Page 10 - The EDGE Fall 2024

Organizational Culture: How important Is It?
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be affected by the change and in the first letter,
explain the problem you are facing and why there
might be a need for a change. In this letter, you
can solicit feedback from staff and provide them
with a timeline for doing this. The second letter
provides staff with the potential solutions that have
been identified as well as another opportunity to
provide questions or concerns about the proposed
solutions. Lastly, the third letter communicates
to staff that actions that are being taken with an
explanation of when this is happening and what
changes will need to be made.
What kind of manager are you?
"Investing your time, effort,
and money in creating an
organizational culture that makes
your employees love coming to
work might be the most effective
way to compete for today’s
workforce."
This will have a huge effect on the engagement of
your employees and the culture of your district.
According to Clint Pulver (p. 60, I Love it Here),
there are four types of management styles that
employees encounter:
· The removed manager.
· The buddy manager.
· The controlling manager.
· The mentor manager.
I think you can guess by the titles of these
management styles which one is the most effective,
and if you’re being honest with yourself, you can
probably see characteristics you have that might
fall in the different styles. The removed manager
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is that person who seems to be there physically but
wants to be anywhere else. This is probably the
most dangerous person you have if you are trying
to build organizational culture.
As the names suggest, the buddy manager may only
want to talk to you about what happened on their
favorite show last night, but isn’t very interested
in the projects you are working on or what help
you might need to get it done. The controlling
manager doesn’t create any personal connections
with their employees and only care about deadlines
and getting the work done. The sweet spot lays
somewhere in the middle! Clint Pulver describes
a mentor manager as someone who is able to build
connections to employees and has the ability to
create trust in the organization while maintaining
organizational expectations.
Creating Culture
There are many ways to create a positive culture
in your school district, but it all starts with
understanding what is important to your staff and
how they feel appreciated. We probably all have
a staff member who always goes the extra mile
for you, but when you try and publicly appreciate
them, become very upset with you. This is because
we didn’t bother to understand how this employee
wants to be appreciated.
There are typically five ways to show your
employees you appreciate them.
1. Words of affirmation
(either publicly or in private).
2. Acts of service.
3. Quality time.
4. Tangible gifts.
5. Appropriate physical touch.
We’ve touched briefly on works of affirmation, but
the other styles can be just as effective, depending
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THE EDGE FALL 2024