Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D.

Program

Trust of
Organizations!
A Discussion of an
Administrative Unit of Higher
Education with Reference to
Morgans Image of
Organizations as Culture and
Tschannen-Morans Facets of
Trust

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

Prepared

by

Eyad

Alfattal
CSUSB Ed.D. Program
10/22/2014

1.Introduction
In his international best seller Images of Organization, Morgan (2006)
claims that organization and management theories are borne upon
specific images or metaphors. He proposes eight different metaphors
which

can

be

utilized

as

tools

for

reading

and

understanding

organizational structures and the dynamics of structural relationships and

management.

These

metaphors

are

organizations

as

machines,

organisms, brains, cultures, political systems, psychic prisons,

flux and transformation, and instruments of domination (Morgan,
2006).

This paper reviews Morgans (2006) chapter on the metaphor of creating

social reality: organizations as culture. Then, it briefly discusses
Tschannen-Morans (2014) five facets of trust. The purpose of this paper

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

is to draw lessons from Morgan (2006) and Tschannen-Moran (2014) and

use these for the analysis of the leadership and the management of a unit
of a higher education institution. The characteristics of this unit and how it
exemplifies culture will be illustrated. In addition, how the implementation
of Tschannen-Morans (2014) facets of trust would positively impact and
further extend the success of the unit under analysis will be discussed.

2.Morgans Organizations as Culture

To begin with, Morgan (2006) brings attention to the importance of culture
in the development and the sustainability of functional and effective
organizations.

He

highlights

the

outstanding

achievement

and

transformation of the Japanese economy starting from 1970s, and he

states that the Japanese success is contributed largely to the Japanese
culture. Morgan (2006) defines culture as the pattern of development
reflected in a societys system of knowledge, ideology, values, laws, and
day to day ritual (p.116). He further explains that old interpretations of
culture were evaluative as they maintained that different levels of
development manifest in culture; i.e. advanced societies, for example, had
advanced cultures and primitive societies had little or no culture. On the
other hand, current views of culture, he goes on to argue, are descriptive
as they simply propose that different groups of people have different
ways of life (Morgan, 2006, p. 116).

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

According to Morgan (2006), organizations, especially in industrial

countries such as those in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the
United States, are cultural phenomena since they shape most of their
populations lives, these being peoples daily activities or perceptions of
their functions and roles in their surrounding environment. Consequently,
occupational structure in modern societies and resulting perceptions now
replace traditional ways of life where households were responsible for
economic production. Industrialization and the advent of corporate
organizations in modern societies resulted in similar cultures across
geographical and political boarders. Individuals are, hence, likely to
identify with occupations rather than national origin although this might
not be true for American non-dominant cultures and groups.

However, context or cross-national differences, Morgan (2006) goes on to

explain, still exist. When compared to western labor, Japanese workers, for
instance, display a higher amount of sense of unity, belonging and loyalty
to their organizations. Americans, on the other hand, are more concerned
with individual achievement and are mainly focused on success for
personal reward. The American and Japanese (and other nations)
perceptions and attitudes have their roots in the ideologies of these
societies shaped by the history of each individual culture or context. Thus,
contexts

shape

the

characters

of

organizations

organizations for success or cause their failure.

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and

can

support

Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

Morgan (2006), additionally, brings to attention that not only is success

and failure factored by cross-national differences but also within nations
exists corporate cultures and subcultures. Corporate and corporate
leaders such as Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard of H-P and Harold Geneen
of ITT create different ethos, values, meanings, beliefs and consequently
different perceptions and norms of interaction. H-P and ITT are both
generally viewed as successful businesses yet with different subcultures;
the former succeeded with ethos related to strong feeling of belonging to
the corporate and job security while the latter was ruled by fear of
evaluation and perpetual feeling of guilt and underperformance.

Finally and referring to psychologists such as Karl Weick, Morgan (2006)

claims that corporate cultures are shaped by the individuals who live
within them through a process of enactment. In other words, although
realities around people dictate how people live, these realities are
constructed by the practices of those same people at the first place. This
view of individuals active role in the formulation of culture inspired the
work of many management writers, Morgan (2006) expands. They analyze
what they see as successful businesses in pursuit of understanding how
their corporate cultures are constructed, communicated and sustained.
One component of positive cultures that contributes to collaborative work
environments is trust.

