Personal and Organization Change by Bailey - Article Example

Leadership Personal & Organization Change The article presented by Bailey, stresses on the significance and impact of a strong presence in brining out and highlighting the key inner skills of an individual. These skills are not external but internal in nature whereby the individuals own inner personality such as their communication style, beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives are used as tools to build effective professional relationships with those around them including the top management, senior executives, leaders, subordinates, colleagues etc.

According to this article, the key to developing good leadership skills lies in understanding and knowing oneself and using that knowledge to develop a strong presence (HBR, 1999). The key techniques used for developing / improving leadership using theatre and improvisational exercises (for improving and enhancing communication styles); improving and ensuring greater presence (such as increased focus during business presentations, meetings with clients and /or colleagues etc.); using expressive capabilities; and developing and enhancing the art of communicating with the audience (both individuals as well as groups).

The article "Choosing strategies for change" presented by Sharon Hill, on the other hand stresses on the significance of managing change within organizations and the various issues faced while initiating new order of things. The article suggests that in order to ensure successful change management within organizations it is imperative to ensure involvement of all employees in the key activities or planning process, since they are the most likely to resist change. Secondly, the article emphasizes on developing strategies specially centered on the type of challenges / resistance likely to be encountered while initiating the change, such as offer training workshops for skill development to the employees.

Lastly, one of the most effective ways of initiating the process of change within organizations is taking into consideration the situational factors. This can be achieved by responding to imminent crises situations quickly (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008). Key techniques used for successful change management include: education (educating the employees), participation (ensuring greater participation of those most likely to resist change), facilitation (offer skills training and workshop), negotiation (offer incentives to influence them to change), and coercion (use threats such as loss of job, promotion or transfer to those resisting the change). 2. Managing change is one of the most difficult and challenging aspects of leadership development.

Personally, I believe the most difficult aspects of applying these processes include managing the soft side of change management i.e., managing the processes that entail and involve working with individuals / people would be the most critical and highly challenging of all. This is mainly because influencing people to do their jobs well after a drastic change in the organizational processes would be difficult since it implies getting them to not only embrace and adopt the newly introduced business practices but also to motivate them to enhance their performance and productivity at the same time.

Also, although the change initiated is likely to be applied uniformly across all levels of the organization, the impact of such change will be experienced on an individual level. Moreover the immediate superiors such as the supervisors in charge of the subordinate employees will most likely be struggling to deal with the changes implemented by the top management. Hence leading employees through such a critical phase seems to be a little challenging, although not entirely impossible. Furthermore, accurately estimating the duration required for successful transition is of utmost significance.

It is imperative for the leader to not only accurately estimate the time required to implement the change but also develop and introduce appropriate programs and workshops for the employees to prevent any resistance, within the limited time. Any delay in estimating the time frame available at the disposal of the leader, would result in significant losses. The investors may not be willing to invest due to the inability of the organization to successfully deal with the change; the employees may lose focus or trust in the management; the competitors /rivals may exploit the delay to their advantage resulting in loss of opportunities; and the delay would also result in loss of competitive standing in the industry (Sirkin, Keenan, & Jackson, 2005). 3. The above-discussed aspects would be difficult for me mainly because initiating change management processes that require the employees to suddenly stop the manner in which they have been doing their jobs so far and asking them to adapt to the newly implemented processes, is a little difficult to achieve.

Furthermore organization wide changes entail change in leadership, organizational structure, communication channels etc. Also, the leader is required to balance both - the hard as well as soft factors such as the number of people required, budget, available resources and infrastructure etc. on one hand and culture, motivation, and leadership on the other. Hence it is all the more difficult to ensure and achieve a successful transformation. 4.