Establishing the Right Context and Culture

Redistributing power implies that followers must be competent and positioned in the right cultural context. This is the third pillar of the creative model of leadership. As employees are to be trusted with proper competences, the organization must get the right people on board. At this stage, the bias of similarity and social conformity leads to hiring people with similar backgrounds, and this restricts innovation. But establishing a proper cultural context is another elusive goal. It takes a long haul to escape the culture of immediate results, transactional relationships, and struggle for power as leaders have to fight against the bias of least effort. Moreover, transversal coordination is hindered by the bias of social conformity. The learning culture also requires a climate of psychological safety to give people the courage to speak up and tolerate failure. The bias of psychological insecurity does not encourage initiative as people focus attention on being at fault. Moreover, change is stressful and effortful because it is more difficult to unlearn than to learn. Finally, victory is collective, and it becomes essential to measure results and recognize the contributions of all, while orchestrating the whole.