Discussion: Week 1: Sociopolitical Skills Organizational structure, norms, values, culture, etc., all have an impact on a leader’s success. Consider the new or advancing leader. Such a leader is expected to learn how to effectively perform all of the important administrative and professional/technical tasks. In addition, the leader needs to master the necessary social skills associated with early effectiveness in the new position. Below are 10 “sociopolitical” categories which may influence a transitioning leader's early (and enduring) effectiveness. These include, in no particular order, the ability to:    · enter into an established leader/employee “network”; · sense, as well as use, appropriate communication and influence behaviors; · sense and appropriately act on keen organizational norms; · become aware of, and sensitively interact with, organizational “blockers” and “enablers”; · build political bridges by identifying and relating to key formal/informal power sources; · become known as a “go-to/can-do” individual; · be perceived as a “team player”; · sense key organizational issues upon which to create early vision, initiatives, and value; · identify and appropriately respond to the requirements of superiors/peers/subordinates; and · be perceived as having organizationally appropriate ethics, values, and beliefs.    Please note that these are behavioral skill categories, not actual behaviors. You likely use many of the actual behaviors (such as “interpersonal communication”) within a category every day.   Week 1 Discussion Question: Does this list of “sociopolitical” skill categories match your sense of what is most required to help ensure a leader's early success in a new role/position? What might you add or subtract to help ensure the most effective transition into a new job? 250 words with in-text citations and references from required reading notes. Module 4 - SLP Organizational Structure and Culture For the SLP 4 assignment, you will explore some aspects of an organization's culture, at least as you see it. (Select an organization you have worked with, if possible.) Since the concept of organizational culture is open to many interpretations and classifications, this assessment offers a slightly different approach from your background reading on organizational culture. Required Reading The People Group, Based on Gallup Research: What Makes a Great Workplace? Retrieved from  https://thepeoplegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/article-gallup-research-what-makes-a-great-workplace1.pdf McNamara, C. (2000) Organizational Culture. Adapted from the Field guide to Organizational Leadership and Supervision. Free Management Library. Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/organizations/culture.htm Assignment Think about the results from the Gallup Survey for a minute, and how it compares to the Academy, Baseball Team, Fortress, and Club cultures described by McNamara in the Background reading. Then prepare a 2- to 3-page paper addre.

1. Discussion: Week 1: Sociopolitical Skills
Organizational structure, norms, values, culture, etc., all have
an impact on a leader’s success. Consider the new or advancing
leader. Such a leader is expected to learn how to effectively
perform all of the important administrative and
professional/technical tasks. In addition, the leader needs to
master the necessary social skills associated with early
effectiveness in the new position. Below are 10 “sociopolitical”
categories which may influence a transitioning leader's early
(and enduring) effectiveness. These include, in no particular
order, the ability to:
· enter into an established leader/employee “network”;
· sense, as well as use, appropriate communication and
influence behaviors;
· sense and appropriately act on keen organizational norms;
· become aware of, and sensitively interact with, organizational
“blockers” and “enablers”;
· build political bridges by identifying and relating to key
formal/informal power sources;
· become known as a “go-to/can-do” individual;
· be perceived as a “team player”;
· sense key organizational issues upon which to create early
vision, initiatives, and value;
· identify and appropriately respond to the requirements of
superiors/peers/subordinates; and
· be perceived as having organizationally appropriate ethics,
values, and beliefs.
Please note that these are behavioral skill categories, not actual
behaviors. You likely use many of the actual behaviors (such as
“interpersonal communication”) within a category every day.
Week 1 Discussion Question:
Does this list of “sociopolitical” skill categories match your

2. sense of what is most required to help ensure a leader's early
success in a new role/position? What might you add or subtract
to help ensure the most effective transition into a new job?
250 words with in-text citations and references from required
reading notes.
Module 4 - SLP
Organizational Structure and Culture
For the SLP 4 assignment, you will explore some aspects of an
organization's culture, at least as you see it. (Select an
organization you have worked with, if possible.) Since the
concept of organizational culture is open to many
interpretations and classifications, this assessment offers a
slightly different approach from your background reading on
organizational culture.
Required Reading
The People Group, Based on Gallup Research: What Makes a
Great Workplace? Retrieved from
https://thepeoplegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/article-
gallup-research-what-makes-a-great-workplace1.pdf
McNamara, C. (2000) Organizational Culture. Adapted from the
Field guide to Organizational Leadership and Supervision. Free
Management Library. Retrieved from
http://managementhelp.org/organizations/culture.htm
Assignment
Think about the results from the Gallup Survey for a minute,
and how it compares to the Academy, Baseball Team, Fortress,
and Club cultures described by McNamara in the Background
reading.
Then prepare a 2- to 3-page paper addressing:
· In your opinion, do the Gallup results fit your general
expectations or constitute a surprise in some ways? Interpret the
results of the Gallup survey in terms of your own experience,
either to confirm or to question the results. Compare the Gallup

