Leadership Must Be Anchored on Organizational Culture

Leadership is not just a part of organizational culture; it must be anchored on the culture.

Last week, one of my previous clients had asked me to conduct a leadership program. Our conversation went like this:

Angel (A): Can you send me a copy of your Vision-Mission-Core Values?

Client (C): “We still don’t have sir, but we can talk about that on the next program. We need the leadership program now, it’s our top priority, can you run it for us, sir?

A: Sure. We can even do it now. I can use the slides I prepared for my last client, or the client before that, or even my client last week, I am ready. But would you really like me to use the slides I prepared for them based on their organizational culture?

C: “… Okay sir. What do we need to do?

This is not the first time I encountered this. Because there are so many books and articles about leadership, clients usually think that we can just pick one up, read it, then apply it to the organization. Then they get surprised and ask why it didn’t work.

Some organizations focus on customer experience, others on bottom-line profit, and still there are some who are focused on service.

Whatever area the organization focuses on, the leadership framework must not be far behind.

Imagine the Rotary International President telling their members, “This year, let’s focus on profit and let’s forget about service, just for one year.

Or maybe a politician saying… well you know what I mean.

5 thoughts on “Leadership Must Be Anchored on Organizational Culture

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *