Leadership in High‐Performance Organizational Cultures

Citation

Tweed, D. (2003), "Leadership in High‐Performance Organizational Cultures", Women in Management Review, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 338-339. https://doi.org/10.1108/wimr.2003.18.6.338.1

Leadership in High‐Performance Organizational Cultures presents an argument for strong organisational cultures which are moderated by leadership. Truskie refers to previous literature and studies in making the case that certain strong organisational cultures result in superior organisational performance. He also argues that the chief determinant of the prevailing culture is the organisation’s leadership. Therefore, by implication, leaders can influence organisational performance through positive influences on organisational culture.

Four basic organisational styles are introduced and described as part of what he terms the L4 strategy: the cooperation culture, the inspiration culture, the achievement culture, and the consistent culture. Each of these is briefly described.

Trust is the foundation of the cooperation culture and relationships are very important, as members work together in teams. A strong sense of affiliation holds the organisation together. The inspiration culture is driven by its purpose or mission, which claims a moral imperative through doing good or improving society in some way. Self‐leadership is fostered, and the author argues that the organisation exists for the individual rather than the individual for the organisation. The achievement culture values intelligence, ingenuity and innovation in the search for new knowledge, theories and technologies. Recruitment focuses on hiring the brightest and most talented people, who in turn focus their energy on helping the organisation achieve superior levels of performance or, more simply, to be the best. The consistent culture values predictability and order. Policies, detailed planning and timetables are among the tools used to achieve needed results. Since surprises are to be avoided, organisational members are encouraged to work within rules or boundaries when initiating innovations and improvements.

Truskie then goes on to argue that high‐performing cultures combine the positive elements of each basic form through an integration process in which none of the basic forms dominates, but each contributes. The overall outcomes include superior performance, consistent results and sustained growth.

The practical implication for managers is that improving competence in one basic form will not necessarily improve overall performance, if the other three forms have, in the process, been neglected. The lesson, then, is for managers to adopt a more integrated and holistic perspective, seeking to capture the strengths of all four basic forms at the same time. Thus, weaknesses in one basic form could be limiting to overall performance and should be addressed as a first priority in order to bring the four styles into balance.

He suggests that integrated and balanced organisational culture is a better predictor of performance than superior technology or equipment, or better resources such as finance, more talented people and so on. To buttress this argument he uses examples from information technology organisations to illustrate adaptation and success in a turbulent industry over the long term.

The book discusses how to become an L4 leader, the importance of vision, undertaking organisational change, implementing an organisation‐wide L4 plan, and how to develop leaders. It also looks at the impact of lack of culture balance and resulting conflict both within and between organisations.

The book is worth reading as a source of ideas from a practitioner viewpoint. Further, the author has also taken the time to dip into the scholarship on leadership, although this is presented in a summarised format. The conceptual content, with respect to L4 leadership, is thought‐provoking and it was pleasing to see an emphasis on human factors as determinants of organisational performance.

Truskie does not claim to have all the answers but he does offer leaders a framework within which the intangible cultural aspects of organisations can be identified, examined and, perhaps, positively influenced. Certainly, with some refinement, the L4 strategy he describes could be further elaborated by empirical work to determine generalisability beyond the information technology case studies used in the book.

According to Truskie, the two major tasks of leaders are to establish organisational direction and to develop organisational effectiveness. Whether or not you agree unreservedly, the L4 strategy is a useful addition to the toolkit of ideas which can be employed by leaders interested in organisational effectiveness.