Leadership That Matters

Chapter

NINE

How Transformational Leaders Construct the Cultural Context

When the leader knows how things happen, people deal effectively with change, with their goals, and with one another all by themselves.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 37

Chapter Eight introduced and defined the organizational context. We described the four key functions that create the context. Finally, we focused in particular on how the organizational culture defines and maintains these functions. In this chapter we will explore just how leaders construct culture.

Three Keys to Constructing Culture

In his book Organizational Culture and Leadership, the noted organizational psychologist and consultant Edgar Schein identified a variety of ways that leaders construct culture.¹ He ...