You are to engage (react/respond) to a minimum of at least one (1) of your peer's Forum responses. These responses should be at least 500 words each in length and at least one (1) scholarly reference. Students are encouraged to review the articles, etc. used by fellow students. Where you see an opportunity to pose a challenging question, please do so! Be sure to state what you consider are the strengths and weaknesses of their argument and why this might or might not influence you to change your own answer.

Respond in one or more of the following ways:

Ask a probing question

Share an insight from having read your fellow learners' posting

Offer and support an opinion

Expand on your fellow learners' posting

You can respond by providing a summary and an APA reference to research in the literature

My classmate's forum post is below:

Why is values-based leadership so important to the influence of culture? Does a symbolic act communicate more about company values than an explicit statement? Explain thoroughly.

A value based leader is defined as leading by example, one that does the right thing for the right reasons, and not compromising core principles (Dean, 2016). A leader who embraces this type of thinking can become very successful in fostering strategic vision, and gaining the support, and partnership of other potential business partners. Having values, plays such an important role in the lives of leadership as well as influencing culture. An organization culture begins with a founder or leader who articulates, and implements particular ideas, and values as a vision, philosophy or business strategy (Daft, 2013).

An organization's culture will begin to materialize once the vision, and strategy has been affected. There are two functions that cultures serve, the first is called internal integration, and the focus is to assimilate members so that they know how to relate to one another. The members develop a collective identity, and know how to work together effectively. The second is called external adaptation, and its goal is to help the organization adapt to the external surroundings. Culture helps to influence the daily activities of employees to help them to meet certain goals (Daft, 2013).

Corporate culture is the reaction of people in a corporation to their environment, and to other individuals in the organization (Penn, 2016). Having the confidence, and ability to identify, recognize, and express one's own values become crucial in sound decision making within a corporate culture. The personal values and aspirations of leadership have been identified as a key component of competitive strategy. Having the ability to identify with an employer's corporate values, and goals helps the company to assist in shaping an employee's faithfulness to the job as well as build loyalty to the company. The corporate culture also serves to split personnel issues from company business. Therefore, management can use the culture of the organization to steer employees toward strategic objectives that benefit the firm. When a person realizes there is an authentic and profound association with their own personal values, and those of his or her employer, a powerful union is created. This connection produces many scenarios for both individual growth, and company productivity, exhibited in a variety of ways.

Individual growth and company productivity can be formed if you use those values to make decisions, and those decisions can bring into alignment with the potential opportunities you want to experience. Some of the prospects on what is created are how we arrive at a decision when conditions exist. We can use our beliefs to formulate a response, as well as we can use our values to voice our response, or we can use our intuition to prepare a response. Values can outdo the experiences. Therefore, they can be used for making tough decisions when approached with complex situations as well as values can provide a more flexible means of decision-making than beliefs.

An explicit statement communicates more about company values than a symbolic act. Explicit statements fully and clearly express something, leaving nothing implied. As an example, the company that I work for has a clear vision, and mission statement that states customer is first. Over the years, the market has gotten aggressive, and as business evolves, there has been some incorporation of additional elements to the mission statement. With this progression in the market, the statement is still clear that our customer continues to be first, the additional statement just further builds on the present goals.

A symbolic act in a corporate culture can be a way to express or represent an idea without the use of words. This form of expression can convey powerful meaning as well as suggestive underlying values of organizational life because words and images can indicate more than what they stand for as well as this depiction of interpreting culture can shape how those in corporations feel about their company. Having a reference to a symbol or imagery can enrich writing by making words, and images mean more than one thing. The use of symbols can encourage, create, and enforce a corporate culture by expressing the ideology of a company in spoken stories, sacramental events, and physical artifacts.

Values can be defined as those things that are important to or valued by someone whether it be individual or an organization. It is an embodiment of what an organization stands for and should be the basis for the behavior of its members. Values also provide the basis for judgments about what is important for the organization to succeed in its core business. One place where values are vital is in relation to the company vision. It should be based on the organizations core values such as integrity, professionalism, caring, teamwork, and stewardship. A value based leader will inspire others to make the vision a reality. With a little less focus on the numbers, and more value of building teams, sharing ideas, and stirring of others will sometimes get employees passionate about what they are doing or need to perform. When a leader that is truly value-based, and operating as one, this benefits the entire team as well as the organization.

Reference

Daft, R. L. (2013). Organization Theory & Design 11th Edition. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Dean, K. W. (2016, August 8). VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP: HOW OUR PERSONAL VALUES IMPACT THE WORKPLACE. Retrieved from JVBL: http://www.valuesbasedleadershipjournal.com/issues/vol1issue1/dean.php

Penn, S. (2016, August 8). The Symbolic Approach in Corporate Culture. Retrieved from Small Business: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/symbolic-approach-corporate-culture-16076.html.