3. results and your opinions with the McNamara categories.
· The degree to which the Gallup results and the McNamara
information tell you similar or dissimilar things about your
organization.
· Does the Gallup survey and the McNamara categories help
improve your managerial understanding and/or skills? What can
you infer from the results about how your organization’s culture
fits or doesn't fit with you? What (if anything) can you do to
make your interaction with the culture more effective?
· Provide your opinion on whether or not the above two sources
in this SLP 4 help you understand the organization and how you
cope with it. Do they accurately depict what is needed to
analyze a company’s culture?
SLP Assignment Expectations
Your paper will be evaluated using the criteria on the SLP
rubric (see the rubric for more detail): Assignment-Driven,
Critical Thinking, Business Writing, Effective Use of
Information, Citing Sources, and Timeliness.
Module 4 - Case
Organizational Structure and Culture
Assignment Overview
The format of this case differs from the previous three modules
and resembles more closely the format of assignments you will
see in many of your courses going forward. This is not to say
that you should abandon what you have learned about the
analytical process of alternating between the abstract and the
concrete, the reflective and the active, but this paper will not
follow the format of a section on concrete experience, reflective
observation, abstract conceptualization, and active
experimentation. Each of these aspects of analysis should be
present, but integrated into the paper as a whole, rather than
broken out into distinct sections.
The topic of this case is organizational design. To complete this
assignment, we will begin as before, and you should identify an

4. organization you know very well. Then conduct your analysis
by addressing the topics below. Do not line up the questions and
address them one at a time as in a short-answer test, but rather
integrate them into a single coherent commentary and analysis
of the organization. A critical part of successful completion of
this assignment is for you to demonstrate your ability to employ
the concepts introduced in the background material in
describing and evaluating the effectiveness of the organizational
design. To do this, you will need to draw on the concepts from
at least three readings/videos. This paper should be 4-6 pages
long.
Case Questions:
1. Diagram the formal structure of your organization. Identify
the various management positions or titles on the chart and
indicate the positions/jobs that would report to each. Identify
the various management positions or titles on the chart and
indicate the positions/jobs that would report to each.
SmartDraw.com (https://cloud.smartdraw.com/) provides free
examples, though others are also available via Google.
PowerPoint also has templates for organizational charts you can
use.
2. Describe how work is divided (specialization and
departmentalization), coordinated (chain of command and span
of control), and controlled (centralization and formalization). Is
the structure more mechanistic or organic?
3. Describe the informal structure of the organization. How does
work actually get done?
4. How does the organization deal with the differentiation-
integration issue?
5. Having completed this analysis, identify three strengths and
three weaknesses of the organizational design.
6. If you could suggest one major improvement to the
organizational design, what would it be?

5. Discussion: Week 2: Sociopolitical Skills
Discussion Topic
Using the same scenario as Week 1 of this Discussion, answer
the question in bold below.
Week 2 Discussion Question:
In your view, how important to your enduring success in the job
are your early efforts in a new leadership role? Presuming you
already have practiced some or all of the 10 items, how did you
learn to do so?
250 words with in-text citations and references from required
reading notes.
Module 4 - Background
Organizational Structure and Culture
Required Sources
Organizational Culture
Have you ever observed how some organizations just seem to be
shining stars in their fields, even if the product or service they
produce is not that much different from their competitors? Have
you noticed that it seems that they are the ones who are the
most successful? Did you ever wonder why? Read the following
material on organizational culture for some insights into what
culture is, what it does, how it is formed, and how it is taught to
newcomers in the organization. This reading is available in the
Trident University Library.
Flamholtz, E. & Randle, Y. (2011). Corporate Culture: The
Invisible Asset. Corporate Culture: The Ultimate Strategic
Asset. (pp. 3-25), Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.
This material on organizational culture type may be particularly
helpful as you prepare your Module 4 SLP assignment.
McNamara, C. (2000) Organizational Culture. Adapted from the
Fieldguide to Organizational Leadership and Supervision. Free

