Such a virtue can be crucial to establishing an internal culture of collective goal-orientation. It is also central to ensuring that a manager is making use of all the resources which he has at his
disposal. Something which separates a manager from a leader is that the
latter finds ways not just to utilize employees but to encourage them to
develop and make use of their unique skills as they relate to the mission
of the organization. Of course, in my very small organization, those who
play key internal roles are usually not everyday members of the
organization, but physicians, therapists, pharmacists, family members and
friends who play a role in my client's lifestyle. Therefore, many of the
challenges to internal leadership are compounded by the demand to interact
with those whose roles and presence are significantly diverse.
This type of organizing around roles is part and parcel of the
creation of an organization which is sound in both its infrastructure and
personnel. Such a status can be attributed to healthy organizational
culture. This is something which is formulated through an ongoing effort
to sustain and even renew the drive toward staying on mission course. In
my experience, it is incumbent upon the leadership of even the smallest
organization to employ strategies of goal-orientation that are closely
aligned with its needs and capabilities. Multi-directional communication
is a method which can yield such results if accommodated to function within
the structural framework of the organization.
In my personal experience as the manager of a household and the
primary healthcare assistant to the elderly and infirm man who owns this
house, a two-way path of communication has been the most reliable route to
maintaining operational flow. As the manager, I take it upon myself to
both defer to the counsel of either my client or his adult children who,
also serve as functional members of the organization, and to offer my
insight to responsibilities which they must attend to individually. By
integrating what I learn through open dialogue with other members of the
organization, I am always developing a more intimate understanding of the
various intricacies that set my organization apart from others. This helps
me to make decisions, issue directives and dispatch members of the
organization to responsibilities which are most suited to their particular
skills and knowledge.
As this relates to interaction outside the parameters of the
organization, my capacity to represent my client's needs in medical
contexts, with respect to living demands and in terms even of social
interaction is centered on the externality of my management interests.
Often, I find that in my external organizational demands, I must make use
of all the human resources at my disposal.
This characterizes another important element of maintaining a healthy
organizational culture through the functional delegation of charges. A
good leader will know when to apply his skills to a responsibility and when
to transfer the responsibility to others. Certainly, this is also
something that one learns by experience. Returning to the discussion of
Kolb, which is divided according to strategic individual responsibilities
within an organizational structure, we learn that some individuals are
inherently driven toward concrete action. As one such individual, I have
often been challenged to find ways to utilize the skills of those around
me. Delegation is a crucial route to bringing to the surface the
leadership skills of non-managerial personnel. By authorizing others
within an organization to chair certain responsibilities or initiatives, a
manager can more effectively divest his attention. And by orienting others
toward roles of leadership, one can facilitate the development of natural
group dynamics. Members of the organization will tend to gravitate toward
effective non-managerial leaders and may experience a greater intimacy with
the collective goals.
One thing which a good leader can do make sure that such a culture is
achieved is to continually implement processes of internal review. It is
important to audit an organization in order to keep it on the path toward
the various aspects of its vision. In our organization, the vision is
centered around the health and well-being of my client. Our mission is
therefore composed to most optimally address all the tasks and charges
which must be daily executed to assure success. As the leader of the
organization, I am always attempting to find ways to keep the mission fresh
and the attendance to its clauses consistent. I have found it very helpful
to initiate a review of my scheduled demands at the end of each calendar
week. By taking stock of the ways in which various necessities have been
met over the course of each week, I can adequately evaluate our overall
competence in striving for our goals....

It is also a useful way to assess whether or not current operational structures are properly designed to do
this.
Another suggestion for which I have found meaningful grounds both
through course-work and personal experience is the institution of shared
organizational values. It is the province of leadership to ensure that
there is a generally high inter-organizational morale and such can be
established through a reasonable adherence to a refined set of ethics. The
employment of an ethical system is not simply a supplemental luxury of
effective management. Rather, it is a much needed element of the
organization's cultural fabric. As such, it is imperative that it be
crafted not with a blind appeal to a generic set of absolute values but
with a lucid applicability to the needs and human makeup of an
organization.
In my organization, for example, the concept of ethicality is almost
synonymous with the task of attending to my client's health. The unique
circumstances which define his condition also define our conception of
value prioritization, with the allocation of healthcare services, the
personal accompaniment to medical establishments and the contingency means
to accomplish these tasks on a spontaneous basis when called for all taking
primacy not just as responsibilities but as part of a moral canon. Our
organization's culture relies very heavily upon our reflection of this
ethical structure. This structure is maintained by several internal
approaches to control.
As far as one of the more pressing external aspects of orientation is
concerned,
one of the most significant in modern America is that concerning
globalization. The organization over which I implement managerial duties
is not one whose needs demand global expansion. But recognizing this is
also an important element of managerial savvy. While I could orient my
planning toward establishing broader support networks for my household, my
intimate understanding of the nature of my organization and the goals which
define its plans leads me to conclude that expansion on this scale would be
counter-productive to the internally defined needs of the organization.
Recognizing this is crucial for the key decision-maker of any organization.
Though my service as the top administrator involves a lot of decision
making and spontaneous problem solving, there are also a number of inbuilt
control mechanisms that help my organization reach its operational
potential. My organization is most directly regulated by Clan Control.
The medical concerns of my client dominate the direction of my initiatives,
activities and schedule demands. As a result, I have turned my attention
toward controlling the organization around this factor, allowing medicine
allotment schedules, regular physician visits, the daily condition of my
client and the abundance of additional household responsibilities to mold a
sensible time framework for the ways in which I move us toward our goals.
Though Clan Control is the dominant mechanism in our organization,
there are other mechanisms in place as well. Factors which are also
helpful to keeping the operational capacity of the organization in a state
of normal efficiency are bureaucratic control mechanisms such as the above
mentioned factors relating to internal review, inter-organizational
communication and an overall organizational makeup which limits personnel
variation, maintaining a fundamental stability. The process of internal
review is a useful tool for checking the completion of responsibilities
against modeled expectations of the organization and thus controlling
performance output by all members of an organization. In the scope of my
uniquely situated organization, this is accomplished through close and open
consultation between myself and my client, who in addition to being the
cause for the organization, is also its sole proprietor. This level of
communication brings me constant, ongoing and source consistent input on my
efficiency at meeting short and long-term goals. Such communication is
also necessary for the successful inter-organizational relationship between
myself, my client and his adult children, who also function as permanent
members of the organization. Their close relationship to the goals of the
organization also creates a natural control mechanism that ensures a
collective adherence to a common mission.
As a manager and a leader, I have been well-served in both delegating
tasks and attending to my own responsibilities by emphasizing the
centrality of these ethics in our approach and processes. Due to the
excellence of communication and the personal involvement which
organizational members have come to bear, it has not been too difficult to
effectively communicate this emphasis.
Works Cited:

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall.