The Intersection of Leadership & Culture - Connecticut ...€¦ · The Intersection of Leadership &...

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Leadership, Culture, Change

Patrick F. Bassett [email protected]

202.746.5444

The Intersection of Leadership & Culture

Leadership Change & The Cultural Assumptions •  Leadership change is disruptive on many levels, personal,

professional, institutional •  At some level, a fear factor in play: “What if the new leader

doesn’t love me just the way I am?” •  Fresh eyes with different learning experiences tend to see “the

emperor has no clothes” in some of any organization’s work – and while that’s necessary for improvement, at some level it feels insulting and threatening.

•  Every institution has a predominant culture, but also one or more subordinate, competing cultures.

•  Every institution aspires to adjust its culture aspirationally in one direction or another, but how much, how fast, how much buy-in is needed are all difficult to assess before jumping.

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Leadership Style: Archetypes 1st Impressions: Warmth/Competence

!  The Ambassador (consensus-seeker): upside/downside

!  The General/CEO (goal-driven): upside/downside

!  The Visionary Priest/Pied Piper (charismatic): : upside/downside

!  What everyone wants in their leader?

Allowed to choose, which leader would I personally prefer to follow? Assuming your head had three highly qualified candidates for assistant head and factoring in your school’s needs now, what leadership style would add the most value to the leadership team?

“God on a good day.”

Organizational Culture – Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn (OCAI)

Adhocracy Cultures (e.g., tech start-ups-MLKjr; Apple; Google): •  Workplace: dynamic, entrepreneurial, and creative place to

work; risk-adept; leaders are innovators; experimentation is daily diet; being leading edge the goal; success is introducing new products and services; individual initiative rewarded.

•  Leader Type: innovator, entrepreneur, visionary. •  Value Drivers: innovative outputs, transformation, agility. •  Theory for Effectiveness: innovativeness, vision and new

resources produce effectiveness. •  Quality Strategies: surprise and delight, creating new

standards, anticipating needs, continuous improvement, creative solutions.

•  Challenges to the Culture in Schools (PFB):

"  Active and/or passive resistance to change initiatives "  Skepticism and timidity around experimentation "  Autonomy and tradition valued more than innovation

Visionary Priest ?

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Hierarchy Cultures (e.g., churches, the military) •  Workplace: formalized & structured & procedure/policy-driven;

good management produces efficiency; stability & performance highly valued; dependable delivery, smooth scheduling, cost containment, secure employment & predictability.

•  Leader Type: coordinator, monitor, director •  Value Drivers: efficiency, punctuality, consistency and

uniformity. •  Theory for Effectiveness: control and efficiency with

appropriate processes produce effectiveness. •  Quality Strategies: error detection, measurement, process

control, systematic problem solving, quality tools Challenges to the Culture in Schools (PFB):

"  Autonomy valued much more than conformity "  Individuality appreciated much more than uniformity "  Efficiency sacrificed willingly to allow for eccentricity

General ?


Market Cultures: e.g., businesses; Jack Welch/GE, Ford, etc. •  Workplace: results-oriented; competitive & goal-oriented;

emphasis on winning; measurable outcomes; market share. •  Leader Type: hard driver, competitor, producer •  Value Drivers: market share, goal achievement, profitability •  Theory for Effectiveness: aggressive competition and

customer focus produce effectiveness. •  Quality Strategies: measuring customer preferences, improving

productivity, creating external partnerships, enhancing competitiveness, involving customers and suppliers.

•  Challenges to the Culture in Schools (PFB):

"  Our business relational and aspirational, not transactional "  We have a gestation period longer than the elephant’s "  What our customers treasure is the medium, not the service "  We distrust the business perspective, to our disadvantage

? CEO

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Clan Cultures: e.g., Societies; clubs; teams; unions; the Mafia •  Workplace: loyalty, high commitment, values cohesion, sensitive

to morale, high concern for people, consensus-driven •  Value Drivers: commitment, communication, development. •  Theory for Effectiveness: human development and

participation produce effectiveness. •  Quality Strategies: empowerment, team building, employee

involvement, Human Resource development, open communication.

•  Leader Type: facilitator, mentor, team builder. •  Threats to the Culture?:

"  The “other” "  Rapid change "  Challenges to conventional, culturally-acquired wisdom "  Challenges to the clan’s elders by upstarts

Ambassador ?

Organizational Culture The Competing Values Framework

Internal Focus & Integration

External Focus & Differentiation

Institutional decisions cause culture clashes, since for each decision, you make one choice of allocation of resources: time, money, energy: Which master do you serve?

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Organizational Culture All Surveys:

+10 differential a very strong signal of desire for culture shift

Organizational Culture

Four Predominant Organizational Cultures: 1.  The Adhocracy (like a tech start-up, where risk is

embraced, failure is frequent but not a deterrent, and success rare but heavily rewarded)

2.  The Hierarchy (like the church or the military or the government, where roles are stratified and rules enforced & traditions valued and prevail)

3.  The Market (like a business – where the customer is always right)

4.  The Clan (like a family, where we recognize and embrace one another, whatever our shortcomings, & membership is life-long)

Exercise: Distribute your 100 points over the four cultures, twice: 1. Current Culture 2. Preferred Culture

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Change Agency Leadership

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Robert Kegan’s Immunity to Change

Well-Intentioned Goals:

Case Study 1: Quitting Smoking

----------- Intentions and Actions: The Gap



Behaviors I Do/Don’t Do that Undermine Goal

Quitting Smoking

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Quitting Smoking Sneaking an occasional smoke

Rewarding myself with a smoke.




