Leadership Role in Shaping Organizational Culture

Introduction
The role of leadership in shaping organizational culture is vital as Dr. Marsh shows in his own case study in which he examines ways to increase employee engagement and create a process for effective performance management for virtual workers. While effective leadership can provide some solutions to the challenges of shaping organizational culture (Chang & Lee, 2007), even Marsh admits that it is rare to solve every problem. Understanding what works and what does not is, in many ways, a lifelong process. But that is why the case study is so helpful: it allows for reflection. This paper will reflect on Dr. Marsh’s challenges and discuss the leadership style I would adopt to influence the organization’s culture. It will also identify an organizational change model that I would use, and how I would infuse positive social change into my leadership style and organizational culture.
Dr. Marsh’s Challenges
The big challenge that Dr. Marsh faced was the fact that he was managing a virtual team: these were workers who were essentially spread out all over the world. They were not part of a physical environment and therefore were less engaged in a literal sense with the organization. This made it difficult to promote employee engagement in a fundamental way and to measure performance in a practical way. Dr. Marsh had to develop methods for increasing employee engagement in a virtual team and for measuring worker performance to identify problems before they had a negative impact on the organization’s objectives.
Dr. Marsh ultimately solved these problems in a number of different ways. First, to promote employee engagement he developed a website where his virtual team could go to hangout online, chat with one another, receive direct communications from team leaders and receive support. This site helped workers to be more integrated, connected and engaged with their work. Second, he trained team leaders who could facilitate the development of individuals, assist them in their own challenges, and promote the vision of the organization. Third, he organized the structure so that he could see, according to metrics devised to measure performance, when operations were meeting objectives, when problems might lie ahead, and when an investigation needed to be launched. Marsh learned that by investigating issues early on he could more readily address problems before they became major obstacles and prevent issues from snowballing.
One challenge that Dr. Marsh was not successful in overcoming was the challenge of communicating the vision to the virtual team. Marsh recognized that the reason he failed here was that he did not return to the vision once it was communicated. This caused the vision to be lost among many workers. Because it was not something that was constantly kept in front of the virtual team in communications, the sense of the vision for the organization was not a mainstay among the team.
The Leadership Style I Would Adopt to Influence the Organization’s Culture
Transformational leadership is the style of leadership that I would adopt to influence the organization’s culture. Numerous studies have shown that transformational leadership can be an effective way to lead organizational change, positively impact a workplace culture and even assist in the management of virtual workplaces (Alos-Simo et al., 2017; Atkin-Plunk & Armstrong, 2013; Bradley & Charbonneau, 2004). Warrick (2011) notes that “that transformational leaders are leaders who are skilled at leading, championing change, and transforming organizations” (p. 14). They do this by communicating a vision to workers, providing support where it is needed, inspiring and motivating workers via incentives—both intrinsically and extrinsically (Gerhart & Fang, 2015), and by educating the workers on the need to achieve the organization’s objectives. The transformational leader shows respect and deference to the worker and like a servant leader puts the needs of the individual before his own. The transformational leader knows that for the organization to achieve its goals, it has to have workers who embrace the vision that it has for itself.
The leader must be able to communicate this vision, describe it, show why it is good, educate workers as to how it can be achieved, provide support for them when they struggle, and motivate them in every way possible or in whatever way they need. This is essentially what Marsh does on a macro level by providing support through the website and via team leaders, communicating the vision, and intervening and investigating to make sure no one is falling behind whenever the metrics signal that a particular team member is going to run into trouble. Transformational leadership
Organizational Change Model
The organizational change model I would use would be Kotter’s 8-step model. This model gives an effective strategy for acknowledging, addressing and managing behaviors, overcoming resistance to change, and helping to align workers with the overall aim of the organization (Hornstein, 2015). The 8 steps of the Kotter model are:
1) Create a sense of urgency
2) Create a guiding coalition
3) Create a vision for change
4) Communicate the vision
5) Remove obstacles
6) Create short-term wins
7) Consolidate improvements
8) Anchor the changes
How I Would Infuse Positive Social Change into My Leadership Style and Organizational Culture
Infusing positive social change into my leadership style comes by instilling trust among stakeholders: by creating a process by which performance can be effectively measured and by which employees can be effectively engaged, social change becomes a reality. The organization is there, after all, to effect social change—that is the reason it exists. If its purpose was to maintain the status quo, it would not have needed to be developed in the first place. Every organization makes the claim that it offers something new to the world, something the world needs, something it does not already have, and something that will improve the lives of those who partake of the service that the organization offers or the product that the organization sells. By facilitating that process through the steps promoted by Marsh in his own case study—i.e., by promoting employee engagement and by developing an effective performance management tool—the transformational leader helps to bring about the type of positive social change that the organization is devoted to producing.
