Leadership Development

Leadership Development

In this section of the Tutorial I will define the concept of culture and show its relationship to leadership. Culture is both a dynamic phe- nomenon that surrounds us at all times, being constantly enacted and created by our interactions with others and shaped by leader- ship behavior, and a set of structures, routines, rules, and norms that guide and constrain behavior.

When one brings culture to the level of the organization and even down to groups within the organiza- tion, one can see clearly how culture is created, embedded, evolved, and ultimately manipulated, and, at the same time, how culture constrains, stabilizes, and provides structure and meaning to the group members. These dynamic processes of culture creation and management are the essence of leadership and make one realize that leadership and culture are two sides of the same coin.

Leadership has been studied in far greater detail than organiza- tional culture, leading to a frustrating diffusion of concepts and ideas of what leadership is really all about, whether one is born or made as a leader, whether one can train people to be leaders, and what characteristics successful leaders possess. I will not review this literature, focusing instead on what I consider to be uniquely associ- ated with leadership—the creation and management of culture.