Integrating Management Competencies Development With An Organizational Culture Formation
Integrating Management Competencies Development With An Organizational Culture Formation
Integrating Management Competencies Development With An Organizational Culture Formation
Research papers
DOI: 10.2478/orga-2013-0021
Auto University, Department of Managerial Psychology and Sociology, Na Karmeli 1457, 29301 Mlad Boleslav,
Czech Republic, [email protected]
2University of Economics, Prague, Department of Managerial Psychology and Sociology, W. Churchilla 4, 130 67 Prague 3,
Czech Republic , [email protected]
3KaiserLeadershipSolutions, 1903-G Ashwood Ct., Greensboro, NC, USA 27455, [email protected]
The paper presents the first results of the IGA/2012/7 project Versatility of Organizational Management and its Reflection in
the Area of Organizational Culture. The paper tries to answer in particular a question if there exist and what are the relations
between a process of management competencies development and process of organizational culture creation and change.
The research is based upon two methods: (1) Leadership Versatility Index (LVI) and Denison Organizational Culture
Survey (DOCS). The research data are presented in a form of two cases. Qualitative analysis of these data has led to two preliminary conclusions: (1) Some of the research expectations concerning an existence of the relations between organizations
management versatility and organizational culture might be confirmed in a future; (2) DOCS data can bring a new light on
the LVI results and on the process of management competencies development. They help managers to understand that a
change and development of their management competencies is not their personal business but a need with important strategic consequences for the whole organization. Reliable answers to all research questions and hypothesises are conditioned
by a statistical analysis of the data collected in more organizations, however.
Key words: leadership, management, versatility, organizational culture, competencies development
1 Introduction
This paper presents the first results of a three years long
research project focused on an identification of the relationships between organizations management versatility and
organizational culture. As such it is based upon the findings
(i.e. Morgan 1986, Holland 1997; Hogan 2006, Kaiser and
Overfield, 2010, Hartnell et al., 2011) about an existence of
the relationships between personality of the key organizational managers and inner organizational environment. On a
theoretical level the project refers to the two conceptions: (1)
theory of versatile leadership (i.e. Kaplan and Kaiser 2006;
Pavlica et al. 2010) which represents a new original approach
to leadership definition as well as to management competencies measurement and development; (2) Denisons dynamic
model of organizational culture (Denison et al. 2012). These
approaches will be described in a more detailed way in chap-
Received: 20th August 2013; revised: 5th September 2013; accepted: 30th September 2013
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Leadership
Inspiring people
with vision and
change
Interpersonal
How
Self-assertive
and directive
Takes charge
Declares
Pushes
Inclusive and
supportive
Empowers
Listens
Supports
Organizational
What
Short-term,
operational
Execution
Efficiency
Order
Long-term,
strategic
Direction
Growth
Innovation
2 Methods
As was mentioned above this part of our paper offers more
detailed descriptions of the versatile leadership conception
and of the Denisons model of organizational culture, including unique research techniques based upon these approaches.
After this additional research questions and expectations are
articulated.
As it has been indicated before, versatility represents
a way which thinks about leadership in terms of pairs of
opposites, opposing forces that are both useful and complementary (Kaplan and Kaiser, 2006; Pavlica et al., 2010).
Many opposing dimensions of leadership have been identified
over the years: autocratic vs. democratic, task-oriented vs.
people-oriented, initiative vs. consideration, change vs. stability, transformational vs. transactional, and so on. Common to
these pairings is that each side is an important function that
has its place in effective leadership. Either/or wont do;
organizations require leaders to be both/and when it comes
to these opposing ways of leading.
Two broad distinctions have been joined to provide an
inclusive model of opposites that make up managerial work.
First is John Kotters classic distinction between leadership
versus management. Kotter described management as doing
things right and achieving efficiency and predictability
through command and control. In contrast, he portrayed leadership as doing the right things and inspiring people with a
vision of change.
A second broad distinction is between the interpersonal
aspects of leadership and the organizational aspects of leadership. The interpersonal part concerns how one leads, and
largely revolves around a self-assertive, directive style versus
a more inclusive, supportive style. The organizational part
concerns what one leads and revolves around the technical
and tactical details of execution in the short-term versus plan-
188
Too little
o
-4
o
-3
o
-2
o
-1
The
right
amount
o
0
o
+1
Too much
o
+2
o
+3
o
+4
Organizacija, Volume 46
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Overall Versatility
Percentage of Managers
90% 100%
6,1%
80% - 90%
54,4%
70% - 80%
31%
60% - 70%
7,5%
Below 60%
1%
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Internal focus
Mission
Strategic direction
Goals
Vision
Involvement
Empowerment
Team orientation
Capability development
Consistency
Core values
Agreement
Coordination/
integration
Flexible
Stable
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3 Results
In June 2013 a basic analysis of the data collected in two
middle organizations was finished. On one hand it is too little
information for answering all of our research questions and
working hypothesises. On the other hand these data can illustrate how the processes of management competencies development an organizational culture management fit together.
