Culture & leadership effects on organizational performance

Culture & Leadership Effects on Organizational Performance

Taylor Weinsoft

National University

Psychology 480 – Senior Project

Professor Dr. Sarah Jackson

February 2015

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Abstract Championship teams and successful organizations have had few inline concepts

when striving for greatness. What this research tells an individual is that you can

base the team’s performance off of the culture established along with what

leadership creates and communicates. By reviewing concepts from major sports

organizations, one finds that the culture established plays a critical role in an

organization’s level of achieved success. Leadership styles are a common theme

throughout; without putting the proper leadership in place, whether the title is

“coach”, “boss” or “co-‐worker”, success is ellusive. Proper leadership is critical! If

Sport Psychologists can examine the factors present in effective means of

leadership and cultural transformation, and find ways to intervene and educate, it

could help future coaches and teams build the proper culture within their

organizations, giving them the momentum to achieve championship performance.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY ......................................................................................................................... 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM ....................................................................................................................... 6 DEFINITION OF TERMS ....................................................................................................................................... 9 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY ................................................................................................................................. 10 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................................ 13 LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................................................................... 16 POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY ......................................................................................................................................................... 16 CULTURE CHANGE IN ELITE SPORTS .................................................................................................................................. 17 CULTURE CHANGE IN OLYMPIC SPORTS ............................................................................................................................ 17 UNDERSTANDING HIGH PERFORMING ENVIRONMENTS ................................................................................................. 18 LEADERSHIP STYLES .............................................................................................................................................................. 18 IMPACT ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 19 COHESION ................................................................................................................................................................................ 21 MAJOR ORGANIZATION CULTURE ....................................................................................................................................... 22 CULTURE .................................................................................................................................................................................. 23 CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP ................................................................................................................................................. 25 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 27 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................................ 29

CULTURE & LEADERSHIP EFFECTS ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Background of the Study Cultural impacts have been established as a contributing factor in performance that

Sport Psychologists have identified to help with getting the most of the athletes in these

organizations. “As culture change focuses on optimizing pan-‐individual values, perceptions,

and behaviors, initial success has been suggested to be dependent upon stakeholders’

perceived need for change.” (Collins & Cruickshank, 2012) There is a firm understanding of how

the athlete-‐coach relationship takes place and how it affects the player’s motivation to

perform at their greatest abilities. Teams and organizations are always looking for ways to

improve themselves. Wagstaff, Fletcher and Hanton (2012) said, “Organizations are complex

entities whose functioning depends on an array of interconnected factors.” With complexity,

one needs to find solutions to make challenges less complex and keep a clear understanding of

the goal at hand.

Organization success is best understood by looking at the cultural factors that influence

performance. By looking through the background of study one will see that culture is a concept

that is very real within the elite sports teams; without it they would lack victories and direction.

Schien (1992) defined culture as “ A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group

learned as it solved it problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has

worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the

correct way to perceive, think and feel.”

“Culture is a very important concept for those entering the world of elite professional

sports teams. Although it may sound a rather philosophical, esoteric and intangible term, it is

deeply practical, solid and very real.” (Eubank, Nesti and Cruishank, 2014). One common trend

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that gets notice within successful organizations is that the team loves and respects their coach.

Within organizations, there are unique habits that these extraordinary coaches and leaders

exude through their behaviors that have built winning atmospheres in their respectful

organizations year after year. Thomas’ (1988) research tells us, “Leaders have a differential

impact on performance at the level of individual organizations.” Though the research is old,

the concept has yet to change.

The primary vision is to determine the factors that allowed these leaders to attain

extraordinary goals through transforming their organizational cultures and performance of

their teams. While the literature specific to sports organizations and coaches is still in it’s

infancy, significant conclusions can be drawn from the body of evidence available on top

performing organizations and leadership in other sectors. Whether it is in the sports world or

business world, certain leaders possesses the ability to get their teams to produce results on a

consistent basis. “In order to successfully alter culture, leaders must address a situation that

has previously been ignored, to increase collaboration and inspire initiative.” (Kanter, 2004)

Pete Carroll, the Head Coach of the Seattle Seahawks has taken his team to new

heights over the last five years that he has taken over, he is a leader among men and anyone

can see that when watching and listen to videos of him, there is always a theme in his message

to his players. He says in his book Win Forever (2010) Pete says, “How badly do you want it?

Are you willing to adjust your focus to create the changes and reach the potential that you

already own? After all, we are simply talking about you developing the best you possible.” He

has taken a positive psychological approach and genuinely wants to see the greatest for his

players; he coaches and teaches them to be the best player they could be. Fredrickson and


Dutton (2008) have explored his adoption of positivity producing outcomes and they

suggested, “that micro changes in positive meanings, positive emotions, and positive

relationships can ripple through an entire organization to produce macro-‐effects at the

collective level.” Carroll’s effectiveness in leadership demonstrated by his behaviors, methods,

and approach exuded over the last five years may not have shown up on day one (with a

season record of 7-‐9), but with his persistent attitude and implantation, the team has now

become back to back National Football Conference Champions, and winning a Super Bowl in

the process.

