When we look at organizations in today’s day and age, we only associate ourselves with the leaders or the men or women who hold the highest posts in those firms. We then make assumptions on how their work ethics and impact on the organization shapes the organizational culture of the firm. This is where we go wrong.

Organizational culture can be interpreted in many different ways, by many different people, some may say firms have an ‘innovative’ culture, and some may say that their organization follows a “customer focused,” but then again, it’s the leaders in the firm that help set that image or that culture.[i] Now, why is every employee not a leader? Why is there so much differentiation between the workforce and the higher level employees at firms? The answer is simple, the general workforce is usually not motivated enough or given enough freedom or autonomy by the very leaders who practice different leadership styles and try to create or blend into the desired organizational culture they wish to create.

Moving back to my first point, we go wrong in identifying a firm by identifying its CEO or another higher level employee, which contributes as generalization and eventually effects workforce morale negatively as the lower level employees could only dream of achieving such a position and mostly lose hope of advancement. This generalization causes workers to think they are not good enough and hence contribute away from the desired organizational culture for the firm. This is solely in my opinion; I may be wrong as there as examples of firms such as Google Inc. which follow open cultures that allow a free flow of information through every department in the firm and also allow employees to communicate their ideas and vision.[ii]

In conclusion, I’d like to point out that we as people should not only look at the leaders of the firm, but also the drivers of the firms, the employees and give them the credit they deserve.

[i] Whitehurst, Jim. “Leaders Can Shape Company Culture Through Their Behaviors.” Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Publishing, 13 Oct. 2016. Web. 05 Feb. 2017. <https://hbr.org/2016/10/leaders-can-shape-company-culture-through-their-behaviors>.

[ii] Kennedy, Sean. “Google’s Organizational Culture & Values.” Study.com. Study.com, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2017. <http://study.com/academy/lesson/googles-organizational-culture-values.html>.