Practically speaking, this change could come about by promoting the concept of respect in the workplace. For the organizational culture to succeed, it has to be supportive of the ideals and virtues that are important to the communities of the world. The globalized planet and economy of today is supported by ideals and virtues that drive the various nations and corporations of the world to give consumers that which they desire. Corporate social responsibility indicates the need for organizations to respect the ideals and desires of the community it serves and to promote these ideals in its own workplace. Therefore, respect is essential and has to be promoted.
Respect for others, for their ideas, for their needs, and for their desires is an essential component of a successful organization in today’s globalized environment. With so many different people of various backgrounds coming together to achieve a common aim, respect is the most fundamental quality that a leader can instill in the workplace. Respect shows that everyone is entitled to an opinion, a belief, a feeling, an idea—and that as a collective an organization must embrace a universal respect for all people because this is the way in which real, positive social change is created.
Steps I Would Take to Ensure Success
8-Step Process
The 8-step process begins with the need to create a sense of urgency among the workers. It is important for the leader to communicate to the workers on the team the need for change. Unless they feel it and see why it is essential to their success that they make the changes stipulated by the leader, the workers are likely to resist change (Hornstein, 2015). Once the urgency is established, the leader needs fellow leaders who can help guide the way: this is the coalition. In Marsh’s example, the coalition consists of team leaders who help the virtual leaders achieve strategic objectives. After the need has been established and the coalition of leaders is in place, a vision has to be presented: this is the concept that all team members should embrace and strive to achieve. In order for them to embrace it, however, it has to be communicated effectively, consistently and repeatedly to them, as Marsh himself admits. Removing obstacles is the next step. This requires identifying challenges or places of resistance and addressing them accordingly. Celebrating victories is important in building morale, and consolidating improvements like solidifying a fort that is captured is another important step. It is important not to let workers backtrack and take up old habits once new ones have been introduced. This is what it means to anchor the changes, to make them part of the new way of operating. Anchoring the changes by institutionalizing them and training all new workers according to the new method would be the final step.
How These Steps Would Influence Each of the Challenges I Face
The biggest challenge to implementing change in the organization is resistance. Kotter’s 8-step model would help to influence each of the challenges I face, particularly resistance, by giving a guide for including workers in the process of change management. Listening to their input and obtaining feedback from them lets them know that they have a voice and that their opinions, experiences, and needs are important to the organization. When workers feel valued, they are more likely to commit to their company (Gerhart & Fang, 2015).
Mitigation Plan to Eliminate Challenges
Having a method for allowing feedback from workers would be the first step in the mitigation plan to eliminate the challenge of resistance to change. Feedback options give workers the ability to express themselves, communicate directly with superiors and mention any issues that they are having with the new ideas being implemented. It also gives superiors the chance to see where they might be erring with respect to the implementation of change. Just because an idea looks good on paper does not mean it will actually work in real life, and creating a positive organizational culture cannot be achieved without obtaining input from the workers who are invested in and impacted by that culture.
Key Concepts I Would Include in My Vision Statement
Concepts that I would include in my vision statement would be the goals of the organization, the reason for the organization’s being in the first place, and the need for commitment to the vision by employees. These key concepts would provide the identification of objectives, the rationale for achieving the objectives, and the importance of having staff devoted to accomplishing the tasks that will enable the objectives to be accomplished.
Conclusion
Changing an organizational culture requires a great deal of attention to detail, as Marsh’s case study shows. It also includes a leadership style that can support workers as they transition from the old way of operating to the new way. The style of leadership that I would use would be transformational leadership, as this method requires communication skills to promote the vision, provide support, and motivate workers to accomplish the tasks expected of them. To help the organization overcome challenges associated with developing a new and improved organizational culture, the Kotter 8-step model could be employed. This model is helpful as it provides a clearly defined process of implementing change, which includes bringing workers aboard in the decision making process, which makes them feel that they have a voice.
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