The results are presented in a form of two short cases. In
each of these cases the research team proceeded in the following way:
Initial workshop with the members of an organizations
top management. During this the goals of the project
(including what are the potential practical benefits for a
company) and nature of LVI and DOCS were explained.
Data collection. The LVI was applied on a sample of top
managers. After this DOCS was distributed to all employees and managers of an organization.
Workshop focused on the LVI results. First, group of
managers participating in the project were explained
how to understand the LVI results. Second, researchers
provided all of the managers with individual coaching
interview focused on in depth understanding of received
LVI reports as well as on an identification of the key
personal strengths and weaknesses (deficits and excesses
in the area of leadership and management competencies).
At the end of the interview the managers were asked to
prepare the personal development plans.
Final workshop focused on the DOCS results presentation
as well as on an identification of their links to the data
obtained by the means of the LVI.
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Group
average
Overall
versatility
Directive/
supportive
versatility
Operational/
strategic
versatility
82%
80%
83%
Frequency
2f: Takes the initiative seizes the opportunity to lead. (Takes charge)
All of the major excesses fall within a dimension directive / supportive leadership. Eight (8) out of nine (9) strong
excesses represent a pole of Self-assertive, directive approach
to people. When related to general areas of management competencies these results show that some members of the management team tend to declare themselves too much (as the
opposite to competence of listening), tend to take charge
too much (as the opposite to competence of empowering
people) and tend to push people too much (as the opposite
to competence of supporting).
Item
5s: Expansive aggressive about growing
the business. (Growth)
6s: Ambitious to improve the organization launches many change initiatives
(Growth)
7s: Willing to make bold moves. (Growth)
1s: Spends time and energy on long-term
planning future oriented (Direction)
2s: Thinks strategically takes a high level
view of where the unit is going. (Direction)
6e: Draws people out wants to know
where they stand. (Listens)
11e: Sensitive careful not to hurt the
other persons feelings (Supports)
5e: Participative includes people in making decisions. (Listens)
7e: Open to influence can be persuaded
to change his/her mind. (Listens)
3e: Gives people the latitude to decide how
to do their jobs hands-off. (Empowers)
9f: Pushes people hard. (Pushes)
Frequency
4
3
3
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
2
Most of the deficits (14) represent competencies associated with strategic leadership. Members of the management
team tend to be (10 cases) too little oriented on organizations
growth(as the opposite to operational orientation on efficiency) and (4 cases) too little concerned with directing an
organization towards future perspectives (as the opposite of
operational orientation on execution and immediate results).
Four (4) identified strong deficits are associated with listening to people correspond to excesses in the area of declaring being too decisive, forthcoming and even stubborn. Two
otter deficits are associated with supporting people and one
with empowering this also reflects an identified overuse
of the approaches based on directive and self-assertive leadership.
Two managers have troubles with pushing people
towards personal responsibility and high performance. During
the coaching interviews we found out, however, that this
overall low rating on an item 9f is probably a result of their
unequal approach to people. Because of different reasons they
tend to be too protective towards some of their subordinates
while at the same time they treat the rest (majority) of their
staff in a relatively strict and tough way.
After the LVI we have applied DOCS as both a resource
of information about organizations 1 culture and additional
interpretative framework for understanding the meaning of
versatility scores. The DOCS data (see Figure 8) are presented
in two forms: (1) averages average is calculated from the all
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Consistency
Adaptability
Mission
Index
Average
Percentile
Empowerment
2,93
Team orientation
3,00
Capability development
3,52
61
Core values
3,25
12
Agreement
2,93
Coordination &
integration
2,93
27
Creating change
2,96
23
Customer focus
3,14
Organizational
learning
3,26
55
3,43
53
3,41
43
Vision
3,10
45
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organizations management has decided to prepare a workshop focused on a detailed elaboration of both individual personal development plans and a plan for a joint learning of the
whole management group. They have also asked our research
team to give them a new LVI and DOCS feedback next year.
Case 2: Organization producing packaging
The second organization we have analysed was a Czech
branch of an international company producing packaging. It
employs app. 90 people and its top management is represented
by 4 people. The company operates on a Czech market since
1997. Managers felt that they should substitute their rather
spontaneous attitude to individual and organizational learning
by a systematic approach based on an expertise.
Also here we started with an application of the LVI.
Average experience of these 4 managers with managerial
position and work was 9, 5 years (minimum 4 years - director,
maximum 20 production manager). Figure 9 shows the average LVI scores for the group.