6. Management Library.
http://managementhelp.org/organizations/culture.htm
Organizational Structure and Design
The way an organization is designed and structured can have
significant effects on its members and its ability to execute its
strategy. In this module we will try to understand those effects
and analyze the behavioral implications of different
organizational designs.
An organizational structure defines how job tasks are formally
divided, grouped, and coordinated. According to Robbins and
Judge (2014), managers need to address six key elements when
they design their organization’s structure:
Work specialization – the extent to which activities are
subdivided into separate jobs.
Departmentalization – the basis on which jobs will be grouped
together.
Chain of command – the people who individuals and groups
report to.
Span of control – the number of individuals that a manager can
direct efficiently and effectively.
Centralization and de-centralization – the locus of decision-
making authority.
Formalization – the extent to which there will be rules and
regulations to direct employees and managers.
One way to gain insight into the complexity of organizations
and how organizations are structured or designed is through
metaphors. For example, using metaphors, an organization can
be talked about as if it were a machine or as if it were an
organism. The organization that is like a machine is
characterized by extensive departmentalization, high
formalization, and limited by low formalization, flat hierarchy
and the use of cross-hierarchical and cross-functional teams,
free flow of information, and decentralization. Each design has
advantages and disadvantages. For example, organizations that
are like machines are often good at keeping the costs of
standardized products or services down, but could inhibit

7. innovation and creativity. Read the excerpt (pp. 98-108) for
insight into organizational design and how metaphors can be
used to understand how organizations work:
Cameron, E. & Green, M. (2009) How Organizations Really
Work. Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete
Guide to the Models, Tools, & Techniques of Organizational
Change 2nd Ed. (pp. 98-108). London and Philadelphia: Kogan
Page. http://www.bms.lk/download/GDM_Tutorials/e-
books/Making_Sense_of_Change_Management.pdf
Organizational structures are also considered in how they fit or
align with an organization’s strategy, mission, and objectives.
Traditional structures were divisional structures, functional
structures, team-based or process structures, and flexible
structures. More recently, organizations have needed to take on
more “open boundary” designs. Models of hollow, modular, and
virtual organizations describe these “open boundary”
organizations. Overall, the key learning here is that the
structure selected should match the organization’s strategy – or
it will be very difficult for the organization to be successful.
The following reading considers organization design in an era
of newer strategic considerations such as globalization and
changing market dynamics:
Narasimhan, A., Yu, H. H., & Lane, N. (2012). Organization
design: Inviting the outside in. Retrieved from
https://www.imd.org/research-
knowledge/articles/organizational-design-inviting-the-outside-
in/
Aligning culture and structure
Designing an organization's structure involves more than just
shifting boxes and lines on an organizational chart. Mootee
(2012) offers several critical tests when considering the
adequately designing an organization’s structure:
a. The Future Test: Does the design reflect the needs for how a
company plans to compete in the future?
b. The People/Culture Test: Does the design adequately reflect
the motivations, strengths, and weaknesses of employees?

8. c. The Competitive Advantage Test: Does the design allocate
sufficient management emphasis to the strategic priorities?
d. The Power Test: Does the design provide the desired
allocated power to groups/individuals that is linked to the
strategic value of the unit or functions?
e. The Agility Test: Is the design adaptable and swift to respond
to future changes? (p. 1)
It makes intuitive sense that organizational culture and
organizational structure should affect each other. Indeed, the
way work is coordinated, the way hierarchies are designed, and
the way communications are channeled should align with the
norms and values of the people who work there. If they do not,
there will be tension and conflict between the way people feel
comfortable working and the structures that force work to be
done in a different way. The following article is an excellent
and compelling analysis of why management should consciously
insure that culture and structure support each other so that the
organization can function as smoothly and effectively as
possible.
Janicijevic, N. (2013). The mutual Impact of organizational
culture and structure. Economic Annals 58(198). Retrieved from
http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0013-3264/2013/0013-
32641398035J.pdf
Optional Sources
Organizational Culture
Denison, D., Hooijberg, R., & Lane, N. (2012). Building a high-
performance Business Culture. Leading Culture Change in
Global Organizations: Aligning Culture and Strategy. (pp. 1-
23), Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from
http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/4X/04709088/0470
90884X-373.pdf
A classic source for an overview of organizational culture is:
Schein, E. H. (2010) Organizational Culture & Leadership. 4th
ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Available in the Trident
University Library.
Organizational Structure and Design

9. “Guidelines for Organizational Design” assembled by Carter
McNamara, PhD, provides library links to several readings on
the topic.
McNamara, C. (n.d.) Guidelines for organization design. In Free
Management Library. Retrieved from
http://managementhelp.org/organizations/design.htm
Mechanistic vs. Organic Organizational Structure: Contingency
Theory (2014) BusinessMate.Org
http://www.businessmate.org/Article.php?ArtikelId=44
Mootee, I. (2012). What is the right organizational design for
your corporation? And what test to use to know if you’ve got
the right one? Innovation Playground. Retrieved from
https://www.futurelab.net/blog/2012/06/what-right-
organization-design-your-corporation-and-what-test-use-know-
if-youve-got
Robbins, S.P. & Judge, T.A. (2014). Essentials of
Organizational Behavior (12th Edition). Pearson.