Invisible Competing Drivers

Quitting Smoking

Sneaking an occasional smoke


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Smoking as pleasurable pastime


Smoking as anxiety reliever

Smoking as oral fixation preferable to eating/weight gain

Foot on gas……………………and on brake





Big, Untested Assumptions Behind Col 3 Drivers

Quitting Smoking

Sneaking an occasional smoke




Smoking as oral fixation preferable to eating/weight gain

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I can’t find equally pleasurable alternatives



I might become someone who is not me

Smoking preferable to eating/weight gain Change: Identify drivers and assumptions. Test the assumptions.



Case Study 2: Be an Innovator

Lead the Change Agenda

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PFB Case Study 2: Be a Change Agent





Case Study 2: Be a Change Agent

Fail to align resources and incentives


Make the case for the rider but not the elephant

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Case Study 2: Be a Change Agent








Be a Change Agent Fail to align resources and incentives

Keeping peace more important than effecting change



Fear that you won’t have followers; that the change won’t work - seen as a failure

“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” ~Mark Twain

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Be a Change Agent





Fear that the change won’t work - seen as a failure; fear change agent punished






Be a Change Agent



No one wants change



Fear that the change won’t work - seen as a failure; fear change agent punished

Failure will be punished instead of trying being rewarded

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Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

Source: Center for Ethical Leadership (Bill Grace, Pat Hughes, & Pat Turner), Kellogg National Leadership Program Seminar, Snoqualine, WA, 7/10/97. Reference: William Bridges, Transitions; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science; Virginia Satir, The Satir Model; George David, Compressed Experience Workplace Simulation; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death & Dying; Tom Peters, In Search of Excellence.

!  The research on change indicates that there are predictable stages individuals experience whenever a major change event appears. What are they? !  Exercise:

!  Identify 2 major change events in your life !  Indicate the stages you went through as the change occurred. !  As a small group determine what stages you had in common despite differences in the change events you were thinking of.

The Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

Source: Center for Ethical Leadership (Bill Grace, Pat Hughes, & Pat Turner), Kellogg National Leadership Program Seminar, Snoqualine, WA, 7/10/97. Reference: William Bridges, Transitions; Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science; Virginia Satir, The Satir Model; George David, Compressed Experience Workplace Simulation; Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death & Dying; Tom Peters, In Search of Excellence.

1.  Business as Usual: the routine; the frozen state; the status quo

2.  External Threat: potential disaster; propitious change event; an ending; a “death in the family”; an unfreezing via the introduction of a foreign element; disequilibrium; dissatisfaction with the status quo.

3.  Denial: refusal to read the Richter scale; anger and rage; chaos.

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The Seven Stages of the Change Cycle

4.  Mourning: confusion; depression.

5.  Acceptance: letting go.

6.  Renewal: creativity; the incubation state of new ideas and epiphanies; new beginnings; movement; vision of what “better” might look like; reintegration; first practical steps; practice of new routines.

7.  New Structure: sustainable change; the new status quo; new “frozen” state of restored equilibrium; spiritual integration; internalization and transformation of self.

Effecting Change Abstracting and Personalizing Change Faculty exercise: What are your own major change events? A move? Marriage? Divorce? Admin job? A birth? A death? Being fired? Can we predict & prepare for stages?

PFB: Day 1 of College, Philosophy 101, 1st question professor Stein asks opening the class: “Bassett, tell me all you know about the Peloponnesian Wars and their impact on Greek philosophical thought.” PFB: Philosophy 201: Modern Thinking.

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Change Agency: Bet on the Fast Horses !  Main Impediment to Change: Consensus model of decision making. (“My biggest challenge is convincing my faculty members that they are not self-employed.”) ~Lou Salza !  Coalition-building Model: Betting on the Fastest Horses: targeted buy-in via modeling. Ride the “tipping point” horses. (Malcolm Gladwell’s mavens, connectors, and salespeople). Encourage them to recruit “first followers.” !  Support “the coalition of the willing.” Margaret Mead Dictum: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” !  Great by Choice (Jim Collins): Shoot bullets, not missiles (small experiments); the discipline of the 20 mile march (Amundsen vs. Scott); empirical creativity.

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen

How’s the project coming?

Fine, thanks.

You’re holding me up.

You’re a jerk. I hate you.

Levels: Stated vs. Implied. Business at hand vs. Threats to my image.

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Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton,

and Sheila Heen

. Can it wait? I’m busy

Puzzle: Mishandled conversations create the very outcomes we dread.

She doesn’t get what my work demands..

Fine.

You think you’re only busy one? You don’t love me.

The Spouse/Partner Version

You’re a jerk. I hate you.

The End!

Patrick F. Bassett [email protected]

202.746.5444

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NAIS Strategic Planning: Breakout Groups (partnerships; school of future; sustainability, etc.)

Why doesn’t anyone want to sit at the innovation table?

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