Change management process is highly essential in the context of the current day business environment. This highly essential for every business organization to implement timely change in the operational and business strategies, which are essential for maintaining sustainability in the respective business environment and industry. However, in most of the occasions, organizations face challenges while implementing the policies of Change management. Cameron and Green(2015), have suggested in the context that the success rate of Change management procedures is highly dependent upon the quality of organizational leadership. The leaders of an organization are supposed to have direct authority over every group of people to implement official change. The leaders and managers are considered to be the main advocate for implementing the change at every level within an organization. In other words, they act as the major sponsor and catalyst of the changing business policies that need to be implemented within an organization.
In the given context, the current study will analyse and critically evaluate the relationship between organizational change and leadership. Relevant theories will be used in the context to establish relationship between two elements. Real life case studies will also be provided in order to better support the importance of organizational leadership in implementing Change management procedures. It is important to focus upon definite style of leadership, which are believed to have significant effect on Change management procedures. The primary role of organizational leader is to understand the importance of organizational change in the context of existing business environment. It is also important note that all the workers within an organization look forward to the leader to provide them with proper sufficient and guide that are needed to deal with the challenges of Change management.
The work ofKuiperset al. (2014), has highlighted upon the fact that organizational leader or manager considered as the primary agent of change. The Rapid change in the external market environment of all forms of business, which is mainly induced by high expectation from the client group can effectively predict with the help of effective organizational leadership. The reported work of Doppelt(2017), have highlighted upon the fact that 70% of organizational changes fail due to lack of organizational leadership. Hence, it is not possible for the employees to get proper guidance that is needed for motivating the Employees for adapting to the new form of business environment.
The research work of Donate and de Pablo(2015), have highlighted upon the importance of organizational change that mainly includes gaining competitive advantage in the fast changing external market environment. The importance of Change management can be also emphasized by the fact that it can help to change and modify the organizational goal. Change management procedures within an organization are mainly implemented by modifying the business protocols. With the introduction of new product or service in the market, the change management procedures can ensure that new organizational objectives are fulfilled.
The Lewin’s Change management model is considered to be one of the widely used policies that primarily focuses on understanding the need of change (Cummingset al. 2016). The first step within the model aims to break down the existing protocol business operation. This is considered to be highly critical due to the fact that there are risks that are involved in the situation. The organizational leaders play a vital role in the primary step as they encourage the workers to take extra initiative that is needed to foster the change policies. This can be achieved by communicating with the workers and making them understand the importance of implementing change in order to achieve new organizational target.
In the second step, which is also called the transition phase the organization implement practical change within the business operations. The management plays an important role in making up of the plan of changes that need to be implemented in each of the departments. The final phase is called the freezing stage, where the employees are you able to transit to much stable position in the matter of implementing change. In order to encourage the new change protocol, the Employees are given proper reward.
According to Wojciechowskiet al. (2016), one of the effective ways to implement Lewin Change management model is by altering the behavior and attitude of the employees towards individual level of skills. The management also has to take the responsibility of modifying the organizational structure, which will help them to provide better quality of leadership. They are also responsible for bringing about change in the organizational culture, which are needed to motivate the employees during the transition period.
On the other hand,Bartunek and Woodman(2015) have criticized the Lewin change management model due to the fact that it is considered to be simple in the context of current day’s organizational structure of various multinational corporations. It is also not possible to bring about radical changes within an organization with the help of this model. The role of the leader’s power is often ignored as it is not possible to resolve the organizational conflicts that can arise during the process of implementing change.
This Change management process was implemented in the Nissan Motor Company, which was done under the leadership of Carlos Ghosn. As the company went to a stage of bankruptcy resulting in dipping of the shared values, the new leader faced challenge while implementing radical change within the operational department of the company. Nevertheless, he formed cross functional teams across the company, which helped them in the phase of unfreezing. He also implemented effective communication strategies that are considered to be one of the effective ways to remove the resistance of change. This was done on the basis of initiating the feedback policy. Moreover, in order to reward employees, he implemented the policy of performance based pay (Vuori 2015).
