Culture and Leadership 5

In the last byte, we looked how rewarding could help get the organizational values aligned. In today's byte, we look at how hiring and firing decisions by leaders could reinforce the organizational culture.

Hiring and Firing decisions are very strong indicators of the way leaders reinforce the organizational culture. 

Often leaders unconsciously look out for new members who are similar to the current organizational members in terms of values and assumptions. As a practise in some companies that recommendations by a current employee, and this too helps find new employees who have similar values. The policy of promoting from within also servs to reinforce organizational culture. 

The way an organization deals with firing an employee and the rationale behind the act are important means to communicate about the organization's culture. Some companies poor performers are transfered to another department where they could perform better and make useful contributions. In others these employees would be qickly be sent away from the organization. 

In some case where the reason may not be communicated to the employee, the speculation plays a major role. Imagine: An employee caught displaying unethical behavior and if simply reprimanded even though the behavior is against the organization's values - other employees in such a context would think that this is a failure to reinforce the values within an organization.