Not that you need my accolades on this, but all that you've said there rings very true with me.

In terms of the layers of an organization, culture is really closer to the core than outward vision.  Vision steers the ship but without the boards fit together right and sealed against the water, the rudder can be in great working order, but the ship isn't going to go very far.  Vision moves us forward toward who we want to be and the impact we want to have, but culture defines who we are now and how we're going to get there in large part.

These are abstract and nebulous concepts.  There isn't necessarily a direct corellation between a particular style of leadership and success in all instances.  I think what makes a difference to my observation is that a successful leader is honest enough to evaluate themselves and staff to their weakness.  If you have a strong visionary, conceptual, type A leader, in a successful organization, you can look around and you'll find someone either formally or informally who is either feeding that leader with the information and insight they need to address what they aren't sensitive to, or you have an organizational structure that places someone with the trust and authority of the leader who handles things on their behalf and that leader isn't threatened by the other's expertise or driven by the need to be to top dog in every category of leadership and operations.  Just like you said, self-confidence and humility are what greases the skids.

It's an art more than a science although science in this area is shedding light on what is happening and how.

Very good insight, sir.

Major corporations are re-discovering the power of small teams, because the answer to most problems are almost self evident for those who are closest to the problem and feel its immediate pain.

CULTURE and HABITS define our future, more so than VISION. To use an historical analogy; Captain James Cook had VISION to explore the great southern ocean (as did many other men), but this could not be achieved without a CULTURE of innovation to solve the two problems: navigation and scurvy. Good HABITS make us use what we know on a daily basis – because unless we apply knowledge it is useless.

People are what make things tick in anything.  If they are not your #1 priority, forget all your lofty visions.

Chris,this blog is so good, I think I will be emailing it to a few people.  It is sad when leaders wake up one day and the music isn't playing anymore because there is no one to play it.  They tried all their gimmicks, how too's, lists of and forgot that it is the people that God gave them in the first place that would bring it (the vision) to pass…love for people was the missing ingredient.

In a more autocratic style of leadership, it's been my observation that Vision is paramount and that Vision dictates what the Culture of the organization will become because all organizational elements must serve the Vision.

In a more team-based organization, Vision will often flow out of the Culture. Things such as purpose, mission, and goals are created and adopted as the consensus of a group rather than as the inspiration of an individual.

This of course is an oversimplification, but this is a blog and not a textbook. 

There is definitely a right-brained art to leadership and organizational dynamics. But this whole area of corporate culture is attracting a lot of attention in management science circles too. Trained consultants can conduct a survey of an organization now and measure about twenty cultural elements including ethics, values, teamwork, communication, etc.

I've often seen a disconnect between the leadership's perception of the organizational culture and the perceptions you get when you talk to rank and file. Sometimes these surveys can help to "educate" upper management.

Thanks for your comment.

Thanks for the response.  I'm familiar with many of the studies and advances in this area of Organization Leadership and I realize a great deal of it is being brought into the realm of science with correlative studies which measure and tie many factors together.  It's an exciting field and one which holds great promise and is already delivering a lot of help in many situations, which judging from your blog and credentials, you likely know better than me.

I've done some master's work in the field and have been exposed to some of this.

My impression while looking at it though, is that it is at best a soft science and it's not always a given that initial studies in this area are not fraught with confounding elements and that at times the scientific approach assumes a one-to-one relationship with elements that in the end proves to be too simplistic a view and valuable only relative to the individual environment where the study is done or perhaps to an industry.  Many times, what you've talked about in terms of culture, encompasses unique elements of environment which when not present in other settings, shows the original study to have failed to account for some of these background elements that the original study assumes by default as constant.

That's not unusual in an emerging realm of study and much of what these elements are, amount to studies more in the realm of individual psychology meeting at a nexus point with organizational dynamics and group psychology.  As the field emerges, I think there is a great deal that will come of it for secular and non-profit religious groups.  I also think a great deal of the wisdom scripture affirms in this realm will continue to be affirmed as well.

I'm glad there are folks like you engaged on the front lines and including the christian community.  Far too often we are stragglers in this field and I think our mission and calling should place us as leaders.

Bart