, hired staff, and in the end, is what we all see, the growth story of Procter and Gamble (Schein, 2009). The Augusta plant was though a success but what this industry did is important, they studied the cultures of each areas and places where their plants were being installed, and then trained the leaders to meet those requirements (Schein, 2009). Yes, it is a role model story of Procter and Gamble and this is the reason it has many followers now too.
Coca Cola's Case
It is a much known company, which is being discussed here in two parts. This is also a company which has a diversified environment but the point that lied here was the leader ship of Doug, who in 2001 (Eldred, 2008) made Coca-Cola a brand which started declining though he must have given importance to the company. This brand was beaten by the direct competitor it had as PepsiCo. Though the failure stage started making Coke so bounded in the fear of losing the stock market but now it has stood up well. Anyone may fear this nightmare, especially when Coke started, the expectation level that it developed was the highest. When the basis and the cultures are not strong, the empires have to fade away, and similar is the example of Coca-Cola, which faded with a single blow, and this can be compared with the Roman Empire, where the rules and regulations of the cultures were disturbed so badly, that with a single knife the whole Empire had to vanish, and as a return of the knife the emperor could also do nothing but see the match. In Coke's case, it was different and so the company opted for another emperor who brought new changes.
The new Plans
In the reign of the third leader of Coca-Cola, it entered as the best bottler company and was managed and expanded successfully (Eldred, 2008). Moreover, now Coca-Cola is a successful company which is leading a diversified culture but yes, the motto of the company is same for all countries it is working in. the working environment and rules have been revised to make it a growing brand once again. According to the director of the company Coca-Cola, Stevens, the competencies of this famous company has been revised and rules have been formulated for the leadership plans too (Bhattacharya, 2012). They are developing a new leaf for the organizational development and new training plans are being made consequently.
The need of Change
Organizational changes have been made and different orientations have had been made in this company, because according to Coke the customers change and the environment too (Bhattacharya, 2012). This shows that not only the internal culture of the organization effects the whole scenario but also the external culture. In this way, this soft drink company is going to shake its leadership attributes from January 2013 (Bhattacharya, 2012).
TDIndustries Case
Background of TDIndustries
TDIndustries started in 1946 and later on with $200 million revenue, it is one of the leading contractors of plumbing and air conditioners in United States of America in 2000 (Haasen & Shea, 2003). The Fortune magazine has ranked this industry as the Great Places to Work, i.e. as the best employers of the States since 1999 and also people find ways to work here (Haasen & Shea, 2003). The leaders of this industry have served the beliefs of this industry remarkably well and even a new concept has been involved which is discussed in the other lines.
Servant Leadership Culture
This culture is said to be the working belief of this industry. The story behind such culture starts with the owner and founder of the industry, named as Jack Lowe Sr., who died after founding this industry and the industry was shared by the later CEO, Jack Lowe Jr. with the workers of the company (Haasen & Shea, 2003). This is the reason that this partnership culture is named as "Servant Leadership Culture" as every employee had a share in this successful industry.
Concluding with benefits of this culture
ESOP was another plan introduced by this industry and at every level; a special importance was given to the partnerships of the employees. The growth of this industry also boosted in this partnership way, which lead it to expand in another states too like Colorado, Georgia, Arizona and Carolinas and this shows reasons that why, TDIndustries is one of the best industries, where people aim to work (Haasen & Shea, 2003).
Icelandic Shing Ships Case
Another example of a leadership, but this time a failure, can be studied by the ignorant behavior of the captains of the Shing Ships in Iceland (Thorlindsson, 1987 ). The failure was because there was no working culture of the whole fishing industry, everyone had his own way and methods to do work, and as it had no synchronized cultural norms, and in the three- year period (Thorlindsson, 1987 ), the independent leaderships skills of the captains made the whole industry to collapse. This is not a famous example but if we study the whole case, the importance of a culture can be easily deduced out of this case.
