Organizational Consultation XXX: Leadership and the Appreciative Perspective

By contrast, it is quite understandable that leaders of a human service agency dwell in the domain of intentions and focus on chartering and development strategies. Volunteers who work with this agency want to know what social purposes are being served by the agency. Furthermore, the paid staff of the agency must be frequently engaged in their own professional development to keep up with the shifting needs of their clientele. There are many obvious reasons for concentrating in this agency on chartering and development. Most successful leaders will accommodate their own personal preferences to the immediate needs of their organization, whether their organization is manufacturing chips or advocating for homeless youth. They will ask an appreciative question: what is important in this organization? They will then adjust their own preferences to these realistic needs and concerns.

Organizational Culture

There is another overriding reason for the concentration of leaders on a specific domain or strategy. This overriding reason concerns organizational culture. It is a less rational reason and often harder to justify. However, it is just as compelling as tangible demands of the task being performed by the organization. Culture tells an organization what should be important, even if this imperative defies all reason and tangible evidence.

Just as each member of the organization has her own distinctive personality that is exhibited in predictable patterns of behavior in various settings and over time, so an organization has a distinctive culture that is exhibited in predictable patterns of organizational behavior. The culture of an organization, like personality, tends to be immune to time or space. It remains unchanged or it slowly changes. Despite shifts in the membership of an organization, the culture endures. Despite new product lines or services being rendered by the organization, the culture of an organization remains fundamental and immutable.

Despite shifts in leadership and leadership personalities, the culture of an organization is sustained. When leadership and organizational culture are in conflict, the culture is likely to win. Successful leaders will shift their personality or, more often, engage a latent aspect of their enduring personality, to accommodate the culture. Just as they accommodate to task demands and employee needs, successful leaders accommodate culture. Unsuccessful leaders don’t accommodate and become alienated from the organization in which they supposedly have great influence.

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