The Organizational Leadership and Management - Essay Example

Heading: Reflection Essay Name: Institution: Course: Tutor: Date: Reflection Essay A number of seminars were held where the main topic discussed was change. The seminars were informative considering that the guest speakers were experts in the field of organizational change. Reflecting on the seminar activities, I would like to acknowledge the fact that change is inevitable especially in the current economic environment. The level of competition is higher than ever before with each organization thriving to get the best out of the market. Change occurs everywhere. It occurs in organizations as well as in individuals. I totally agree with the facilitator that human behaviour defines culture and that culture is a very significant component of change. This paper is a reflection of the things I learnt from the seminar activities with respect to organizational change, how it should be implemented and the skills that would be relevant to lead people through it. I will start by reflecting on the patterns of change and the rate at which it occurs in different organization as things are among the new things I learnt from the seminars. As the speaker put it, change is a feature of the world and it is inevitable. No matter how much we try to resist it, change must occur at some point. It is difficult to predict what might happen next in the world due to its constant ability to keep on changing. I learnt that change occurs in different patterns and has varying implications on the organization. In an individual, change takes effects in the following stages; anxiety, happiness, fear, threat, guilt, depression, gradual acceptance and then moving forward. I also would like to echo the speaker’s words that change takes place in varying rates within the organizations. It is first slow, then fast and then slows again towards the end. Change is said to occur in a discontinuous process which is referred to as punctuated equilibrium according to the speaker. Actually, this was something I never heard before I attended this seminar. The organizational leadership and management influence the direction of change and the rate of change. In the seminar, the functions of a manager were distinguished from those of leader. A manager is concerned with goal setting, planning, identifying and allocating resources as well as budgeting. On the other hand, a leader is concerned with setting the organizational direction, strategizing on how to move towards the direction as well as creating a vision. I therefore feel that the two would play important roles when it comes to change. It came to my knowledge that communication will be effective in reducing change resistance from employees. The management should have effective communication skills so as to convince employees to accept change. Managers and leaders are change agents in an organization (Morrison and Milliken 2000, p 709). I would also like to reflect on the importance of managers to recognize the need for change. Change is a process whose first step is to recognize the need for it. However, some mangers fail to recognize the need for change since they do not pay sufficient attention to the external environment. The external environment of an organization includes; labour force, economy, innovation, fashions, trends, legislation and politics. The managers’ failure to recognize the implications of the external environment on the organization could be due to their high commitment to mental models such that their dissenting views are limited. They may also not be used to doing things in a different way and therefore they fail to recognize the need for change. Culture is another factor that is likely to limit the mangers ability to recognize the need for a change (Hayes 2010). This was another very important lesson to me since I couldn’t help but start thinking about the reason as to why many organizations fail to embrace change. It is important for a manager to recognize the need for change in good time so as to avoid reacting when the change has already occurred or taking action when it is already too late. The manager is likely to make the wrong decisions if he reacts too late since there would be limited time for planning. Therefore, for a manager to recognise the need for change, they should carry out organisational diagnosis. I learnt that the organisational diagnosis is a process that involves the following steps; selection of a conceptual model for diagnosis, clarification of the information required, gather information and then analyse and interpret it. Change can either be transactional or transformational. In case of the former, constructive changes are made such as project requirement while the later involves changes on how the organization does its things (i.e.) culture, mission and strategies (Burnes 2009 p513). I cannot fail to reflect on the organizational culture as a factor that affects change. Organizational culture could be defined in simple terms as the personality of the organization. It refers to the norms, beliefs and behaviours of the organizational stakeholders. For change to be effected in the organization, its culture has to change (Burnes 2009 p456). Culture defines the functioning of the organization and it should constantly change to adapt the changing environment. Despite the fact that I heard about the organizational culture before, I never knew it is that significant when it comes to organizational change. In the seminar, the issue of managing power, politics and stakeholders was also touched on. A change in the organization will definitely affect its stakeholders in different ways. Therefore, they are likely to either resist change or accept it. Power on the other hand may involve the ability to influence the behaviour of others. Organizational politics are the internal issues that affect the organization. An organization is made up of groups, communities and individuals who are out to pursue their goals. It is therefore difficult to predict their behaviours since they all behave in different ways (Hayes 2010 p325). Power becomes important whenever there is conflict of interest among the groups. Needless to say, power becomes a very important issue when it comes to change management since it has the ability to influence the organizational politics and stakeholders. This reflection would not be complete without reflecting on the effects that change has on an individual. In the seminar, it was said that any change affects individuals in different ways. Change would either be situational or it could be a personal transition for individual. People need to start doing things in a different way and abandon the old ways in the event of change. The speaker further highlighted that change in individual could either be incremental, transformational, discontinuous or emergent. The issue of psychological contract was also touched on as an influence to change. Psychological contract refers to the way people view employment relationship, individuals and organization and the reciprocal promises associated with those relationships (Guest and Conway 2004, p 10). In conclusion, it is imperative that change is real and it is inevitable. Managers are the agents of change and they need to be pro- active to avoid acting post change. They should always plan ahead of change so as to make the right decisions. Change is subject to resistance from the organizational stakeholders and therefore managers should be in a position to deal with it. Effective communication can help managers overcome resistance to change. From the reflection, is notable that managers need to perform their roles efficiently so as to impact change in the organization. References Burnes, B. 2009. Managing change. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Guest, D., Conway, N., & Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2004, Employee well-being and the psychological contract: A report for the CIPD. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Hayes, J. 2010, The theory and practice of change management. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Morrison, E.W. and Milliken, F. J., 2000, Organizational silence: A barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world, Academy of Management Review, 25, 4, pp. 706-725) Read More