Organizational Culture and Leadership - Book Report/Review Example

Focusing on recent business realities, Schein draws on a wide range of present-day research to redefine culture, offers new information on the topic of work-related cultures, and demonstrates the vital role leaders play in productively applying the principles of culture to achieve organizational goals. He also tackles the complex question of how an existing culture can be changed. Edgar H. Schein organizes his book into six parts. Part One- In this part, after elaborating the importance of cultural understanding especially to leaders, if they are to lead, he gives the concept of culture and its relationship with leadership.

Part Two- In this part mainly the concept of culture is discussed and with little elaboration of the concept of leadership. Schein argues that the organizational cultures reflects the ultimate problems that every organization faces, dealing with its external environment and managing its internal integration, however, according to him cultural assumptions reflect deeper issues about the nature of time, space, truth, human nature and relationships. Part Three- In this part the practical issues of how culture assumptions can be interpreted are discussed.

The stress in this part is practical and oriented toward what leaders can actually do about interpreting culture. Part Four- In this part leadership, especially its role in creating culture in a group is discussed. He argues that leaders generate culture and they must manage and change it. Part Five- The focus in this part is again on the leader and how culture change appears from the leaders viewpoint. Part Six- The focus in this part shifts from cultural analysis to normative speculation.

He deals with how leadership and culture is affected by the growing rate of change. The concept of learning is discussed in this part.