There is also the model of McKinsey’s 7S framework that primarily focus on the internal business environment for implementing the change. The overall organizational performance can also be improved that will help in the matters of securing the future of the organization (Hourani 2017). The leaders within the organization play the most important part as they help to predict the future outcome as the change management is being implied. There are seven elements that are used in the change management model:
As mentioned in above section, the style of leadership plays a significant role in implementing and the 7s model. Democratic style of leadership is considered to be one of the appropriate forms that can be implicated to employ the respective model. This will help to ensure that most of the Employees are able to discuss their issues related to change implementation with their respective leaders. As it is essential to improve the level of individual skills within the 7s model, the democratic style of leadership will provide opportunity to the leaders to evaluate the internal matters within the workplace. According toCunningham et al. (2015), the democratic style of leadership encourages the employees to take up new challenges as they are able to set a new target. This will help to ensure higher chance of success of Change management policy. The communication gap between the employee and leaders can also be resolved as the management is aiming to provide high level of motivation to the Employees. Billig(2015), has added that flexibility within style of leadership is highly required to deal with the new challenges that can arise with the implementation of changes. This will, therefore, help to bring about rapid and radical changes that are needed for ensuring smooth implementation of change. The democratic style of leadership also includes the element of dynamic nature at the workplace, which is believed to have significant effects upon the decision making process of the leader and help them to decide about the exact change in the policy. Moreover, it is also possible for the leader to share their valuable knowledge and experience that are needed to deal with the challenge of implementing change.
The main aim of transactional form of leadership is to promote compliance with the existing workforce of an organization (Antonakis and House 2014). This type of leadership, the managers are more focused on maintaining the predefined style of working protocol within the organization. It is also essential for the managers to ensure continuity within the operational department overcoming every form of challenges that arrive on short term basis due to the change in the external business environment. The leaders can also enforce systemic discipline and establish a definite systemic framework that is needed to achieve individual target. Nevertheless, one of the major drawbacks of the transactional leadership is due to the fact that this to not focus upon the futuristic vision that is needed to achieve long-term sustainability within the business environment.
Hence, it can be said that transactional leadership may not be effective for implementing long term organizational change. This is mainly due to the fact that the leaders in this case do not focus on changing the existing protocol of working style. On the contrary, they are highly focused on improving the existing style of workforce by improving upon the discipline in the workplace.
On the other hand, the transformational leadership mainly focuses upon improving the motivation level of the employees and encourages them to engage in the new style of work force. Transformational leadership also focuses upon development of cohesive teamwork and improvising changes that are needed to deal with the existing organizational issues at workplace. Hence,McCleskey(2014), has added that with the help of transformational leadership it is possible to bring about change in the workplace culture, which will encourage the employees to take up new challenges.
The transformative leaders are responsible for ensuring that all the workers within the organization have a shared vision, which is considered to be one of the essential elements of the Mckinsey 7s model. Change management policies implemented within the organization, it aims to achieve new organizational target. Hence, it is highly essential to ensure that all the employees work in full coordination for fulfilling the new target (Donget al. 2017).
It is also essential for the leader to establish a well-defined structure that is needed to implement a new standard that can help to provide proper guidance to the Employees. This can also help in the process of establishing new organizational culture that needs to include flexibility as an essential option. As change in business operation is implemented, there is usually high level of risk that is involved owing to the fact that the stakeholders might lose faith. This can result in the loss of reputation of organizational brand value. Nevertheless, with effective form of communication that is implemented along with transformational leadership, it is possible to ensure most of the changes are easily accepted among the stakeholders thereby neutralizing the risk of loss of reputation. Effective level of communication in transformational leadership can also help to establish long term goal within the organization that is needed to understand the importance of implementing new operational strategies (Tepperet al. 2017).
On the other hand, the major drawback of transformational leadership in the context of implementing Change management process it due to the fact that it does not focus upon short term benefits that can help the employee to understand the importance of radical change. In many cases, long term organizational aim target helps may not be able to motivate the employees, which are essentially needed to take extra initiative for inheriting new skills. Additionally, transformational leadership is highly dependent upon dealing theoretical motivational theories to improve the level of performance, which may not be applicable in various practical situations. It can, therefore, be said that transformational leadership often ignores practical situations and facts (Van der Voet 2014).
