Conjectural View of Leadership and Managing Change - Essay Example

? Conjectural View of Leadership and Managing Change Changing organizations is as messy as it is exhilarating, as frustrating as it is satisfying, asmuddling-through and creative a process as it is a rational one - Palmer, Dunford and Akin (2005, p. 1) The above mentioned line are not only showing the perception of Palmer et al (2005) regarding change management but also reflecting the key essence of this essay. There is no doubt that organization face challenges during change process due to the fact that strategic change processes not only requires installation of new system in organization but also rigorously demand active participation of every organizational members in the change process. DuBrin (2011) have pointed out that organizational change is organic in nature, which means that leaders and managers need to ensure that the change process includes the employees in the organizational rather than banking on resource and process deployment. Hence, it can be surmised that change management is direction oriented process, which means that, managers and in some cases leaders need to take the responsibility to move the organizational change. On the other hand, research work of DuBrin (2011) shows that organizational change can be three types, 1- strategic- which is relatively low human resource driven, 2- tactical- which is relatively high human resource driven and 3- operational- which requires extensive amount of human resource involvement. Careful observation of the research work of DuBrin (2011) shows that, whatever the strategic orientation of change management, one thing remains constant that is the involvement of managers and leaders for giving the direction to the change. Research works of previous research scholars regarding organizational change and role of leaders have forced the researcher to raise a pertinent question, is there any strategic relationship between leadership dimension and success of organizational change management process? Well, throughout the essay, the researcher will try to find answer of this question with the help theoretical argument of various research scholars and in some cases taking help of real world business cases. At this point of the essay, one thing needs to be clarified that the essay will not use any subjective view to establish the relationship between engagement of leaders and success of change management rather the study will take conjectural view on the research topic. In the next part, the study will try to understand different aspects of change management process. It is essential to know why an organization changes in order to understand how leaders and managers can help the organization to incorporate the change. Understanding the macro dynamics of change can help the researcher to understand why some organizations implement successful change management process while others fail to do so. The question may arise that is there any magic formulae or special skill which bifurcate winners from losers in context to change management process. Tichy (1983) has identified that leader’s capability to cope with macro environmental challenges and use organizational learning concept in order to change the existing system. According to the research work of Tichy (1983), leaders and managers need to identify three forces such as economic forces, cultural forces and political forces in order to incorporate organizational change in accordance with the magnitude of these three forces. (Source: Tichy, 1983) According to the above mentioned triangular model, organizations develop three types of systems such as technical systems, cultural systems and political system in order to incorporate change. Gone are the days when organizations can expect that it would achieve competitive advantage by using age old technologies. Organizations have understood the fact that they need to integrate state of art technology in order to deliver better value proposition to customers, decrease cost of operation, and achieve economies of scale etc. The study will use the example of Toyota Motors in order to clarify the point. Toyota Motors has implemented lean manufacturing technology in order to decrease the cost of operation and compete with international players; the Japanese giant has changed its organizational dynamics in order to open room for lean technology implementation. On the other hand, General Motor has incorporated change management by reshaping the production cycle with the help of technology integration in order to decrease the production cost by more than 50%. Next driver for organizational change is the interplay of political force. According to Pankaj Ghemawat (2004), organizations change its business policies and structure in order to cope with political dimension of particular country. For example, IKEA has changed its business policies and organizational culture in order to create relevant value proposition for Chinese customers (Ying, 2005). In the third case, organizations go for change in order to explore economical benefits. For example, per capita income of a developing country is expected to be lower than the per capita income in developed countries. Hence, organizations planning to expand in developing countries need to change its business policies and implement new organizational structure in order to achieve market penetration in developing nations. However, it is evident from the research work of Tichy (1983) that conjoint impact of two or more forces is required in order to influence leaders and managers of organizations to go for change process and implement new system. Interloped nature of change drivers can be depicted in the following drivers. (Source: Tichy, 1983) According to the model, magnitude of external forces on organization increases with the course of time and organizations need to create a buffer system in order survive in business environment. In such context, organizations realize the need for leaders and top level management which can direct the change management process which can help the organization to give response to the external forces. Now, the study will use broader aspect of organizational change known as organizational dynamic or (OD) in order to understand how managers show the leadership skills in order to incorporate changes by integrating the concepts of strategic human resource management. After identifying the needs for change, top level management in the organizations create a road map for breakdown the existing system and implement the new systems. The study will use Equilibrium Model proposed by Kurt Lewin in order to identify how organizations can manage the change process. In the equilibrium model, there are three phases such as, 1- Unfreezing, 2- Change and 3- Refreezing. Unfreezing- Managers take the initiative to identify the existing dissatisfaction among