Pete Carroll’s mantras of “Next Man Up” and “I’m In” have been built under the Multi-‐

Dimensional Leadership model created by Chelladurai and Carron in 1978. In the graph below

one can see how this model is comprised. It focuses on three states of behavior; Required,

Preferred, and Actual. Aimed at influencing behavior to reach the desired goal.

(sportspsych.wikispaces.com, n.a)

According to Shields, Gardner, Bredemeier, and Bostro (1997) defined this theory as,

“athletes' performance and satisfaction are a function of the congruence among required (i.e.,

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situationally demanded), actual (i.e., behaviorally exhibited), and preferred (i.e., desired by the

athletes) leadership.” He has used this framework to build his team to the juggernaut that they

currently are. He has brewed a competitive free-‐spirited atmosphere that has blossomed into

two straight Super Bowl appearances (2014 & 2015).

The evidence suggests that when a leader, such as Carroll, builds their team up in the

way he has and is tremendously successful, it may be important to examine his methods of

leadership and cultural transformation; truly examine what has continued to work in terms of

performance enhancement and made this team what it currently is. If Sport Psychologists can

examine the factors present in effective means of leadership and cultural transformation, and

find ways to intervene and educate, it could help future coaches and teams build the proper

culture within their organizations, giving them the momentum to bring their team to a

championship level.

Cohesion:

“Arguably the biggest team performance factor to emerge in the sport psychology

literature to date has been cohesion.” (Cruishank & Collins, 2013) This is what can make or

break a team or organization. By building upon cohesion these leaders have established a

culture that have led teams and organizations to multiple championships and happy players.

Cruishank and Collins (2013) continue by saying, “effective and efficient culture change

requires the ability to not only understand what systems, structures, and processes can

optimize performance, but also to decide which ones to apply, modify, or terminate, when to

do so and why one option is better than another.” In order for winning to begin the change of

attitudes or “buy in” by the players will epitomize the performance displayed by the


individuals. The Seahawks had their own battles with cohesion. Percy Harvin started the year

off on the team, but he had displayed such displeasure with the team and other players he had

created a divide that broke up the cohesion of the team, and once traded away to the New

York Jets, it took weeks for the team to find themselves again and reestablish their identity as

a unit. Cruishank and Collins also identified this in their research in Culture Change in Elite

Sport Performance Teams (2013) saying a manager faced with initial resistance from socially

powerful performers (Percy Harvin): making the right choice between coaxing them toward

adherence, selecting and supporting less experienced performers, or recruiting new

performers who epitomize the intended culture (or some permutation of all three) could

significantly shape long-‐term achievement. (2013) Resistance from Percy Harvin (as an

example) was only a stepping block for the team to overcome and initially, resulting in better

cohesion leading to long-‐term achievement and success without him. From this example

seeing that the culture created by the coach and organization the team had to regroup and

find itself by taking some of the less performers to fill the place of the high achievers that had

to be traded away and was still able to be a dominant force throughout the league. If all teams

around the league had more cohesion and unity, we would see more successful teams and

players establishing themselves.

Much research has been conducted on culture within sports; this paper will explore how

these cultures created by the certain leaders can affect the outcomes of team performance.

Historically teams and organizations have looked into what type of culture can be established

to set them up for the future and how it can help sustain a desired outcome. By researching

successful teams there is hope to find that there is a common theme among them. The

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research wills focus on the theories coaches have instilled within their respective organizations

and if these implementations have brought out successful performance. Examining what has

worked and what has not worked with specific teams and groups. By diving into what methods

these leaders utilize and how they came about establishing that culture, we can start to find

out what makes organizations successful and able to sustain success for a long period of time.

Statement of the Problem Culture within any organization is always going to have an impact on the effort and

productivity of its employees. Any company or organization that has been successful can

attribute their success to creating a culture within the organization that led the team to be

happy with what they did and being able to give one-‐hundred percent of their effort at all

times. “Leader differences do account for the performance variations within firms to a

substantial degree.” (Thomas, 1988) These organizations, whether it is in sports or in the

business world have used culture to influence their beliefs and have created an atmosphere of

trust and communication that has done nothing but lead to success. If all teams and

organizations took note of the companies that have been successful over the years they could

learn quite a bit and use what they have learned to become a perennial contender with the rest

of them. “Failure to consider the impact of sport culture on the practitioner’s role and mode of

operation has potentially negative consequences for their ability to function and even exist.”

