The complexity facing today’s organizations calls for a rethinking of leadership. The world is facing grand challenges for people and planet. Leaders and employees bear the responsibility of formulating strategies grounded in strong values. These strategies aim to foster the growth of sustainable organizations and promote ethical work practices. This book gives voice to values-based leadership and provides a method for leaders to develop a values-based organizational culture. Values play a role on many levels in how we work as individual leaders, in teams, in organizations, and in how organizations approach societal challenges. Values can be a compass or orientation point, giving direction for decisions and actions. Awareness of values can make organizational responsibilities clearer and give a sense of meaning to work, and help leaders to create organizations where corporate, moral, and social values are embedded at every level. This book gives insight into a Scandinavian values-based leadership model built on the institutional leadership tradition. It provides processes and practices that leaders can use to develop organizations where values are continuously nurtured. The book provides practical ideas of how leaders can work on becoming conscious of both the organization’s explicit and implicit values, as well as working on the direction of the organization and its broader organizational culture. This book will be an invaluable resource for both practitioners and graduate students interested in leadership and organizational development.

The complexity facing today’s organizations calls for a rethinking of leadership. The world is facing grand challenges for people and planet. Leaders and employees bear the responsibility of formulating strategies grounded in strong values. These strategies aim to foster the growth of sustainable organizations and promote ethical work practices. This book gives voice to values-based leadership and provides a method for leaders to develop a values-based organizational culture. Values play a role on many levels in how we work as individual leaders, in teams, in organizations, and in how organizations approach societal challenges. Values can be a compass or orientation point, giving direction for decisions and actions. Awareness of values can make organizational responsibilities clearer and give a sense of meaning to work, and help leaders to create organizations where corporate, moral, and social values are embedded at every level. This book gives insight into a Scandinavian values-based leadership model built on the institutional leadership tradition. It provides processes and practices that leaders can use to develop organizations where values are continuously nurtured. The book provides practical ideas of how leaders can work on becoming conscious of both the organization’s explicit and implicit values, as well as working on the direction of the organization and its broader organizational culture. This book will be an invaluable resource for both practitioners and graduate students interested in leadership and organizational development.

The issue of how strategizing takes place in complex contexts is explored in this in-depth study of one complex firm operating in complex environments. The research focuses on manager and staff activities addressing strategic issues and how those activities attempt to shape the future of the firm. Twenty subsystems have been identified in the firm investigated. These subsystems form a network of interdependent subsystems. The various subsystems in organizations form an overall strategizing system. Nine integration mechanisms are identified and described. The integration mechanisms have been found to play a key role in translating and integrating issues and subsystems and in integrating subsystems with interdependencies. Such strategy processes tend to result in incremental adjustments of the present organization. When organizations are confronted with strategic issues for which it does not have appurtenant subsystems, management faces a fundamental strategic decision as to whether new subsystems should be created. The presence of subsystems has significant consequences for the speed with which the organization can handle issues.