Leaderships Role in Shaping Organizational Culture

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The importance of leadership style choice for the leader is profound. There is a perception of the role leadership plays, and this perception will stimulate employee responses (Jain & Jain, 2013). In turn, these responses will create patterns that the leader can evaluate and understand in order to manipulate the desired organizational culture (Jain & Jain, 2013, p. 48). The leaders choice of leadership style can motivate, engage, and bind the group organizational citizenship behaviors to shape the organizational culture.

A Leader’s Behavior

As leaders are facilitators of change in the organization, it is vital for these individuals to comprehend the importance of their behavioral choices. Leaders are people and possess their individual behaviors in which the style approach has categorized into two areas: task behaviors and relationship behaviors (Northouse, 2013). The basis of the style approach is to provide a framework for leaders to understand how their choice of behaviors factors into goal achievement (Northouse, 2013). For example, leaders displaying innovative behaviors encourage the workforce to reciprocate the behavior and take advantage of their own innovative behaviors (de Jong & Den Hartog, 2007). Simosi and Xenikou (2010) further synthesized the ideas of commitment and relationship as an expression of leader behavior (p. 1599). Furthermore, the acknowledgement of a link between leadership behavior and employee commitment enables the acceptance that both are integral to the achievement of an ideal or goal within an organization (Simosi & Xenikou, 2010). The exchange between the leader and the employee behaviors gives rise to the shared desires and shaping of the organizational culture (Simosi & Xenikou, 2010). For example, a transformational leader demonstrates innovative behavior thus creating an environment of innovation passively communicating innovative ideas is acceptable; the employee’s acceptance enables the innovative culture (de Jong & Den Hartog, 2007).

In addition to the core understanding that leader’s behavior choice influences organizational culture, the discussion would not be complete without the inclusion of ethics in selecting behaviors (Abrhiem, 2012). A truly skilled leader will have the ability to maintain behaviors and avoid extremes (Jain & Jain, 2013). Extremes in the organizational culture become unethical behaviors (Jain & Jain, 2013). It is important for leadership to avoid unethical influences in the role taken within the organization, otherwise organizational cultures such as Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Anderson take shape (Karaszewski, 2010). An example of a leader using unethical behavior is the situation where the leader uses the power of their position in a self-serving manner (Maner & Mead, 2010). A leader influencing organizational culture negatively for the purpose of self-preservation does so for his or her position or for the benefit of a particular individual or group (Maner & Mead, 2010). Ineffective leadership creates an unsuccessful organization by the narrow focus of power and eventually results in a lack of vision, motivation, and momentum of the employees (Ionescu, 2014). Ethics theories define several approaches regarding a leader’s behavior: a teleological approach governs the leader’s behavior in their conduct, a deontological approach addresses “the rules that govern their [leader’s] behavior,” and virtual theories convey the character of the behavior (Abrhiem, 2012). The importance communicated by the theories: people’s behavior as a combination of all of the approaches (Abrhiem, 2012). Therefore, the point in this discussion is a leader’s choice of behaviors, defined by his or her conduct, rules, and character, influences the choice of leadership style (Abrhiem, 2012), and underscores the role behavior takes in leadership shaping organizational culture.

With Leadership Comes Responsibility

The final aspect of leadership’s role in shaping organizational culture addresses the leader’s responsibilities within the organizational culture. Kane-Urrabazo (2006) delineated leader’s requirement for awareness of their role in the culture of the organization and as such their inherent responsibilities in their role (p.188). It is the leader’s ability to facilitate a positive culture and to do that there exist core responsibilities associated with trustworthiness and trust, empowerment, delegation, consistency, and mentorship (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006, pp. 190-192). Trustworthiness and trust mean integrity and competence as well as “the act of believing in someone” or something, respectively (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). The importance of this responsibility is trustworthiness and trust work in leader-employee exchanges (Herrera, Duncan, & Ree, 2013; Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). The continual exchange between leader-employee during day-to-day interactions nurtures positive individual and team performance earning trust by both parties (Herrera, Duncan, & Ree, 2013; Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). Connecting back to the topic of ethical behavior, the establishment of trust between leader and employee minimizes the possibilities of unethical behavior within the organization (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006).

With the establishment of trust comes empowerment (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). Empowering an individual means there is a belief the individual can accomplish a task or role with competence (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). Leaders instill a sense of reward and commitment through empowerment as it communicates the leader has recognized the skills and knowledge of the employee (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006; Simosi & Xenikou, 2010). The employee’s state of commitment then creates a relationship between the employee and the organization thereby enabling decisions for continued commitments (Simosi & Xenikou, 2010).

Building on empowerment is delegation, which leaders need to grasp is not solely about having individual complete a task or a role but instead, is about the request itself (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). As a leader delegating a task or role, they should be willing to perform the request themselves and should not use the request as a form of reward or punishment (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). Delegating provides the potential to either earn or lose respect depending on how responsible the leader is to delegation (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006).

Consistency is about the alignment of rewards and discipline within the organization (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). Without consistency in fair and equal distribution of work, rewards, and punishment, inflexibility and anxiety, take root (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). Consistency is also, about how well the leader becomes a role model to employees (Kane-Urrabazo, 2006). It is hypocritical