Establishing a Futuristic Organizational Culture

Scholars posit numerous differences between leaders and managers.  Leaders are facilitators of change; relish a proactive approach to launching new programs and initiatives, and reaching for the pinnacle of success.  Conversely, managers are grounded on getting the work completed through organizational structures and directing workers’ activities and duties (Dearstyne, 2003).  However, in the arena of records and information management (RIM) programs, the role and responsibility of leaders is always evolving.  Leaders in this environment are inundated with changes, opportunities, diverse clients and new demands, and limited resources (Dearstyne).  To achieve success in a RIM program setting, leaders must possess several traits: (1) optimal personality that typical workers can appreciate and witness wholesome honesty and integrity; (2) ability to see the big picture, while having the ability to get involved in functional work; (3) through strategic practices, influence and motivate workers to pursue a visionary idea; (4) ability to identify, attract, and retain the best worker talent and place them in the right jobs; (5) ability to recognize worker complacency and poor morale and convert such feelings into and promising sense of necessity; (6) understanding fluid customer demands and their relationship with good symmetrical information; (7) keenness to establish appropriate risk management programs and structures to manage the unanticipated; (8) desire to create shareholder value by growing, leveraging opportunities, and building on previous successes; (9) ability to establish and institutionalize appropriate performance measures and metrics, measuring input as well an output, and create a culture of continuous improvement; and (10) a drive and desire to raise the bar on operational performance (Dearstyne).

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