(Eubank, Nesti, & Cruickshank, 2014)

Within the Sport Psychology community the current focus of how culture can affect an

organization has not always been at the forefront. But with a better understanding recently of

how to apply psychologies integration into sport there has started to be a huge demand for


these principles. Sport Psychologist Michael Gervais has been working with the Seattle

Seahawks over the last three seasons. He and coach Pete Carroll have been working on

instilling a “relationship-‐based coaching.” Which means, “making sure coaches and players all

understand each other on the deepest possible level, so that everyone feels valued and can

communicate effectively.” (Futterman, 2015) Gervais has instilled in the team a thought of

mindfulness, “an ability to perform without worrying about what has just happened or what

might happen next.” The Seahawks are not the first sports organization to involve a Sport

Psychologist into their daily routines, but it does take a special individual to gain a team’s full

trust and intention. It is certainly not hard to see that Gervais’ current work with the team has

helped the Seahawks and Coach Carroll lead the team to back-‐to-‐back Super Bowl

appearances.

Continuance:

Schein (1983) states that a culture takes shape from both the assumptions and theories

of the founder as well as the organization's collective lessons from its own unique experience.

Taking a good look at culture within organizations from a psychologist’s viewing point one can

see that these thoughts will continue to change and shape the future of organizations. The

research shows that this is a topic that will be discussed for the foreseeable future, as

organizations need something to spark employee interest and keep them motivated to do the

best work in their current roles. “The foundation of all innovative improvement is ideas, (Scott

& Bruce, 1994) and it is individual employees who develop, carry, react to, and modify ideas.”

(Van De Ven, 1986)

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Leaders defining their own culture has an effect on its surroundings and if society can

learn to create the right culture with their groups they could then work on getting the

performance levels to an all time high. “Recognizing that the team’s history, traditions,

financial position, fan-‐base, and current competitive context will all shape and constrain the

manager’s scope for action and impact, effective and efficient culture change.” (Cruickshank &

Collins, 2013). With a look towards change the leader can identify the information and ideas

out there that will guide organizations and teams to see that the culture they have created is

either having a positive or negative impact on performance through their respective

organizations.

The impact of organizational culture is clear based on evidence of the work done by

many people in the past and what has already been done so far in today’s society. “Groups and

organizations do not form accidentally or spontaneously. They are usually created because

someone takes a leadership role in seeing how the concerted action of a number of people

could accomplish something that would be impossible through individual action alone”

(Schien, 1983) Teams and businesses that continue to grow into the powerhouses will need to

keep in mind so that they are they can reach the goal of what they are striving to be. “Leaders

have a differential impact on performance at the level of individual organizations.” (Thomas,

1988) Leaders need to be observant of the situations that are created by these organizations.

We will see that it is only a matter of time before people realize that their actions and the

environment that they create will lead to either positive or negative performances.


Definition of Terms Culture – Behaviors and characteristics that are displayed through an organization or society.

Mindfulness -‐ an ability to perform without worrying about what has just happened or what

might happen next.

Organization – Company or sports team that houses employees or players.

Relationship-‐Based Coaching -‐ making sure coaches and players all understand each other on

the deepest possible level, so that everyone feels valued and can communicate effectively.

Athletic Performance – A measuring point to see how well an athlete is performing in their

respective sport.

Leadership – Action of leading a team or organization through different methods.

Goal-‐Orientated – A set of behaviors in which the leader sets direction and behaves in a was in

which he/she plays a significant role in directing others to achieve the key goals required to

attain a specific performance.

Involving – Has somewhat less leader-‐centric set of behaviors. The leader’s focus remains on

providing a strong sense of direction, but with a more significant focus on involving others in

both setting direction and, to a larger extent in determining how goals will be achieved.

Engaging – Leader behaviors are focused on facilitating ways for others to achieve both nature

of the direction of the organization and the means with which goals will be reached. Leader is

more concerned with developing the capability of others to achieve than with the close

direction of the enterprise.

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Telling Leadership -‐ Used in situations in which followers lack the training, confidence, or

desire to complete a task. Leaders need to direct followers down the right path. (K. Bjugstad,

E. Thatch, K. Thompson, A. Morris, 2006)

Selling Leadership -‐ Used with followers who are confident and willing, but are not able to

complete the task. Leaders can guide follower behavior by clarifying decisions and giving

followers the chance to ask questions. (K. Bjugstad, E. Thatch, K. Thompson, A. Morris, 2006)

Participating Leadership – Used to boost the motivation of followers who have the capabilities

to achieve goals, but who lack confidence in themselves. Leaders encourage followers to

participate in decisions and support their efforts. (K. Bjugstad, E. Thatch, K. Thompson, A.

Morris, 2006)

Delegating Leadership – Used when followers are able, confident, and motivated. The leader

can turn over responsibility to the follower in terms of what to do and how to do it. (K.

Bjugstad, E. Thatch, K. Thompson, A. Morris, 2006)

Multi-‐Dimensional Leadership – Focuses on three states of behavior; required, preferred, and

actual. Leader needs to demonstrate the same level of performance or team is dissatisfied.