Group
average
Overall
versatility
Directive/
supportive
versatility
Operational/
strategic
versatility
82%
79%
85%
Frequency
2f: Takes the initiative seizes the opportunity to lead. (Takes charge)
Frequency
Index
Empowerment
Team orientation
Involvement
Capability development
Core values
Agreement
Consistency
Coordination &
integration
Creating change
Customer focus
Adaptability
Organizational
learning
Strategic direction and intent
Goals and
Mission
objectives
Vision
Average
3,20
3,22
Percentile
22
18
3,18
17
3,48
3,05
36
20
3,04
38
3,26
3,35
66
28
3,23
51
3,23
33
3,40
43
3,20
57
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Also in this case the more valuable and reliable informations have been mediated by the percentiles.
Within a dynamic perspective a culture of organization 2
can be interpreted in the following way:
1. Tension between internal (involvement and consistency)
and external (adaptability and mission) focus. Similarly
like in a case 1 also here it is obvious that organizations
management pays much more systematic attention to the
external circumstances and conditions than to a consolidation and effective management of the internal resources
and processes. Managers should no longer ignore the
internal affairs.
2. Tension between stability (mission and consistency) and
flexibility (adaptability and involvement). Stable aspects
of organizational culture are, (except of an agreement about
important issues) managed more effectively than phenomena and processes associated with organizations flexibility.
3. Tension between (internal) consistency and (external)
adaptability. There are at least two important topics for
a change and development on this pair of opposites. On
a side of consistency the very low percentile for index
agreement indicates that no clear rules and norms defining how to behave in conflict and ambiguous situations
have been defined and implemented yet. On a side of
adaptability there is the warning signal that organization
should increase its customer focus.
4. Tension between mission and involvement. On this
level of an analysis a contrast between relatively well
elaborated organizations mission and poor involvement
of its employees on all measured indexes is apparent.
Managers, in particular those under a director, will have
to change their approach and attitudes towards subordinates significantly.
What are the links between the LVI and DOCS results
in this case? The results of these two techniques correspond
together in two respects at least. First, organizations 2 culture deficit in the area of empowerment (and maybe also
in the area of capability development) correspond to the
LVI findings about imbalances on a dimension of directive
VS supportive leadership as it was stated before members
of the management team tend to base their leadership style
on competencies associated with directive and self-assertive
approaches at the expense of supporting, empowering and
listening to their subordinates (see Figures 10 and 11).
Second, organizations culture deficits in the area of
team orientation probably reflect to a certain degree the LVI
findings about team effectiveness. Three (3) out of four (4)
teams of the rated managers were evaluated as the groups with
relatively low effectiveness on both productivity (quantity and
quality of outputs) and vitality (climate, commitment, cohesiveness) measures. As the only one effective was evacuated
directors team (composed of the members of management
team and administrative staff).
Also in this case the DOCS data have not only mediated
a useful feedback about organizations culture but that they
brought a new light on the LVI results, in particular those
associated with a direct management of the individuals and
teams/groups.
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4 Discussion
The data collection process was started in February 2013
and will continue till December 2014. The data available at
the moment were collected in two organizations. As it has
been stated before, they do not represent sufficient amount
of information for a statistic analysis and for answering all of
our research questions and working hypothesises. On the other
hand our mainly qualitative analysis of these data enables us to
formulate two preliminary conclusions:
Some of our expectations (see research questions and
hypothesises) about an existence of the relations between
organizations management versatility as it is measured
by the LVI and organizational culture traits and indexes
as they are measured by DOCS can be confirmed. Two
cases presented above suggest that the LVI results for
a dimension self-assertive, directive VS inclusive, supportive leadership correspond, up to a certain degree, to
the DOCS findings for and index empowerment. In both
of our cases/organizations also a possible correspondence
between the LVI results concerning team effectiveness and DOCS data for and index team orientation
was indicated. We will propose a new working hypothesis
on a basis of this finding. And, finally, case 1 shows that
there can exist relations between the LVI results for
a dimension operational VS strategic leadership (in
particular sub dimensions growth and direction) and
the DOCS data for the indexes labelled creating change
and customer focus. All of these suggestions need to be
confirmed by a reliable statistical analysis based on data
from more than two organizations, however.
DOCS data can bring a new light on the LVI results
and, consequently on the process of management competencies development. Illustration and discussion of
the links between DOCS and LVI helped managers
from both organizations to understand that a change and
development of their management competencies is not
their personal business but a need with important strategic consequences for the whole organization. In other
words it became obvious that the process of management
competencies development should be integrated with the
efforts to create an effective and well-balanced organizational culture (and the opposite).
n
Acknowledgements
The research project is supported by koda Auto University
internal grant agency as project IGA/2012/7 Versatility of
Organizational Management and its Reflection in the Area
of Organizational Culture. Denison Organizational Culture
Survey have been used with a permission and assistances
Organizacija, Volume 46
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