Abstract: This article argues for a re-think about leaders and organisational culture. It challenges the heroic model of a CEO transforming organisational cultures as if organisations were closed systems and cultures were ‘things’ to be changed. It charts the rise of the Transformational leader engineering culture change in the late 1980s, and points to the need for organisations to realise how leaders are ‘culture carriers’ rather than culture transformers. ‘Leaders act as cultural avatars, acting on behalf of wider and dominant social-cultural forces’ and their task is to learn how to become a skilled transmitter of the culture….. Two other articles will follow in this series of 3.
To Cite, Western S. ( 2019) Leadership a Critical Text pgs 107–109 Sage Pub.
Organizational culture is deemed to be the heartbeat of company success, and organizational culture is believed to be very susceptible to leadership influence. Mainstream leadership thinking claims that successful leaders in the twenty-first century are ‘cultural engineers’ (Kunda, 1992), charis- matic, strong leaders who can change the organizational culture. This marks a radical shift in the expectations of what senior executives should be doing in leadership and management roles. Traditionally, senior per- sonnel were trained and expected to manage people and…
