The Leader-Culture Connection Part 1

Organizational scholar Edgar Schein has argued that corporate cultures are created in the image of their leader. That is, the culture reflects the values, attitudes, and behaviors of the leader. The culture then creates leaders in that image.


This creates a strong mutually reinforcing dynamic that is hard to break. When a culture needs to change, either the leader needs to change or the organization needs to change leaders. But changing a culture doesn’t happen over-night. In fact, changing an organization’s culture is what Robert Quinn calls a deep change. And deep changes usually take 18-36 months.

Understanding the link between a leader and the culture of the organization provides an excellent tool for assessing organizations. Even if I have never met the leader or observed him or her directly, I can tell a lot about them by observing the organization’s culture. And I can get a pretty good idea of the type if culture exists in an organization by talking to the leader.

In the next several posts, I will be discussing 5 distinct culture types. See if you can identify your own organization in any of these descriptions.

Sources:

Schein, E. (2010) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Quinn, R. (1996) Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Chand, S. (2011) Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code: Seven Keys to Unleashing Vision and Inspiration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.