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Innovar

Print version ISSN 0121-5051

Innovar vol.30 no.77 Bogotá July/Sept. 2020  Epub Oct 20, 2020

https://doi.org/10.15446/innovar.v30n77.87455 

Reseña

Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View, by Edgar H. Schein. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1985.

Hatem H. Alsaqqa1 

1 Ph.D. Candidate of Health Services Management, Ankara University, Turkey halsaqqa@ankara.edu.tr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7440-1005


Leadership is one of the most reflected arguments in management books. This concept is always under training and development in various organizations around the world. The debate about achieving the desired leadership styles is also controversially adopted. Thus, the author of this work thought more broadly to put this concept on some rational basis. Schein, who obtained a Master's Degree in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology, and has worked as a Professor of organizational studies management, used his broad experience on the topic to write this book.

In his book, and as a dynamic view of the title, it was acceptable from the author to focus on the leadership reality and the role of organizations in creating their organizational culture, although it is arguable what comes first: culture or leadership. I think it seems to be a passive way to study culture only, but by adding the leader-ship dimension it seems to be a more interactive cycle and a positive way for explaining not just culture but also leadership for readers, especially for those first interested in the topic. Most of the organizational culture explanations reflect on the context of the leadership. This vision does not assess that organizational culture comes first, but that the leadership itself is no more a pure concept. However, it is still ambiguous which leadership style or culture type can affect each other more.

Schein described organizational culture as the social certainty that refers to those things that the member of an organization perceive as matters of agreement, which are not superficially or practically measurable. His thoughtfulness was that the under-standing of culture must be vigilant and not to reflect conceptions of time and space into organizations from only the perspective of their leaders, because this manner of thinking may easily mislead the meaning of visible artifacts surrounding these conceptions. That explains why actions may be misevaluated in a chronological context and seem to be strange until the group's individual reach consensus about the value of these actions.

Hence, Schein asserted that meaning with the fact that "The leader should remember that it is the leadership in the history of the group that has created the particular culture content the group ends up with." Thus, the leaders of the establishing point of culture have essential roles in inserting their visions, values, and beliefs than other types of leaders. Nonetheless, the author made the organizational culture more applicable to be handled by drawing outlines than by shaping the culture for the leaders, even though the kind of non-operational concept seems to be in its pure description. Moreover, Schein divided the organizational culture into levels each leader should take part in, despite their complexity. Within such levels, there are various things a leader can do. Whatsoever, I believe that normally culture may have not any distinct starting point but a long-term nurturing vision and desired mission to survive.

The dimensions of organizational culture or the content of culture differentiate many occupational cultures. The diagnosis of the culture clears up its' characteristics, advantages, and defects. Schein expected that this will reflect the vital problem that every group face, helping to take action and ascertaining the leadership role. Likewise, in the section "How culture emerges in new groups," the author drew up the roots of culture (content) and described the different types of organizations. He considered how to emerge new things in the culture. Then, how you must have receptors or the suitability and adaptability or failure may be your destiny. Similar to that, emerging anything to the previous cultural system means this new thing suitable or appropriate is thought to be. In the same technique, if you sometimes need updating new values of the system or asserting its original values, you may need the same consistency you showed with previous ones.

The explanations about the nature of time and space provided by the author are essential in showing the role of time in various rising norms. There-fore, at different managers' levels, plans have to be made in cycles of several years, although such an assumption may complicate their duties and converted their planned activities to pointless and unperceivable actions. However, information and communication technology are changing the past dimensions by increasing the time and space shrinking capacity. That is what may be helpful for managers now and in the near future when dealing with the organizational culture concept. Yet, the author referred to culture change through technological seduction by facilitating common terms adopted among groups using neutral or advanced technology. Schein had convinced also the assumptions about human nature, activities, and relationships to the degree that if the organizations' values in this situation do not coincidence with the realism of the context, the life of such an organization will be absolutely under threat.

The organizational culture has to be integral, in which all parts of the organization share the same set of assumptions, since every entity can confront one type of another of these cultures and expose several kinds of cultures as well. The author suggested that the extent to which they are in conflict or are discrete professional cultures can be assessed, and the premise that each of these cultural disparities is expected could be positively considered for organizations' agility. Internal integration problems are also closely linked to these more abstracted concepts, languages, and intangible structures, which definitely represent a set of basic assumptions about time, space, and certainty.

In part three, Schein suggested that having strong ideas about what to do and how to do it is in the essence of entrepreneurial thinking. Group founders prefer to have their own well-articulated philosophies about how organizations should work and select colleagues they feel similar to their own personality. This part seems to be like a practical part (positive part). The leadership concept is considered less from the author's perspective, who refers that the organizational culture is to be the base in the organizations' dynamic process.

The author described the critical role of crises in cultural development and values dissemination, as increased individuals' participation emotion-ally during such times increases the learning opportunities. Crises relieve anxiety and the need to reduce anxiety is a strong motivator for new learning. This conflict may also hamper group performance if there is a disagreement between subgroups' subcultures. However, if the context of the com-munity changes, this conflict may also be a likely source for more learning and adjusting. This gives the leaders the advantage of controlling culture's differences for their organizations' welfares. Some cautions may threaten the diversity of subcultures, becoming a hazard to the young organization in its midlife, in which it can be seen as a disadvantage. Thus, the leader's essential role is defined in integrating these cultures to be functional in a collective and congruent manner.

The reliable way to build a culture of learning, as described by Schein, is that leaders themselves under-stand that there is a lot they do not know and that they have to educate others to embrace such notions. The learning leader has to believe in the inherent complexity of the world, the multiplicity of its events, the indirect relations of its factors, and its over connected phenomena. The more chaotic, uncertain and out of control the world is, the more it is necessary to share the learning process with all members of society until such a process is completed. I think the culture of uncertainty tends to grow by creating challenges under the expectations of the organizations.

Similarly, as for the organizational transformation, the author linked the relationship between organizational culture and leadership as any hypothesis underlying change in a human-driven setting. All human settings are trying to maintain steadiness and autonomy with respect to their culture. When environmental change happens it creates varying degrees of disparity that the beliefs and values will coordinate. Coping, development, and sustainability are aspects of the dignity of the changing system. This gives the culture its uniqueness and provides its' identity.

To summarize, regarding the roots of the two concepts through the book - that is, how many counter-indicatory ideas can be met, especially in situations of crisis- we should induce our courtesy to issues such as continuity, integrity, and meaning, which are the result of our human prerequisite. If the survival of the organization is threatened because aspects of its community have become ill-adapted, understanding and doing something about this condition is essentially the role of leadership at all levels. How-ever, learning is the only mechanism that fills the relationship between them and increases the effect on each domain on the other. I think this book illustrates how leaders control organizations in the matter of under-standing (or at least realizing) the dynamics of their organizations and the interaction of individuals through different conditions. The author argued that the bottom line for leaders is that if they are ingrained they will be governed by those cultures. For all of us, cultural understanding is important, but for leaders it is necessary.

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