HP Case
History of Hewlet-Packard
It was found in 1939, with the partnership of two electrical engineers who studied in Stanford university (Kotter & Haskett, 1992). The name of those two engineers has been enclosed in the name of the industry Hewlet and Packard, who first worked in a garage in California. This shows their determination and hard work and the practices implied on the vision of these two founders, or the leaders of the new technology is astonish ably admirable. They first built their office in 1942, with only 60 employees, and now we see that most of the people aim for a job in this firm. This shows how sophisticatedly they have had handled their growth, both internally and externally.
Work on culture and impact on leaders of HP
It had the famous "HP way" which states that, the firm shares its success with its employees to make them feel more valued and to set a family instead of a stressed-out environment, and they also offered them to increase their skills, and upgrade them (Kotter & Haskett, 1992). This shows that they had a working environment, which supported each and every employee individually. The HP way, was once the mentor of Silicon Valley, but now, the mingling of top executives with the employees, to explore new ideas had made HP to face a clash (Jana, 2007). Their culture was set to work for inventing new technologies but now they have changed their mission and vision and have set a new environment of making decisions by leading the researches to what customer wants. And so, this study shows that how the culture of a firm, can change the goals and aims of the leaders and they have to change their styles with the new setting cultures.
DEC's Case
Another case which was once a success but, later on it was seen that it could not withstand the harsh blow of change. DEC was made the second largest computer producing company in the mid of 1980's all because of the efforts of their great leader Olsen, who studied through the employees and the working environment and achieved success (Schein, 2009). The culture he focused on made all the employees determined, committed and duty bound for the industry they were serving to (Schein, 2009). But with more competitors entering in the market, made it's culture to take it to the path of failure later on when Compaq and HP, made their successful roads. This shows, change has to be accepted an implemented.
Black and Decker Case
This is also an interesting case in which, the company has returned from being beaten to failure by its competitor Bosch (Huey, 1989). There is a new Power added by the new CEO, Nolan Archibald who has focused more on people and their working environment (Huey, 1989). He changed the whole culture, to get results and return to what he wanted- the best position in the stock exchange (O'Reilly, 2001). The focus of his work changed the whole outlook of the organization. Yes, he adapted Authoritative style, to make a difference into the brand and Black and Decker so, competed the international competitors.
The Case of Steelcase
This is a company, which designs and gives a look to the offices, in accordance to the looks that the owners have desired of from them. Like any other company, Steelcase also gives attention to this facet of an organization, which makes it the DNA of any organization, which is the organizational culture (Bradt, 2012). The shift of I space to we space (Bradt, 2012) is the new facet of this company to make the employees more focused and give them a new platform to empower the industry. It focuses on enhancing the workspaces in such a way that the whole purpose of the existence of the company is defined and the people working the company feel valued (Bradt, 2012). It has settled the offices of many known business names like Google and Microsoft, as it is appreciable by this company that, the working environment has an important role in the performance list of an organization (Bradt, 2012). This shows, that even the ambiance and the furniture are the part of the culture of any organization and impacts the workers and so the leaders too.
American Firm Boeing Case
This is another a failure case, the Boeing was a failure at some time because of various reasons in hand, out of which the organizational culture was also the one. The CEO- W James Mcrenny Jr.- of Boeing himself states that, the culture has morphed drastically in dysfunctional manner and a change has to be brought in the culture of this known company, so that these elements bring new aims and results (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). According to him, the culture has to be implemented in such a Defensive mode that each employee has to fight for the right of the company to achieve what has to be achieved (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). This is an example that how a leader, changes the culture to promote his lead.
Atari's Case
When Atari brought the new CEO, what he observed that the firm had a loosely compiled bunch of engineers and programmers who were totally disorganized and even you cannot think of awarding anyone with anything (Schein, 2009). He made a new theme to work in that was, the employee of the year, and this not only demoralized the employees but also made them to leave the organization. Well, this is how the rules can change the whole scenario. Atari is the best game producing company and yes, this informal interaction was and is important for the workers because in this way, more fruitful outcomes are seen (Schein, 2009). This is how a leader can change rules, and culture of the organization and can even collapse the culture so it has to kept in mind that the performances are studied well.
Food-Lion Case
Another successfully running company is the Food-lion company, which has an aligned culture, and has gained name in the society by their consistent work. This performance of the Food-