3.Tschannen-Morans Facets of Trust

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

Trust is an important constituent of healthy organizations. In the preface

of her book, Trust Matters, Tschannen-Moran (2014) states that trust [...]
serves as the lubricant of organizational functioning; without it, schools
are likely to experience the overheating friction of conflict as well as lack
of progress toward their admirable goals (p. ix).

Tschannen-Moran (2014) identifies five facets of trust that principals

should possess in order to succeed in leading their schools. The first is
benevolence where leaders needs to demonstrate that they appreciate,
care, and advocate for their faculty and members of staff. The second is
honesty though which a leader should display integrity, uniformity and
commitment to their words. The third facet of trust is openness where
leaders should be able to share information, authority and decision
making. The forth is reliability as leaders need to show they are devoted,
dependable and consistent. The fifth and final facet of trust is
competence; principals wanting to earn the trust of their members of staff
and faculty should be able. Competence involves strong knowledge of
subject matter and experience in education. It also extends to managerial
skills related to the ability to solve complex situations and conflicts.

The remainder of this paper will focus discussion on trust matters within
the culture of a higher education unit which is viewed as a pioneering one
in its context.

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

4.A Successful Unit of Higher Education

The pseudonym of the unit of higher education discussed here is the
College of International Students (hereafter referred to as CIS). CIS
administers a number of not-for-credit and credit programs including short
certificate and degree programs. The programs are primarily designed for
international students although they also accept domestic candidates.
The administration and members of staff of CIS are mainly international;
many of them are first generation immigrants to the United States. The
leadership of CIS is assumed by a principal, Lara, and her associate and
executive director, Rami. Lara and Rami are pseudonyms used for the
purpose of this paper. Also for the purpose of the analysis here, success is
defined as the achievement of development and the expansion of
operations. CIS is viewed as a successful unit since it has witnessed a
steady and considerable growth of over 15% in its number of programs,
student population and revenues for the last five years. It has stretched to
at least two international markets each year with new and innovative
programs provided in different modalities.

Lara,

CIS principal,

has

an extensive experience

as

faculty and

administrator of higher education programs locally and internationally.

Probably many of Laras traits resemble those of Geneen of ITT described
by Morgan (2006). Not only is she hardworking but also she entertains
exceptional competence and intellectual abilities. She has special eyes for

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

meticulous details and a natural tendency to evaluate, criticize and find

faultiness. A lot of Laras associates describe her as an iron lady, similar
to Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom, as they feel less confident
and sometimes overpowered and intimidated by her presence. Lara has a
reputation of firing members of staff on the account of mistakes or
underperformance. Lara sees herself as the protector of CIS established
procedures and policies. She has no tolerance for any violations of those
policies and a good member of staff for her is that who is always
compliant.

Rami, Laras associate, also possesses strong and extended background in

international programs leadership. He entertains exceptional supervisory
skills, a very strong memory and ability to manage numerous tasks and
processes with a great deal of efficiency. Rami, however, is very different
from Lara; he is a peoples person. Rami has a natural outstanding
emotional intelligence which he further strengthens by relation building
skills he acquired through his previous education and training in
management and leadership. Unlike with Lara, members of staff feel very
comfortable around Rami, whom they see as their friend and advocate.

The success of CIS may largely be attributed to the combination of Laras

and Ramis leadership styles. It is this balance of fear and love that is
pushing CIS forward as members of staff feel the pressure to perform with
quality constantly exerted by Lara and the support to perform with

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

passion given by Rami. Laras leadership style alone could have resulted
in fragmented ethos where faculty, members of staff and middle
managers would have been obsessed with self-protection; when mistakes
happen everybody would push blame on other staff members contributing
to distrust and uncooperative work environment. This is exactly the
opposite of what happens in healthy corporate cultures. There, success is
contributed to the team and failure is the responsibility of the leader
(Killinger, 2010, p. 73).

