Culture and Leadership in Entrepreneurship - Essay Example

CULTURE Corporate culture involves the sum total of the values and general beliefs that people have towards an organization. These people include those within and outside the organization. Corporate culture can also be referred to as organizational culture. Hewlett- Packard (HP) is an example of a company that has had a long term corporate culture. Its culture is based on respect, sense of belonging, and hard work according to Auxilium West (2008), this culture has been maintained through thorough training of its managers and employees. Corporate culture influences the way the main stakeholders in the organization interact with each other. Top management is the one that usually determines the corporate culture. Corporate culture involves the main aims of an organization, the strategies that will be employed in meeting those aims and the way the stakeholders should behave while striving to achieve those aims. It takes the effort of the top management to maintain its culture, this is by interacting a lot and communicating effectively, especially to employees of what is expected of them, according to Auxillium West (2008). The culture can be either weak or strong. Weak is where the employees fail to identify with the values of the organization hence need to be pushed to carry out tasks from the organization’s point of view. While the converse is true for strong cultures as people tend to think as a group on the direction to be taken during decision making. Various methods have been employed in grouping cultural change. Some of them include Geert Hofstede who argues that organizational culture is influenced by national and regional cultural groupings such as the different levels of power in the organization (power-distance orientation) , risk degree (uncertainty avoidance), individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity and time horizon (Long term vs. short term). Charles Handy groups include the power culture where power is centered in the hands of a few, role culture, task culture centered around the job to be done, person culture where the individual is deemed to be superior to the organization. Edgar Schein, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor argues that culture is the most difficult thing to change in an organization, more than the products, services, leadership, and other characteristics of an organization. In Schein’s model, the physical attributes of the organization that are tangible such as the buildings, awards, employee dressing etc belong to the first level. The culture of the stakeholders of the organization such as slogans, creeds, and mission and vision statements follows. The highest levels are the organizations conversion of assumptions. These are the rules that are not explicitly outlined by which the organization consciously or unconsciously operates on. Cultural change in an organization requires time and patience as employees require ample time to adjust to the change. Cummings & Worley give six outlines of the steps to be taken when implementing cultural change. First, come up with a clear strategic vision. Second, the senior management should show its commitment to implementing the vision. Third, the first notable change should occur at the top management level; fourth, the organization should be restructured to be able to accommodate the change. Then, keep going with those who are adaptive to the change, terminate the ones who are not compliant. Finally, be sensitive to the ethic and legal challenges that might arise. According to Corporate Culture ( 2008) inspiring leaders are needed to implement cultural change, not just strategies. Good leaders need to motivate the people to share the vision of the company and to feel as owners and to inspire and energize them to unlock their potential and accept positive change. Corporate culture serves many functions in an organization. It helps in creating customer satisfaction, as it is focused in meeting the customers’ needs. It helps in faster decision making as the general guidelines of cooperation are obvious, creates co-operation between employees as they have the same values and way of thinking, employees’ commitment as they feel as part of the group and can be able to identify with each other, according to Beakware (2008). Corporate culture is now being seeing as an asset as it marks the difference between success and failure. LEADERSHIP There are four theories of leadership that have lasted for long according to Classical Leadership (2007): The contingency, behavioral, trait and transformational theories all of which are not mutually exclusive. In trait theory, it is assumed that leaders have natural traits that distinguish them from followers. John Gardner studied the lives of great North American Organizations and leaders and concluded that most of them possessed certain similar traits: competence, people skills, intelligence, understanding, and trustworthy, intelligent, decisive, assertive among others. In behavioral theory the shift changed from individuals to the focus of the leadership such as concern for task, people, directive leadership where the leader gives directives on what needs to be done in decision making. The contingency theory argues that leadership is as a result of many factors. For instance Fred Fielder argued that leadership depended on various factors such as the power of the leader, the relationship between the leaders and followers, the task among other factors. Hersey and Blanchard came up with four leadership styles that can be applied to deal with different situations. Telling (high task/ low relationship) where the assumption is that the subordinate staff has to be pushed to get the work done. Therefore, the leader gives a great deal of directives to the subordinates. Goals and roles are emphasized and can be used to deal with new employees. Selling (high task/ high relationship) where the people are self- driven but lack the know how of carrying the task. The leader ‘trains’ the people and encourages them to own the task. Participative (high relationship/low task) equal decision making opportunity between the leader and followers with the leader mainly overseeing and providing direction when needed. Used when the subordinates are not fully conversant with tasks. Delegating (low talk/ low behavior) the main duty of carrying out tasks lies with the subordinates. The leaders distribute the tasks. Used with highly competent staff. In contingency/situational theory, the leader does not rely on a given set of instructions when making decisions. Rather this is dependent on the forces of the leader, follower and the situation. According to Changing minds (2007) argue that Yetton and Vroom’s Normative Model was based on the decision making of the leader and the level of acceptance ot it by the followers. They described five decision making processes. The first one is where the leader makes all the decisions alone. Second, leader gets information from the subordinates but decides alone. Third, the leader shares the problem to individual subordinates listens to their ideas but makes the final decision alone. Fourth, leader shares the problem with subordinates as a group, listens to their feedback and ideas but decides alone. Fifth, the leader shares the problem with the group and they come to a unanimous decision. Yetton and Vroom took general situational behaviors and came up with a set of behaviors on how leaders should behave. In transactional leadership, the leaders outline what is expected from the subordinates and what they will get in return if they achieve the desired objectives. The assumption being that man is rational, who is mainly influenced by rewards such as money. In transformational leadership, the leader sells the ideas and the vision of the organization to the subordinates and motivates them to achieve their potential. It is important for the leader to cultivate trust and integrity between him and the followers to be quite effective. Transformational leader seeks to transform the followers even as he seeks to achieve the goals of the organization. Transformational leaders are usually charismatic and have to be prominent for followers to identify with them. In 1943 Abraham Maslow came up with basic human needs and the hierarchical manner in which they should be satisfied. These being psychological, safety, belonging, esteem and self actualization needs (Changing Minds 2007). It is important for the leader to help the subordinates identify their needs as at where they are and help them move higher up the hierarchy. Most organizations are faced with the challenge of managing people according to ACCEL team (2008). In order to develop a good human resource strategy, some issues must be taken into consideration such as the structure of the organization, the culture, the people and skill level and the systems of human resource. For a good human resource strategy, get the overall picture through looking at the fundamentals and driving force of the business, then come up with a mission statement. Conduct research to determine the weaknesses and strengths of the business, internally and externally. Conduct an analysis of the human resource that is available in comparison to what is needed. Come up with key issues that affect people in the organization and consider ways of solving them. Then break this down into a HR system: Read More