Organizational Culture Beginnings of an HEI Through the Leadership of a Visionary Founder
De La Salle Lipa, Philippines
ABSTRACT
This research aims to document how founders or leaders of organizations create organizational cultures. It takes one educational institution as its unit of analysis since, as this founder himself articulated, “Schools have a peculiar culture; and that all organizations develop their own culture and each one manifests unique characteristics which are either supportive of, or resistive of change.” An organization’s culture is usually the result of the leader’s initiatives geared towards realizing its vision. Schein’s seminal work on the primary embedding mechanisms of organizational culture shall serve as the theoretical model of this research. Utilizing the qualitative research design that relied on in-depth interviews, the researcher found out that the leader (in the person of Br. Rafael Donato) had adopted the six primary embedding mechanisms of Schein namely: what leaders pay attention to, measure, and control on a regular basis; how leaders react to critical incidents and organizational crises; how leaders allocate resources; deliberate role modeling, teaching, and coaching; how leaders allocate rewards and status; and how leaders recruit, select, promote, and excommunicate people. Interview results revealed the various approaches and strategies of this leader in forming, shaping, and developing an organizational culture that transformed this entity from a seemingly lethargic college to a dynamic and progressive institution that has achieved national accreditation. All throughout his administrative stint, he invested largely on people development that was sustained by his successors.
KEYWORDS
DLSL, organizational culture, visionary leadership, embedding mechanisms