employees regarding the inefficiency of present system and then managers play the leadership role to dismantle the change resisting employees groups by placing external constraint or change agents in the system, 2- Change- managers use various techniques such as knowledge session, training & development of employees with the involvement of human resource department, reward program for employees in order to motivate and make employees competent enough to work in newly implemented system and 3- Refreezing- managers align interest of employees with the newly implemented system in order to institutionalize them with the adopted organizational system. In many cases, managers take help of both human resource management and human resource development in order to attract align interest of change agents with change management process. Managers take help organizational development intervention or OD interventions in order to organize the change management process. In the first phase of intervention, top level management tweak policies, business practices and structure whereas in the second phase, to level managers show the leadership skill for managing its human resources, cultural orientation etc. The study has already discussed first phase of OD intervention while discussing equilibrium model hence in the next second phase the study will discuss the second phase of OD intervention or the leadership dimension of change management process. In some cases, organizations use integral model in order to incorporate change. Wilber (2003) has stated that, managers need to integrate social development and personal development of employees while following the integral model. The model is more related to human resource development process and addressing human equerries of employees in order to motivate them to participate in change process. (Source: Cacioppe and Edwards, 2005) On the basis of the model, organization works as an open ended system which has both internal and external quadrants. Organizational culture, employees, consciousness and human resource department involvement decide the dimension of internal quadrant while learning and knowledge defines the magnitude of external quadrants. Leadership role is needed by managers in order to manage the coalition between internal and external quadrants. Managers need to work closely with human resource department in order to develop its human resource pool for accepting the change. Spectral lines of the integral wheel are representing various facets of organizational development and human resource development such as learning and enhancement of knowledge level of employees, training and development of employees, interpersonal development of human resource capital, knowledge sharing etc. At every quadrant of the above mentioned wheel, managers need show the leadership skill to encourage employees in an organization to take active part in the change process. According to research work of Cacioppe and Edwards (2005), change for the sake of change is not desirable from organizational viewpoint because such type of change cannot restore the organizational equilibrium in sustainable manner. Hence, manager must possess the leadership skill to influence employees and convert them as strategic wheel for incorporating organizational change. Up to this point of the essay, the study has moved through the road for understanding the nature of organizational change but now the study will stop at a junction named as leadership. Under the umbrella of leadership, the study will try to understand how leadership plays vital role in managing change. Various research scholars such as Yukl (2009) and Rees and French (2010) have highlighted that leaders play significant role improving the performance of organizational members. Leaders can various power indices while driving human resource capital of an organization towards change process. These powers can be summarized as; Referent Power- leaders show the interpersonal skills in order to increase coordination between change agents and as a result, change agents follow the direction of leaders due to admiration, Reward Power- leaders give financial rewards to change agents and subordinates in order to motivate them to participate in the change process but such kind of power is temporary in nature, 3- Expert Power- leaders show the management skill and expertise in business process for influencing employees to follow their direction in the change process, 4- Coercive Power- leaders force or threaten employees to participate in the change process with the help of physical punishment, monetary punishment etc and 4- Legitimate Power- leaders use their position to social status in order to influence employees to participate in the change process. Diagrammatic presentation of all the five leadership power can be depicted in the following manner; . (Source: Rahim et al., 2001) According to this model, showing coercive power by leaders is not at all helpful in motivating human resource capital to participate in the change process. Whereas, leaders should use the expert and reward power in order to decrease the bargaining power of employees and achieve problem solving skills. Problem solving skills would increase the acceptance of leader among subordinates and ultimately empower the leader to motivate human resource capital of the organization in the direction of change process. According to Rahim et al (2001), leaders should help subordinates and communicate with them in order to increase coordination among change agents. The essay will use different types of leadership models such as Transactional, Aversive Leadership and Transformational leadership as an antecedent for change management process. Much has been written about how individual can develop certain leadership qualities in order to encourage the drive for change and why leaders must promote the organizational change Van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003). Hence, it can be surmised that, leaders need to encourage his/her subordinates to follow the path of change. According to the limited knowledge of the researcher, transformational leadership augurs very well with organizational change process. Leaders use persuasive action, personal characteristics and unique vision statement in order to change the substance and internal organizational culture. According to Van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003), leaders must possess certain skills such as knowledge, resilience, ruthlessness, persuasiveness, expertise on particular topic, cordiality, coordination capability, communication skill and others in order to become the key change agent and influence subordinates to follow the leadership direction. Van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003) have also pointed out that charismatic nature and idiosyncratic dialect of leaders play vital role in influencing subordinates to participate in the change process. According to Mumford et al. (2002), leaders must have the control over the social construction which has been collectively created by organizational climate and culture. Van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003) have supported the assumption of Mumford et al (2002) while stating that, a leader is made by the subordinates hence it is impossible for managers to show leadership skills without the involvement team or group of subordinates. Theoretical view of these research scholars is reflecting the key essence of this essay. The essay is trying to find out how leadership and change management is interrelated, taking help of Bayesian probabilistic theory, “organizational change management is group driven process while leadership is also dependent on involvement of groups hence it can be said that there is close relationship between organizational change process and successful integration leadership styles.’ Sometimes organizational change directed in top to bottom manner, for example, when an organization go for merger and acquisition process, it is the managers who take the leadership role to transfer and adjust human resource capital of organizations. Now the study will take help of the research work of Nadler et al (2001) in order to understand how leadership style can influence the direction of change management process. (Source: Kavanagh and Ashkanasy, 2006) Backward integration of the model shows that, leadership quality decided the individual acceptance or rejection in the change process which further creates elongated impact on cultural shift. In the attempt to move the organizational culture, managers face the greatest challenge to implement the new culture and specially those cultures which can be indoctrinated in longitudinal manner. In most cases, involvement of employees in the organizational culture increases the magnitude of difficulty for leaders to incorporate new organizational culture. In such cases, role of strategic human resource become important because managers find it difficult to motivate all the employees through a communication medium. According to Van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003), strategic human resource planning help managers to recruit potential candidates, train and develop these recruits and develop performance management system in order to improve performance of organizational members. Using strategic human resource activities help managers and leaders to communicate the new vision statement in simplified manner. It can be said that, human resource management and human resource development activities help- the organization to decrease the resistance regarding the change process. One thing is clear from the argument of Kotter (1988) that leadership cannot solely direct the organizational change management, other factors such as strategic human resource management and knowledge management play equally vital role. According to Van Knippenberg and Hogg (2003), merger and acquisition is probably the best example when organizations go through cultural and structural change. Hence, the study will try to understand the role of leadership during the time of merger and acquisition to restore the equilibrium of the organization. In most of the merger and acquisition of organizations, leaders take the first initiatives to change their attitude and become the change agent. Business process reengineering has been emerged as one of the important change driver. In such context, Champy (1995, p. 29) has underlined the role of top level management during the time of business process reengineering as, “discard the fantasy of a corporate culture of reflexive obedience and undertake the hard work of creating a culture of willingness and individual accountability.” Hence, leaders play the role of creating new organizational culture which supports the change and dethrone the previous organizational culture which has not only became dysfunctional but also created resistance for change. According to Champy (1995), a leader must help subordinates to unlearn the bad practices, acquire knowledge from environment and re-learn industry good practices. Trice and Beyer (1993) have found that, establishment of strong leader-dominated culture might not be effective if external environment doesn’t need it. For example, suppose a technology firm wants to go for organizational change in order to incorporate innovation in terms of system integration and product development, in such cases, organizational change requires extensive involvement of individuals and flexi-culture hence establishing strong leader-dominated culture by the technology firm wouldn’t help the firm to create a flexible culture of learning and knowledge sharing. Contextually, transformational leadership style has become relevant among management practitioners and research scholars in order to explain how leaders can shape the organizational culture and prepare the organization for the change process. Bass (1998) has clearly identified the distinction between transactional and transformational leadership. According to the scholar, transformational leadership includes charismatic behaviour of leader which can influence subordinates to participate in the change process, intellectual simulation which can instigate innovation and knowledge sharing among organizational members and capability of the leader to motivate employees throughout change process. A transformational leader must possess the above mentioned three qualities in order to guide the organization during the period of change. Transformational leaders show particular behavioural traits like, providing vision to employees, inspirational communication, and high performance expectations from organizational members, intellectual stimulation and challenging the traditional organizational culture. Conjoint impact of these behavioural traits not only motivates employees to participate in the change process but also restore the benefits of change through organizational institutionalization process. To end this discussion, the study will cite the example of Jack Welch, who was the former CEO of General Electric (GE) and helped the company to increase its value by 4000% during the time of his leadership (Leung, 2009). Jack Welch has used transformational leadership style in order to help GE to improve return on investment for its business portfolio, increase employee productivity and retain best talents. Example of Jack Welch is showing that leaders play significant role for not only to lead the change but also to manage the human face of the change. Reference Bass, B. M., 1998. Transformational leadership: Industrial, military, and educational impact. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Cacioppe, R. and Edwards, M., 2005. 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