The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) offers a research report (INTERDEPENDENT LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONS: EVIDENCE FROM SIX CASE STUDIES) containing six case studies about dialogue and innovation in organizational culture. The case studies are interesting themselves and the report has useful information for those who want to learn more about doing research on their own organization. Download it here.
The theoretical foundation for the study is a typology of OC's (Organizational Culture) in which cultures are seen as falling along a developmental continuum of leadership. Developmental stages create three major exemplars of OC:
- Dependent Leadership
- Independent Leadership
- Interdependent Leadership
Prior studies showed that this analysis of OC can be applied to many different types of organizations ranging from corporations to collectives. The current study has useful information for anyone who is interested how OC culture is being considered in a new century where cognitive science continually forces us to reconsider how we think about everyday life.
Before going further, you might want to read the descriptions of each type of OC and ask yourself which best fits your own OC. See Descriptions Here
Highlights of the study:
- Authors use constructive-developmental theory as main theoretical lens. Constructive-developmental theory refers to a stream of work in psychology that focuses on the development
- of meaning and meaning-making processes across the life span. (Pp. 1-2)
- This is important! In this study, organizations are assumed to develop from predominantly dependent to predominantly independent to predominantly interdependent leadership cultures and practices. Each later culture transcends and includes the prior culture and is more complex than the previous one. Greater complexity of internal organizational culture is assumed to be necessary to adapt to more complex market and environmental challenges.
- The study focused primarily on discovering and describing interdependent leadership cultures and practices. (p. 4). In a nutshell, the authors' theory predicts that interdependent leadership patterns will have beneficial effects on organizations that cannot be obtained by less mature styles of leadership. The study seeks to validate that prediction.
- A number of different methods were used to gather qualitative and quantitative data.
- Case study information is summarized in pages 15-42. These are well worth reading for examples of how interdependent leadership practices affect many aspects of organizational life from promotional or firing decisions to social responsibility initiatives to innovation practices to planning processes.
- A recurring theme is the commitment of top leadership to the importance of culture management and the development of skills in culture management.
- There is no change without changes! I wish the authors had underscored this point more dramatically. The most common scenario in organizations that consider changing their culture is that everyone wants changes that will help the organization prosper as long as, after the changes, all the main players are still in their same assigned places and no one has had to learn to do things differently.
- The report has a goodies-bag! The appendices (pages 53-81) contain interview protocols, survey questions and other tools that you can search for ideas for your own study of your own organizational culture. Great stuff!
Final Impression:
Much of the study's results confirm rules of thumb that have been known for decades:
- Involvement of top level management is crucial for organizational change.
- Change is resisted in multitudes of ways. Even the change agents themselves often turn out to be resistant to changes they would have to undergo.
- OC's are complex entities with conflicting elements. Thus it is rare to find a culture in which all elements conform to one kind of leadership or procedural style.
- Changing a culture involves a lot of work with changing cognitions. It requires high levels of conceptual and interpersonal skill, self management and persistence.
Left unaddressed by this study, as by so many others, is the pressing social issue of whether stakeholders besides top-level management can create cultural change.