Innovative Work Behavior – Intentional creation, introduction, and application of new ideas

within a group or organization. (Janssen, 2000)

Limitations of Study While researching the topic of leadership and culture affecting performance within the

major sports world, there does not seem to be a vast amount of information in regards to the

topic that is trying to identified, but what continues to hinder the studies is the lack of research

in regards to actual championship teams and the cultures that have been established by the


organization or the coach. This was a key component of the research to fully tie into the above

thesis

If there was more access to teams or more was written on the topic of team culture

within successful sports organizations, the research would almost write itself and clearly show

that the success is largely based on organizational culture. Looking at the teams that have

been successful in the last ten years, such as the San Antonio Spurs, New England Patriots,

Seattle Seahawks, and Duke University Men’s Basketball team, the common theme to all of

these teams is that they have had the same coach and consistent leadership through the entire

duration which has helped to build these teams into dynasties. Dulewicz and Higgs (2005) state

that the personality of the leader plays an important part in the exercise of leadership. They

also continued on to say that these leaders could be grouped into three broad categories. Goal-‐

orientated Leader, “A set of behaviors in which the leader sets direction and behaves in a was

in which he/she plays a significant role in directing others to achieve the key goals required to

attain the performance required.” (2005) Involving Leader, “ somewhat less leader-‐centric set

of behaviors. Leader’s focus remains on providing a strong sense of direction, more significant

focus on involving others in both setting direction and, to a larger extent in determining how

goals will be achieved.” (2005) And Engaging Leader, “Leader behaviors are focused on

facilitating others in achieving both nature of the direction and means of achieving the

necessary goals, more concerned with developing the capability of others to achieve than with

the close direction of the enterprise.” (2005) Making it the coach’s responsibility to play a key

role in creating the culture the athletes desire and want to be apart of. If there isn’t a “buy in”

from the team the organization could be heading for tumultuous relationship between coaches

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and players. It is essential to have the leadership for the team the key voices to the team. To

use the Seattle Seahawks and Percy Harvin as the example again, in the 2014 Super Bowl the

Denver Broncos defense could not stop him and everything he offered and all fans and players

thought he was going to be a game changer again for the team this season. But halfway

through the year, he became a nuisance to the team and coaches throughout the locker room

and was labeled a “cancer.” Once the team had caught onto his ways they traded him away to

the New York Jets. For the next few weeks however, the team had to overcome multiple

obstacles to be reunited. Doug Baldwin, who is another receiver for the Seahawks had this to

say before the Super Bowl, “We had a team meeting, and we figured out we needed to start

trusting in each other, stop worrying about what the other guys are doing, focus on ourselves,

controlling what we can control and going out there playing not with each other, but for each

other.” (Kurkjian, 2015) Showing the goal-‐orientated and involving leadership principles

discussed earlier, the Seahawks found that teammates needed to step in and bring the team

back together to get them back to their championship mentality.

In conclusion, we see that their needs to be a deeper look into the culture developed by

coaches of winnings team’s cultural ways. Does a leader “define” the culture? And how does

that to tie into the leadership that they exert through their respective organizations? What

have they have done to create such a culture that has led to winning ways? If further research

were to be conducted on these matters we could find key information that could be used to

start and create a dynamic atmosphere within any organization.


Theoretical Framework When discussing culture and performance one has to look into what makes these

athletes or employees within an organization perform to the best of their abilities when called

upon in a game or at their respective jobs. When talking about an organization there is always

a leader at the top that dictates the direction the team moves in, be it a coach, a player, a

manager or someone along those lines. Research shows that leadership has a key impact to

why teams and organizations can perform at high levels or not. This is one of the key theories

throughout the research that has a direct tie to almost all matters when considering culture

and performance together.

Leadership:

In the report by Alan Berkley Thomas he explores a few different methods of leadership

and compares and contrasts them to see which method works the best to get the greatest

performance out of the organization. He explores Lieberson and O’Connor’s studies first to see

how old leadership is affecting current leadership in large corporations. They wrote, “simply to

determine the relative importance of leadership and organizational environment for

organizational outcomes. How much variance in organizational performance can be attributed

to persons in leadership roles?” (Lieberson and O’Connor, 1972, 118) Attributing that the

performance exuded by a team could be solely attributed to the leadership put in place. With

this thought bad leadership is going to produce unsatisfactory results whereas if proper

leadership is put in place one could see the team exceed the expectations set forth by the

company. But Thomas does goes onto to note that, “on the basis of these studies it has

commonly been concluded that leadership differences have little to no impact on

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organizational performance, for in each case the vast majority of performance variation is

accounted for by non-‐leadership factors.” (Thomas, 1988) Meaning that the research done by

