Organizational Culture and Leadership Change Essay

Organizational Culture and Leadership Change - Essay Example He is liked by each and every employee and all of them have great love and respect for him. He is a 'father' to them in the real sense. The performance of the company has been stable for the last decade, though in pure commercial terms it could have always done much better. Philip's approach was always based on elements of trust and collaboration where decision making appeared to be on basis of collective wisdom of the staff. The demands of the business have changed with the region being no more restricted by national boundaries. Coupled with these pressures was the failing health of Philip Mayor; which made him decide to hand over the management of the business to his only son Tony Mayor over a year back. Tony is a Commerce graduate with a Management degree from one of the prestigious universities of the U.S., but has very little experience. The transition from Philip Mayor to Tony Mayor has witnessed a sea change in the company. There has been more visible emphasis on discipline, systems, expectations of performance, change in workloads, change in style, change in structures, induction of modern technology and overall a change in approach to business with diminishing collective participation . A couple of loyal employees have been fired and some are under threat of losing their jobs. From the company performance side, Tony is determined to ensure that there is optimal return on investments made by the company and for which he is not prepared to compromise on any count. He is also considering seriously of inducting core professionals to provide a professional touch to the company which requires intense interaction with big clients both within and beyond the region. The whole employees of the company appear to be dissatisfied with the transition and one can feel the vibrations in everything that the employees do. Problem Statement Day in and day out and all around us, we see "organization" and "culture" dominating our discussions in our lives at home, at work and beyond. In the context of this case it is necessary to understand what is an organization Organization is about people, about other resources, the way people interact and the way they deal with other resources. It is a complex system built around human relationships, relationships between human and other resources and which are constantly under internal and external environmental influences. We can see that organizations are just not about resources and their combination; it is much more than that. It has life as it has people and it has a definite purpose, a definite code, a definite approach. Just coming together of people and other resources is not organization. In other words, organization essentially means and represents people. The next question that comes up is -What is culture It is fascinating so much as it is complex to understand! J. P. Lederach, in his famous book entitled 'Preparing for peace: Conflict transformation across cultures' defines culture as "the shared knowledge and schemes created by a set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social realities around them" (Lederach 1995). The need for togetherness, interdependence, collaboration and sharing involves each one of us to have our own perception, beliefs and values in our quest for being understood, understanding others and mutually understanding. In this process,