Transforming Your Leadership Culture

THE CULTURE DEVELOPMENT CYCLE 183

refer to at times as “ dimensions ” or “ phases. ” Why not “ steps ”?

Because we want to avoid reinforcing the idea that the cycle

must begin at one place, or that one can simply move in order

from one phase or dimension to the other. Inevitably you begin

wherever you are on the cycle right now. But also inevitably,

you must engage in all six phases in order to transform leader-

ship culture.

A transforming organization evolves through all six phases

as a collective, organizational learning cycle in order to achieve

an advance in culture stage. Simultaneously, within the cycle,

continuous interactions between the six dimensions of work

Figure 8.1 Culture Development Cycle: A Learning

Cycle for Leadership Culture

Leadership

Transformation

Inside-Out

as Role Shift

Experience

Innovation Headroom asEngagement

Readiness

for Risk and

Vulnerability

Structure,

Systems, and

Business Processes

Focus here is implementation of change,

integration and refinement of

system, structure, and

process; learning

communities

emerging

triggers:

What if?

Focus here is

experimenting,

application, and

evolving strategy

into action and learning;

elevating ideas of leadership triggers:

Change how?

Focus here is gut-level experience,

personal connection to

change; grassroots, truth-

telling triggers:

Why change?

Focus here is

making sense of

dilemmas, imagining

and defining future; public

dialog in search of root causes triggers:

Change what?

Conformer

Achiever

Collaborator

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