Lieberson and O’Connor doesn’t seem to match up to the data that Thomas was able to put

forth. But in later research conducted by Weiner he found that, “under the former, leadership

accounted for 16.1 percent of profit variance, 19.0 percent of sales variance and 8.7 percent of

profit margin variance. (Thomas, 1988) Showing that Lieberson and O’Connors initial findings

were on point with the work they put forth. Thomas continues to say, “When the variables are

discounted in reverse order, leadership accounted for 96.1 percent of profit variance, 94.8

percent of sales variance, and 77.5 percent of profit margin variance.” (1988) Proving that

Leadership accounts for many variables when looking into large corporations. From his

research he comes to two conclusions, “First, leader differences do account for performance

variations within firms to a substantial degree, and second, these impacts are generally

insufficient to outweigh the inbuilt differences among firms that largely account for

performance.” (1988) Giving us the information to not only use leadership as a main theory but

to show that it does have an effect on the performance of employees in organizations. The

research he conducts also gives one the sense that the performance is also based on the

company they work for and the pieces already in place that set them up for success in the long

run.

Reward and Creativity:

As an athlete or an employee working within an organization, one would want to be

rewarded for hard work and creativity. These thoughts and concepts that have been

researched and looked into by Navaresse, Yauch, Goff, and Fonseca in their work Assessing the


Effects of Organizational Culture, Rewards, and Individual Creativity on Technical Workgroup

Performance. (2014) Looking into creative behaviors that have been allowed by the

organizational culture established by organizations. “Creativity is defined in terms of the

resulting product or response.” (Navaresse, Yauch, Goff, Fonseca, 2014) Without creativity

there is no way to move forward as an organization. The individual needs to foster this type of

environment to bolster the morale and get the most out of your team. Janssen (2000) says

that, “this type of behavior is purely discretionary, because it does not form part of the

contract between employees and the organization and is normally not formally recognized by

organizational reward systems.” Meaning that when working within an organization if not

stated in the contract signed when the individual became apart of the team stating that one

needs to create a certain method to make the company grow and perform at a better rate, the

individual was hired to do the job that was stated.

The study created by Chatman and Barsade (1995) looked into seeing if subjects were

more creative and cooperative in a more team culture rather then an individualistic one and

they found that, “the cooperative subjects demonstrated a higher cooperative behavior than

those who than those who operated under an individualistic culture.” (Chatman & Barsade,

1995) Those that work with a team and a culture that encourages teamwork the employees will

become more cooperative in their daily activities and be better assets to the team because

they are happy and want to contribute. These subjects have been looked at and studied by

Navaresse, Yauch, Goff, and Fonseca found and determined that the simulated culture they

created when doing their experiment, the organizational culture outweighed the effect of

person-‐culture and individualistic culture. They said, “When subjects and the simulated

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organizational culture they worked in were both more creative and more innovation-‐oriented,

these creative subjects were rated by teammates as behaving more creatively.” (2014)

Showing us that when one creates the proper culture to prosper creativity they’re tooling their

team to be successful and prosper new ideas in the process.

These theories are basis to understanding the dynamics and motivation in

organizations and how they operate at different levels whether it is a small group in a study or

looking at a larger organizations performance when differing leadership styles are

implemented throughout the organization. The culture created will be a basis to these

organizations success and will in return create an atmosphere that allows performance to shine

through at its highest level.

Literature Review

Positive Psychology This journal was a look into the factors that are critical for functioning within national

sport organizations. It covers the importance of interpersonal relationships and takes a deeper

look into emotional abilities to manage conflict, emotion, and dynamics within an

organization. They believe that sports psychologist needs to have better understanding of

organizational influences on athlete’s performance. During Fletcher and Hanton’s research

they observed the British Olympic team to find if Ethnographic techniques applied by the sport

psychologists had any effect on the athletes performance. This method was put in place to

hopefully help with trustfulness between the team members and in turn create a better

environment for performance. This article helps with understanding how important

relationships are to an organizations success. With positive relationships put in place, dealing


with and resolving conflict within the organization becomes less of a hassle and with proper

communication tactics put in place allows for emotions to be acknowledged and understood.

Emotions are the key impact to the success of an organization.

Culture Change in Elite Sports The article by Cruickshank is a look into how the culture within a performance

department can be actively optimized. It is believed that cultural issues can have an extensive

impact on elite team performance. There is a lot of pressure that is put on an organization to

deliver high results without getting to place their own culture identity within the organization.

In order for elite teams to be successful their culture will need to change. Teams need to share

their values, perceptions and behaviors with each other to fully reinforce the critical factors.

The journal goes into detail about how a culture change is rarely smooth in the beginning. One

doesn’t just jump into a new culture based environment that has been established before and

immediately see results. But once culture has successfully established processes, optimum

performance can be achieved. Cruishank provides some examples throughout to show how

culture change has been successful within organizations that currently exist. A culture change

is constructed to fill in the gaps and finds subtle changes to improve the team culture.