On the other hand, Ramis management style, interpersonal skills,

involvement and care alone can be taken as weakness. While members of
staff would be interacting and approaching job activities collaboratively as
a family, they might become over-relaxed and might not feel enough urge
to invest any considerable efforts to improve CIS activities. Family
relations and expectations in different cultures are not the same. For
instance, in some cultures family represents authority and the father,
typically the leader, is to be obeyed at all times. In other cultures, family
has little influence and power over its members. Since CIS members of
staff are international, they will interpret and react to Ramis family-like
leadership style differently.

Thus, the interweaving of Laras and Ramis approaches have contributed

to the shaping of CIS productive and creative community. Now the
question is the following: What happens if Lara or Rami leaves CIS for

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

another organization or for retirement? The answer is simple. CIS

equilibrium will break; members of staff will become either too selffocused, disjointed and overstressed to perform with Lara, if she is the
leader on her own; or they will not have enough pressure to achieve
results with Rami. Probably Lara and Rami could incorporate the missing
pieces of Tschannen-Morans (2014) five facets of trust into their
leadership style so that they could be more ready for the absence of
either of them.

Lara is competent, reliable, open and honest. However, she could

probably

benefit

from

integrating

skills

that

would

increase

her

benevolence. In fact, Lara might be a caring person with a goodwill to all

her

members

of

staff

and

faculty;

however,

she

definitely

can

communicate and display this better. People around her see her as a cold
work machine, and they can only trust her more if they could see the
human side of her that loves them and supports them. Maxwell (1998)
asserts that leaders must touch the heart before they ask for the hand. It
is only when Lara breaks some of the barriers around her that she can
bring her people closer and motivate them to work with passion and trust.

Benevolence, on the other hand, is Ramis strength. He also entertains a

great deal of honesty, openness, reliability and competence. These are all
the five facets of trust advanced by Tschannen-Morans (2014). Within the
facet of competence, however, Tschannen-Moran (2014) discusses the

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

need of leaders to exercise pressure for results. For CIS to continue its
success, not only do faculty and members of staff need to trust Rami, but
also they need to be directed and lead to invest their full efforts. This, in
my view, merits to be a full and a sixth facet in itself and can be called the
facet of momentum. Maxwell (1998) considers momentum an important
law of leadership and calls it the law of the big Mo. He explains that
momentum is an essential disposition of successful leaders, as they need
to drive and encourage followers to achieve the best they can. In a similar
vein, Collins (2001) stresses the need of leadership to act as the motivator
of followers to push themselves further and achieve their full potential.
Rami definitely has the intention of getting the best results of his
members of staff and faculty; nevertheless, he may be able to improve his
skills in exercising more pressure on his members of staff. In return, when
Rami helps, encourages and even pushes his followers to excel at work
and achieve their full potential, the will trust him even more.

5. Conclusion
To conclude with, in this paper I have reviewed Morgans (2006) metaphor
of organizations as culture and Tschannen-Morans (2014) five facets of
trust. Then, I have used Morgan (2006) and Tschannen-Moran (2014) to
discuss the corporate culture and leadership style of a successful unit of a
higher education institution, CIS. Finally, lessons drawn from Tschannen-

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

Moran (2014) on how to extend trust and further improve CIS were
suggested.

CIS can primarily enhance its culture by improving its principals skills
related to benevolence. She can display more care for her followers and
engage further in supporting the weak and celebrating and encouraging
the strong. Furthermore, the associate principal of CIS can boost and push
members of staff and faculty for more results through acquiring more
momentum. Great leaders harness their followers to happily achieve
great.

References
Collins, J. (2001). Good to great. London, UK: HarperBusiness.
Killinger, B. (2010). Integrity: Doing the right thing for the right reason
(2nd ed.). n.p: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Maxwell, J. C. ( 1998). The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them
and people will follow you. Edinburgh, Scotland: Thomas Nelson.
Morgan,

G. (2006). Images of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Publications, Inc.

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Eyad Alfattal: CSUSB Ed.D. Program

Tschannen-Moran, M. (2014). Trust matters (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA:

Jossey-Bass.

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