Abstract
Management is an area rich in buzzwords that quite often get out of fashion, which seems not to be the case in leadership that has long been considered the heart of any organization. Practitioners know it, and academics know it. If we search for leadership on Google, the results are of several millions. Or, if we search for leadership in the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge database, the results are over 100,000! Leadership is studied in research areas that stretch from business economics and psychology to history and health-care sciences, and although it may seem that leadership is a well-known phenomenon, the most productive years of research on the topic are from 2000 onwards. Thus, one might confirm that leadership will always be an area of interest.
Jane Sparrow, in her book, The Culture Builders. Leadership Strategies for Employee Performance, offers an interesting perspective of how leaders can assume different roles, always with the aim of building and maintaining a strong culture, which in turn will support employee higher performance. Based on the concept of engagement and a practical approach, her perspective is grounded on the idea that it is necessary to focus on three levels to engage employees for superior performance: organizational engagement strategy, focus on managers as culture builders and engagers and leaders as not only role models but also context creators for managers to engage and motivate their teams.
The concept of engagement is at the core of Sparrow’s approach. As she acknowledges, engagement is an arguable concept, although she does not explain why. However, one might say that the academic literature argues that this is because it is said to be a ‘fancy’ name for involvement or commitment, and because it is far from being well established in solid and grounded findings. Nevertheless, as with many other concepts in management, engagement seems to be warmly welcomed among practitioners, and the academic interest in the concept is mostly due to this practical popularity.
The book is divided into four parts, with a total of 23 chapters. Following the three levels referred above, the rationale behind the different parts is to address strategy for organizational engagement (part 1), then to address the manager and the leader roles as culture builders (parts 2 and 3) and finally to look at engagement in action (part 4), providing a few, brief, case studies.
The introduction starts with a compelling story that illustrates how ordinary people, when confronted with difficult situations, can become heroes, especially if they feel engaged. The story takes the reader to the first crucial statement of the book: ‘the heart of positively shaping and sustaining culture in organisations, so to build a great culture, engagement is critical’ (p. 1).
The first part of the book approaches the essentials of the concept of engagement: what, why and drivers. Although there is no in-depth discussion of the concept, Sparrow defines engagement as ‘being focused in what you do (thinking), feeling good about yourself in your role and the organisation (feeling), and acting in a way that demonstrates commitment to the organisational values and objectives (acting)’ (p. 7) based on a publication from the Research Insight. Nevertheless, there is a lack of discussion and critical perspective since the section ends with the idea that ‘great leaders’ intuitively know to engage employees. However, there is no explanation on how they achieve it. Then the author moves onto the clarification of why engagement is important to organizations, focusing on its consequences, namely, competitive advantage, confidence, reduced sickness, retention, customers as advocates and revenue. The author then takes a step back, and the next chapter is about the drivers of engagement. Based on a study by Best Companies, the author presents eight factors that influence workplace engagement, namely, ‘my manager’, ‘leadership’, ‘my company’, ‘my team’, ‘personal growth’, ‘fair deal’, ‘giving something back’ and ‘well-being’. It is interesting to see that managers and leaders are two of the most mentioned drivers of engagement, which helps to hold Sparrow’s approach.
The first part of Sparrow’s thinking closes with the main issue: organizational engagement strategy. After some introductory remarks, she goes on to present the four-stage model of engagement, based on the concepts of ‘understanding’, ‘commitment’, ‘attachment’ and ‘significance’, along four chapters. These four stages represent different levels of engagement. First, employees need to know where they are going, the direction in which the organization is going and how they fit and may contribute. ‘Commitment’ is more than ‘understanding’ since it has an emotional dimension. The employee understands, feels and bonds with the ideas of the organization. The next level of engagement, ‘attachment’, needs a strong commitment, but goes further by creating a feeling of ‘shared ownership for success’ (p. 23). Finally, ‘significance’ is about the perfect alignment between company and employee values and meaning of life. According to the author, this is the ultimate stage of engagement that can boost exceptional performance.
Having set up the organizational engagement strategy, the author now moves to the roles of managers and leaders in the implementation stage. She adopts a classical distinction in leadership studies between managers and leaders. According to this approach (see Kotter, 1990), leadership is about ‘establishing direction’, ‘aligning people’ and ‘motivating and inspiring’, while management is focused on ‘planning and budgeting’, ‘organizing and staffing’ and ‘controlling and problem solving’. As Kotter (1990: 7) puts it, leadership and management are very different. The latter ‘does not produce consistency and order, as the word itself implies; it produces “movement” or, in other words, it produces change’.
Following this reasoning, Sparrow argues that managers and leaders need to master five specific roles if they want to be greater engagers. The critical skill is to be able to identify when each role is appropriate. Although not stated, this assumption closely follows the contingency approach, which is based on the idea that there is no best leadership style. The proper type of leadership is the one that is suitable to several contingent aspects of the situation.
Chapter 11 gives an overview of the five roles managers can assume as culture builders, and the following five chapters are devoted to each of these roles, namely, ‘prophet’, ‘storyteller’, ‘strategist’, ‘coach’ and ‘pilot’.
The ‘prophet’ is purpose driven and uses passion, vision and inspiration as the emotional basis to accomplish it. The ‘storyteller’ provides guidance in order to define the individuals’ role in the story of the organization. Using context, content and metaphors, ‘storytellers’ get the best of their teams. Logic is the centrefold of the ‘strategist’. He or she develops a plan in order to ensure the achievement of the desired level of engagement. Getting the best out of people is the role of the ‘coach’. This is done through collaborative work and understanding what drives each individual. The ‘pilot’ is a role model. People will respect and trust their judgement. Although they might give some autonomy to the team, they never diverge from the end goals.
The five roles of the leader as culture builder are presented and explained from chapter 17 onwards. The names of these roles are the same as the roles presented for managers. However, there is a difference in the definition and on what is expected from these roles. Generally, while the managers’ roles are oriented to individual and team engagement, the leaders’ roles have an organizational focus and broader impact, without forgetting their own teams.
The book finishes with a series of short case studies that illustrate the main ideas developed along the previous 22 chapters. Suggestively entitled ‘Engagement in action’, the cases help the reader to understand and visualize how engagement can be fostered in any organization, either by focusing on outstanding leadership-led engagement situations, or on the key role played by managers. Collected from the author’s experience in the field or as part of the research for the book, the cases are intended to create awareness of ‘what to watch for’ when implementing a culture of engagement.
‘Culture Builders’ is a book marked by the author’s own experience as a practitioner. As such, the ideas are very fluid and straightforward, accompanied by examples of real organizational life situations, and the models presented throughout the book are very intuitive. All of this can work as an inspiration for readers, fulfilling the goal of helping practitioners to find out solutions to their own specific situations. Nevertheless, this focus on the practical approach leaves some concepts and ideas with little or no theoretical and empirical grounding. For example, there is no discussion of the concept of engagement, namely, what makes it different from other related concepts, such as involvement or commitment. Also, the drivers and consequences of engagement are based on one study alone, without looking at the literature that already exists on these topics. Finally, the proposed model of organizational engagement strategy is solely based on the author’s own ideas and experience.
All in all, the contribution of this book is most welcomed. The debate about engagement is just beginning, and there is a need to offer inputs to the discussion. Moreover, mastering its practical implications, and most of all, how to do it is absolutely indispensable, if we (academics and practitioners) want to give solid steps towards its understanding and implementation.