Cardinal Health organizational structure and operations

Leadership

Cardinal Leadership Questions

Leadership is critical to defining a company's success, both internally and in its specific marketplace. Without question, leadership is a key determination of the reputation a company carries forward in its interactions with customers, investors and its community. In particular, leadership sets the ethical tone and the internal culture of an organization. Therefore, leadership that is ethically oriented and driven by a commitment to a core set of positive values will tend to proliferate these attitudes throughout. This means that members of the organization are likely to feel positive about their roles and stake in the company.

From my experience, this translates into higher morale and a sense of commitment to the company's overarching goals. This sense follows employees into their interactions with customers. The contrary, unfortunately, may also be true. I can recall working for an organization whose internal leadership was both prone to dishonest dealings with customers and unfair treatment of employees. The result was a low company-wide morale and, consequently, shabby treatment of customers. The company developed a reputation among its core target demographics for late delivery times, shoddy products and general incompetence. This reputation amply demonstrated how the core traits of leadership ultimately became the core traits defining the public impression of the company itself.

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Often, a change in company culture will only come about after a major period of growth or in the wake of a significant crisis. In the case of the latter, an organization may be faced with massive scandal, leadership upheaval or economic instability. When this occurs, it is sometimes incumbent upon the organization to look within to determine the causes of its impasse. This internal reflection may reveal a problematic absence of ethical orientation, a core lack of accountability, a flawed set of procedures or a misapprehension of the company's best competitive advantages. Naturally, the scale and scope of the company will determine how much media attention a given crisis receives. For instance, a company such as retail-giant Walmart has faced constant speculation over its unethical labor practices and, as a result, has worked to improve the internal culture within which store employees are frequently mistreated.

In contexts where broad organizational growth, as opposed to crisis, has prompted the need for a reexamination of internal culture, time is usually needed to observe patterns requiring change. In other words, in the face of rapid company growth, consistency and procedure are often lost in the shuffle. A period of leveling out from growth is required, within which the company's culture may be refined and redefined. Here, the process is rarely impacted by external pressure but inclined by the emergence of problematic internal problems.