Practical examples of application of transformational leadership in bringing about change can be understood from the cases of technological Giants like Microsoft, Apple and Google. With the help of long-term vision transformational leadership, it is possible for the organizations to bring about revolution within the matter of technological aspects. With the change in the digital technology, transformational form of leadership has helped in successful establishment of business policy of eBay and Amazon(Bennet al. 2014).
The financial transaction processes in business have witnessed significant changes due to the popularization of digital technology. The ease of financial transaction with the help of online platform has encouraged the workers to take up new challenges and expand the range of doing business. The leadership examples of Peter Lynch can be given in the context, who has pioneered the role of investment in a financial transaction of mutual funds. With effective form of transformational leadership, it is possible for Lynch to bring about operative changes for long-term process the matter of financial transactions. This is possible with the implementation of digitization in the transaction process.
The era of liberalization and globalization has brought about rapid diversification in all major business organization. The multinational corporations implement the policy of business diversification, which has helped them to expand the range of business. With the implementation of effective transformational leadership, it is possible for all major organizations to gain competitive edge in the fast changing business environment. The example of General Electric CEO Jack Welch can be given, who restructured the entire organization from traditional bureaucratic set up to bring about flexibility in the workforce. This is believed to have a long term effect on the business sustainability of General Electric. Hence, with the help of transformational form of leadership, it is possible for Welph to bring about advanced form of innovation within the workplace. With this form of leadership, it is possible to maintain high level of transparency between the management of General Electric and employees. This is achieved in the form of providing detailed information to the employees about the timely change in policy that will be implemented in the workplace. This will encourage the workers to have better level of mental preparation as the new policy are being implemented within the workplace. It is also possible for the management to understand the perspective and workplace issues encountered by every employee (Edwards and Gandy 2014).
The transformational leadership style of Welph has also encouraged the company to take up unpopular decisions and implement the same in order to fulfil the new organizational target. It is also important to mention that as the company is able to predict the future changes in transformational leadership, it is possible for them to prepare alternative policies for crisis situation in business environment (Kim 2014).
Additionally, the transformational form of leadership also increases the practice of outsourcing business process. This can help in the process of generating cost advantage while implementing new operational strategies. This can also help to generate new job opportunities as there is new demand for quality workforce.
According to Prykeet al. (2015), emotional intelligence of leader is considered to be one of the major characters that can help to bring about organizational change by providing motivation at individual level. There are following parameters that need to be considered while implementing the aspects of emotional intelligence as a major element of change.
One of the major challenges of the leaders for implementing change is to deal with practical organizational issues that are mainly encounter due to lack of practical applicability skills of the employees. From a survey, it is clear that 55% of the leaders are satisfied with the initial target that is being achieved after implementing change. Nevertheless, in long term basis, only 25% of the leaders have witnessed satisfactory change. On the other hand, 87% of the leaders have witnessed satisfactory changes as they introduced the policy of training within the employees to help them to deal with practical issues as change are being implemented (Deshler, 2018).
It can, therefore, be said that leaders have a vital role in providing effective quality training to the Employees, which can help them to deal with the practical challenges that are associated with new business strategies.
Hence, in order to conclude it can be said that organizational leadership has an important role in dealing with the challenges that are associated with Change management process. The Lewin Change management theory and the Mckinsey’s 7S model are considered to be two of the important theories that are needed to foster the issues of change management. The democratic form of leadership is found to be effective as it provides opportunity for the leader to share their valuable knowledge. This is also essential in the context that most of the Employees will also get the opportunity to share their issues that are encountered at a personal level while implementing change. It has also been seen that transformational form of leadership has proved to be more effective than transactional leadership while implementing change in the business policy. With the help of transformational policies, it is possible to introduce innovative techniques and long term changes. In past many cases, the transformational leadership has brought about revolution in the business strategies of large-scale Corporation including General Electric, Microsoft, Google and Apple.
Emotional intelligence is another aspect of the effective leaders. This help them to enhance the level of personal and professional relationship with the all types of employees within the workplace. This is achived by self-assement of the individual emoployees by including the elements of empathy and compassion alomg with that of effcetive communication styles.
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