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Abstract
While the necessary and sufficient conditions for defining a concept of organizational culture are still being examined, forward thinking organizational leaders embrace the importance of establishing cultural measures, creating normative databases, and developing roadmaps for creating culture change. Nevertheless, the drive for quantitative analysis often shifts focus away from a fundamental leadership skill needed to produce change such as leadership connectivity. This paper suggests a framework for understanding cultural "preparedness" for change, explores the essence of leadership connectivity, and provides five principles for improving leadership connectivity.
Keywords: organizational culture, organizational preparedness, leadership connectivity
Leadership Connectivity: A Leading Indicator for Organizational Culture Change
The subject of organizational culture has been a broad and ongoing topic of interest for researchers and business executives. As a result there has been an evolution in the way key leaders think and talk about organizational culture. A few decades ago it was common for leaders to perceive organizational culture as just the soft stuff that they had little, if any, possibility of understanding let alone systematically changing or measuring. Today, many senior leaders have accepted the idea that organizational culture plays a critical role in achieving high performing, effective organizations capable of consistently exceeding corporate objectives. They also understand the importance of adapting and changing their organizational cultures to compete with unpredictable competitive and regulatory environments, attract the best workers, and build workforce loyalty. Key leaders have taken the often quoted words of W. Edwards Deming to heart that "it is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." The ability to change has become a true bottom-line concern.
Indeed there are numerous articles and books that have identified many critical factors necessary to define organizational cultures and create change (Denison, Hooijberg, Lane, & Lief, 2012; Kotter & Heskett, 1992; Schein, 2010). This body of research and informal pursuit have paved the way for large-scale organizational culture change initiatives. In today's world it would be hard to imagine a mid- to large-sized organization that has not adopted some methodology which includes a cultural model, a diagnostic instrument with comparisons against a normative data base, or other tools (e.g., focus groups) for measuring organizational culture. More than likely, key leaders from these organizations have adopted some form of cultural methodology...