S Organizational Culture Synthesis Paper

While the articles 'Leading by leveraging culture' and the article 'Coming to a

new awareness of culture' dealt with understanding what organizational culture is

and how to influence the culture to transform a mediocre organization into a high

performing one, the article 'On managing oneself' was about transforming oneself

into a high performing individual. The common thread in those articles was about

performance. We know that organizations are made up of nothing but individuals,

so an organization can only be as strong as the individuals it is made up of. Thus

learning to understand and manage oneself better is the first step if one wants to

influence an organization's culture as a leader.

In today's organizations culture plays an important part in deciding the

productivity of the organization. As most organizations operate in the knowledge

economy, it is important for leaders to understand how to subtly influence the

culture. Also as leaders they are expected to know themselves and their

organization. Managing oneself is a key component that determines how well they

are able to allocate their time to tasks important to the organization. By managing

oneself better, leaders can set an example and show how they handle themselves

in the organization. This is highly important as many employees in an organization

simply tend to follow or imitate the behavior of their superiors. If leaders set the

right tone, they can influence to change the culture of an organization for the

better. On the contrary, if leaders cannot manage themselves well, it is unfair to

expect others to be positively influenced. As the article on leading by leveraging

culture mentions, leaders should 'walk the talk'. This can only happen if leaders

have a thorough understanding of the key concepts mentioned in Drucker's

managing oneself article.

Sometimes organizational culture is hard to comprehend, and the article 'Coming

to a new awareness of culture' provides a framework to decipher the foundation on

which the organization's culture is built. Leaders need to really understand what

makes the organization tick before they have any chance of influencing it. Once

they get a deep knowledge of the norms inside the organization that make it thrive,

they can use the 3 Cs of culture clear, consistent and comprehensive, to create an

organization that can bounce back from difficult times through espousing a

strategically relevant culture and emphasizing innovation.

The articles thus give leaders insight into leading organizations through culture.

First it is important to understand one's own strength and weaknesses as a leader.

Drucker's article goes into depth on how to start this process and why it is

important. By knowing their core values, leaders can effectively use their

relationships with employees to communicate the right organizational culture.

Leaders should also understand what culture is and why sometimes culture is by

assumptions even though sometimes nothing is said explicitly, organizations tend

to coalesce into a specific type of culture through anxiety avoidance or positive

learning through problem solving. The 'coming to a new awareness of culture'

article critically teaches leaders about the basis for culture formation in

organizations. This culture then percolates through all levels of the organization.

Through the ideas mentioned in the 'Leading by leveraging culture' article, leaders

can then weave ideal worker expectations into the company's culture and create a

highly successful and collaborative workplace.