Culture Change in Olympic Sports Within the article by Cruickshank, Collins, and Minten they are looking for ways to help

improve our Olympic team by placing new a cultural atmosphere to allow the athletes to

thrive. Sport psychologists have long been aware of what impact culture roles have had in

shaping and forming teams performance. Their research delves into what philosophy of

applied discipline that could make a difference within these organizations. They examine the

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Grounded Theory Method to see what fields they could focus on when experimenting. It was

put together to find what varying degrees of success were seen in short and long-‐term change.

Understanding High Performing Environments Eubank takes a firm stance on how sport psychologists can become the cultural

architect for high performance sport organizations. It’s an understanding of what the real

nature of the sports environment is today. Culture should be based on performance and team

specific dynamics, making it effective and sustainable. Eubank has an insightful look into high

performing sport environments and finds how culture is effective for these teams and

organizations. For those that don’t know, culture is an important concept in the world of elite

sports, the intangibles from a positive culture has tangible evidence showing so.

Leadership Styles Over the years leadership styles have developed and been created by multiple people

trying to really trying to focus on getting the most out of their teams performance. There have

been many theories that have populated over time but when speaking in the business terms

Hersey and Blanchard were one of the best when speaking to discuss Leadership Styles in the

workplace. Their theory of situational leadership, which is broken down into four leadership

styles: Telling, Selling, Participating, and Delegating. (K. Bjugstad, E. Thatch, K. Thompson, A.

Morris, 2006) Telling should be used in situations in which followers lack the training,

confidence, or desire to complete a task. Leaders need to direct followers down the right path.

(2006) Selling is the style to use with followers who are confident and willing, but who are not

able to complete the task. Leaders can guide follower behavior by clarifying decisions and

giving followers the chance to ask questions. (2006) Participating should be used to boost the


motivation of followers who have the capabilities to achieve goals, but who lack confidence in

themselves. Leaders encourage followers to participate in decisions and support their efforts.

Delegating is the style to use when followers are able, confident, and motivated. The leader

can turn over responsibility to the follower in terms of what to do and how to do it. (2006) The

research by Bjugstad, Thatch, Thompson, Morris research gives a clear idea of what this model

Blanchard and Hersey created and gives organizations an idea of how to the approach of

different leaders can have an effect on the employees.

It’s easy to think that organizations can just plug and play with leaders. But it takes time

and effort to really allow the leader to evolve the group and make them what they are. In

Dulewicz and Higgs (2004) research they discuss the characteristics a leader needs to exude to

allow for their team to exceed. Authenticity, being genuine and not attempting to “play a

role.” Integrity, being consistent in what you say and do. Will, a drive to lead, and persistence in

working towards a goal. Self-‐belief, a realistic evaluation of your capabilities and belief that

you can achieve required goals. Self-‐awareness, a realistic understanding of “who you are”;

how you feel and how others see you. This model they built allows for leadership to be

exercised in many different ways. By giving the flexibility but relying on these key factors, the

leader can mold his team into what the organization is looking for.

Impact One early look into the impact of performance throughout organizational performance

was the study conducted by Stanley Lieberson and James O’Connor. They wanted to

understand if leadership qualities can effect one way or another if the style they are trying to

implement controls performance throughout the workplace or not. At the time of their

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experiments the understanding of the fundamental nature of leadership wasn’t fully

understood by public or by psychologists. For instance, “a teams success is directly attributed

to its coach’s brilliance.” (1972) Lieberson and O’Connor feel that their needs to be a balanced

approach when determining organizations progress and how is that progress is being molded

by its leader’s traits. The key to their research model is determining what the importance of

leadership and organizational culture and seeing if these characteristics have any bearing on

the outcome variables that are associated with the organizations being examined. Their

research was conducted over 167 different major publicly owned organizations. They

compared the influence of change in top management with the influence of factors such as the

economy, company’s primary industry, and company’s position within the industry. (1972) And

what they were able to gather is that leadership does not always have clear influence over the

organizations performance. One has to factor in the economy at the time, fluctuation in

interest rates, and also labor shortages. But what they ultimately determine is that leader

differences can be quite relevant reviewing performance improvements and the variances they

can ultimately show. But the only way for these leaders to ultimately be successful and get the

greatest performance out of their teams is by not being constrained by the little things but

being able to look at the bigger picture of what they are trying to create for their respective

organization. If given constraints the magnitude of urging the creation of relationships and

establishing the identity of their teams will forever lose their efforts. Leiberson and O’Connor

were pioneers when it came to the research of leadership’s effect throughout major

organizations. If their research was conducted about thirty years, they would have larger

corporate and sports models to build upon for their research.


