Organizational Cultural Change

Introduction

This essay will first define leadership and organisational cultural change, followed by a discussion on how the essence of leadership and organisational culture change intertwine each other based on meaning management. Then, the essay will analyse how organisational culture and structure constrict leadership’s significance on organisational cultural change. Lastly, the essay ends with a conclusion.

Definitions

Thanks to the long history of leadership theory in the organisational studies field, leadership has been defined by scholars in various approaches. Apart from the classical and mainstream approaches, which focus on leaders’ personal trait, style, charisma etc., Alvesson, Blom and Sveningsson (2017) define leadership as an

Firstly, if organisation members do not consider leadership as a mode of understanding and managing cultural change, leaders cannot find a target to lead. Hence, people who attempt to influence meaning with leadership might find his or her leadership identity at risk. Secondly, even if followers agree that leadership is the appropriate way to understand and manage cultural change, different interpretation on leadership and quality of leadership might create misfit (Alvesson, Blom & Sveningsson, 2017). In short, whether and how leadership is significant in understanding and managing organisation cultural change highly depends on

The cultural and structural constraints on leadership are defined as “cultural subordinacy” (Alvesson, Blom & Sveningsson, 2017). The former may come from nation or industry. For example, an organisation member, who comes from a country with higher obedience culture, may seek for authoritative leadership or management; the fashion industry often requires a charismatic and heroic leader like Yves Saint Laurent as the products originate from his creativity (Kittilaksanawong, Guilbert & Poplawski, 2017). Another cultural constraint on leadership could be the local culture in the organisation. If followers shared a strong meaning of leadership, there would be less discretion for the leader to perform leadership in another way. Yet, if the followers have a diverse and weak understanding on leadership, leaders could perhaps be granted for a higher discretion to deploy their own leadership style (Alvesson, Blom & Sveningsson, 2017).

Besides, the structural constraint on leadership also affect its significance. The structural constraints such as job position and burden of tedious work could hinder leaders being a ‘strategic planner’ as described in most of the management education or literatures. In Sveningsson and Alvesson’s (2016) study of managerial lives,