HOW CAN LEADERS DETECT DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?

Productive cultural change will occur if leaders correctly analyze the organization's existing culture, and evaluate it against the cultural attributes needed to achieve strategic objectives. Consequently, leaders must first possess a clear understanding of the strategic objectives for their organization and identify the actions needed to reach those objectives. These two tasks by themselves are difficult, particularly for the federal agencies that are experiencing volatile rates of change and reorientation. Nevertheless, without these specifications, any cultural transformation is a blind exercise. Next conduct an analysis of the organizations existing ideologies, values and norms. Two critical questions that leaders should ask are: (1) Are existing explanations of cause and effect relationships, and acceptable beliefs and behaviors applicable to the organization's achievement of strategic objectives? (2) Are organizational members facing ambiguities about the external environment ...  more