Though Alan Thomas’ research is outdated he makes a lot of logical reasoning’s on how

leadership has a direct effect on organizational performance. During this time, there seemed

to be a lot of criticism in regards to leadership being a direct correlation to performance. He

inspects the research of Lieberson and O’Connor and provides a definite answer to the debate

of leadership’s impact to team performance. It had commonly been concluded that leadership

had no impact on performance, but looking at Lieberson and O’Connor’s number under new

light he finds that the profit variance difference is 96.1 percent, 94.8 percent of sales variance,

and 77.5 percent for profit margin variance. (1988) Further showing that leadership has a direct

correlation to an organizations performance levels. Thomas’ research helps confirm what most

have thought over the last few decades. Without proper leadership guiding performance the

world, as we know it would be completely different.

Cohesion Light Shields, Lyle, Gardner, Light Bredemeier, and Bostro explore a more in depth look

into how leadership behaviors can effect the team cohesion and either help or hurt the

performance of teams. They feel that, “most leader behaviors can be placed within two

categories: consideration and initiating structure.” (1997) They continue to say, “consideration

refers to behaviors that foster friendship, mutual trust, heightened respect, and interpersonal

warmth between the leader and subordinates. Initiating structure refers to behaviors that

establish rules and regulations, channels of communications, procedural methods, and well-‐

defined patterns of organization that facilitate group goals and objectives.” (1997) Giving

organizations the structures to behaviors that help mold group cohesion throughout the entire

team. In order for team cohesion to be created there needs to be a leader that is able to

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withstand the role and take the team and mold them into top performers at every level.

Looking through Chelladurai and Carron’s Multidimensional Leadership model, they were able

to elaborate on the structures that leaders needed in place to be successful. The leader needed

to provide leadership in five dimensions, “training and instruction, democratic and autocratic

behavior, positive feedback, and social support.” (Light Shields, Lyle, Gardner, Light

Bredemeier, & Bostro, 1997) Showing us that leader behaviors can have a direct effect of

performance and satisfaction. If the leader is capable of utilizing these five behaviors he/she

will be able to get the most out of their athletes or team.

Providing rewards to those individuals that perform at higher levels can also assist

building cohesion. Onne Janssen’s research gives us an idea of how effort is spent when

rewards given are based solely on ones performance. Job demands can cause team members

to lose interest in what they are performing. Placing a rewards system is critical for creating

innovative behaviors; by underlying a motivation process it demands individuals to work at

high level. This can cause tension though the organization if the reward system isn’t

established correctly. If not offered to all team members at all levels, it could cause a divide

and end up driving team performance down.

Major Organization Culture Innovative leaders are what have built this country and have been the forefront of

creating and designing the top companies in the world. Leaders that base themselves off of

creating and establishing innovation are not afraid of failures. They strive from being put down

and working to improve themselves and their products. Some of our most innovative leaders

of all time at one points in their lives failed miserably but they persevered and took their ideas


and passion and created products consumers would come to love. For instance Steve Jobs and

Bill Gates, both of these men have an unprecedented amount of passion when it comes to their

works. As documented when viewing Roland Bel’s research in Leadership and Innovation:

Learning from the Best. In his research he talks about these major companies who would not be

where they are today without these innovative leaders taking risks and putting it all out there

on the line for their teams to prove that the product or technology being created was going to

change the world. And without this, organizations would not be as far technology wise without

people striving for greatness. These leaders fall into the category of IDEA understanding of

leadership created by Hersey and Blanchard, the idea of Inspiring, Driving, Enabling, and

Advising makes these leaders create a culture and atmosphere that gets the most out of their

respective organizations. Creating a culture around these concepts creates a support team that

not only reinforces the work, but also insures that they are apart of a team that is striving to

create something great. If companies and teams are looking to bring their respective

organization to another level of performance they will need to let leadership create

atmospheres of creative strategy so the team or organization can exceed at the highest of

levels.

Culture Schein’s work in 1983 about the founder creating the organizational culture is a source

of great information for research due to the impact that the culture created by the founder can

have at later dates when the company has been fully established. The founder is the first leader

to implement their ways into the system and will ultimately be the determining factor to the

long-‐term success of an organization. His research shows us that the culture cannot be defined

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until the group faces a crisis that helps define who they are. Because “organizational culture is

a pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or developed.”

(Schien, 1983) So its founder does not uniquely determine the culture, yet it based upon

experiences that the organization goes through. When the founder starts to build the culture,

he starts with a theory on how to succeed. It is also based upon how they were raised as well;

the ultimate organizational culture will reflect the complex interaction between theories

established by the founders along with how the group has learned through the organizations

experiences. Though the founder sets the initial culture, it is then the managers (leaders) to

either establish their own culture that they would like to see, or keep with the founder’s vision

and continue on with the traditions and influences that were set in the beginning. If the values

can be set forth correctly and there is buy in from the team, the individual has created an

atmosphere (culture) that will thrive with hard work and innovation. And if one can’t get the

organizational culture to change with the times, and the different leaders introduces, the

organization will not be able to create uniqueness and be overall effective.

