CHAPTER 3

The Intangibles

Culture and Change | Communication | Engagement | Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

What Is the Reality?

Leadership is not an ideology … it is a reality! And culture is a most pressing reality. The first reality is that CEOs are the architects of their organization’s culture—the first intangible. It is they who decide what is important for their organizations in terms of beliefs, values, actions, and behaviors. Additionally, what a CEO pays attention to, measures and controls, and how they react to organizational crises through their directing, positioning, facilitation, role modeling, teaching, and coaching all contribute to the organization’s way of being.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, comments that “There is something ...

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