Chatman and Barsade’s research delves into how organizational behavior can effect the

environment around itself and define the culture throughout the organization. Their research

shows that cooperative behavior can be difficult; it is sometimes easier working alone, rather

then working with a team. It requires knowledge and propensity to want to work in a group to

create a collective behavior that works towards the same goal. Individual behaviors has a role

in determining if a team wants to work with each other or just go their separate ways and try to

obtain the goal on their own. To create a great fit for the team and get the most productivity

out of them, creating an environment where everyone’s personalities wants to be associated


with a certain kind of culture, if all is believing into the values set ahead by the leader of the

group, the buy in from the individuals is substantially larger. The idea is cooperative behavior

results from matching individual’s personal organizational culture beliefs. This is a good idea,

but this belief needs to understand that there is always going to be conflicting ideologies by

management and team members. If one can’t get the team to come together and set that

precedent, there will be conflict and the cooperative effort will be lost.

Culture and Leadership Schien’s work in 1992 was great insight into how organizations thrive through culture.

It’s an understanding that culture and leadership cannot always determine how the team will

perform on a day-‐to-‐day basis. “Culture manifests itself at the level of artifacts espoused

values but that its essence lies in the underlying basic assumptions.” (Schien, 1992) Meaning

that different dimensions of leadership and values plays a major role in how one defines the

culture within the organizations. But what has to be understood is that culture doesn’t

ultimately measure success or failure, not even leadership can put a pure measurement on it.

There needs to be a functional workforce or team put in place that can ultimately produce

results for the individual. It needs to be remembered “that it is leadership that has created the

particular culture content that the group ends up with.” (1992) The team will immerse itself in

the behavior and demands the leader exerts, it’s their job to influence and lead the group by

being personally involved. The research conducted by Schien also provides the information

needed to know how a change within the organization could effect the culture, but

nonetheless, how does the leadership involved react. By being informative and knowing what

is coming the leaders can properly prepare for the actions that are going to take place with the

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changes that the organization is undertaking. If the leader can manage to withstand the

changes that take place, and are able to know how to properly act and lead with compassion

and desire, he or she will not only get the buy in from the group, but it will allow the

organization to prosper into new heights and understandings. Most transformational changes

tend to fail because they don’t establish a clear outline of how they want the change to take

place. If the energy and resources are properly put into the correct roles, the issues involved

with the change will be insignificant because leadership has taken a larger role into the

situation and were able to communicate with their team of the changes that were about to

take place and had them properly prepared for the outcome and desired turnout of the change

in place. Once changes are put in place the role of reconstructing takes place and this step is

learned through trial and error. If the leaders are unable to identify with the redefining roles

that he will put his team through, they are not going to have proper direction to put

themselves in the proper mindset for the changes taking place. “Most change processes

emphasize the need for behavior change, but behavior change alone will not last unless it is

accompanied by cognitive redefinition.” (Schien, 1992) With establishing the redefining

cultural aspects, the leader can then lay the groundwork to put his team in the right position to

be successful when called upon. It will be important with this change that the leader still

establishes old cultural concepts in with new ones. With each little change the mentality will

have to change along with it. Leaders are going to have to brace for the push back, and

continue on with establishing the change of culture asked of him.


Discussion and Conclusion Though the concept of culture effecting athletes performance, the research was able to

identify mostly with business organizations performance and how leadership and culture play a

significant role in how well the teams under certain leadership performs. From the research it

shows that there is a definite link between the performance of individuals and the surrounding

they are accompanied with whether it has to do with the leader of the team or the culture that

the organization has established. Leaders have a role to make sure that the culture they have

built is not disrupted by internal struggles and they can address these issues as quickly as

possible and continue to have an environment that allows for creativity and uniqueness.

The relationships that the leader creates can be critical for athletes or employees to

perform at their peak levels. By allowing for an atmosphere that cultivates teamwork research

shows that they will be more creative with their actions along with significantly increasing

productivity. If the organization is able to establish a culture that allows these individuals to

thrive and feel comfortable in the environment, the organization could look to see an upward

variance in performance. People thrive in culture when they are allowed to be who they are

and not have a ton of restraint from the people around them. If allowed to be your own person

while still working closely with the leadership put in place, productivity can and will increase. It

is just a matter of buy in from the team in order to make sure the understanding of what is

being accomplished can be the forefront of all.

Pete Carroll and these legendary coaches have shown us that being a leader within an

organization is not easy. But once an individual has established their culture and principles, the

team will swarm to their beliefs and buy in to the culture and atmosphere created. It’s only a

matter of time before all teams start to really look into the culture being created by their

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leaders and truly asses what is needed to succeed and what is useless tactics that are being

placed into the organization. High performance is created from within, but creating a culture

and putting leadership in place to guide that performance only leads to high results and

championships.


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