Leadership and Change Management: Organizations Readiness for Change - Literature review Example

Leadership and Change Management – Organization’s Readiness for Change Introduction Leadership is one of the most prominent features of the managerial circumstances. It is an art of encouraging a group to take steps towards accomplishing a common objective. Leadership is a collective expression of personal qualities and the capability. The leader is a person who affects the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of the individuals within their work groups and motivates them working for achievement of a common goal. Throughout the history, leadership remains an important point for interest for the social scientists, theorists and experts (Boal and Hooijberg, 2000, p515). The leadership theories and philosophies evolved from the beginning of the twentieth century and up to present day the experts have identifies several important characteristics that are supposed to be essential parts of the leaders’ personalities. The organizations usually encounter wide range of changes in their operations either in form of change in working structure or induction of new technology within the business and it is their core responsibility to create readiness for change in the organization (Boeker, 1992, p400). Changes are inevitable for the organizations in today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive business environment. However, only well planned and well manages changes could provide desired benefits to the firms by fostering efficiency, productivity and performance of the organization. In case of implementing any type of change the organizations have to encounter resistance from the employees due to the threats they foresee in case of change implementation. Their resistance strongly affect the organizational readiness for change implementation hence the leadership has to strategically work for retaining the employees’ trust and confidence upon the organization so that they can take the change positive and beneficial for them (Singh et al, 1986, p611). The success of change implementation depends upon number of critically important factors. Among these factors the readiness for change in an important one that any organization could not afford to ignore while planning a change. The readiness for change is reflected through the beliefs of the members of the organization, their attitude and intention for making the change successful. The members either respond favourable towards the change by supporting it or they respond elsewise by resisting the change and change effort. In such case, the leadership has to perform key role in changing the members perceptions so that they can develop favourable response and belief towards the change and could support it rather resisting against the change. The essay discusses the leadership theories in the context of change management and discusses how different leadership attributes and qualities help in managing change and preparing readiness in the organization for change. The essay discusses the importance of organizations’ readiness for change and analyses the role of leadership in creating readiness in the organization for change by all the stakeholders the continuation or positive change in the vision and working patterns of the firms. In this regard, the paper reviews the literature exist around the topic and strives to explore the issue with the help of the reference of the relevant literature. Readiness for Change The management of change management is very crucial and challenging activity and important concept within the discipline of management that basically refers to the implementation of change in controlled method using predefined framework. There are certain important principles that are supposed to be followed for successful change management. It is important to get the support from the environment and system to make change successfully implemented in to the organization. The importance of leadership in the context of change management has been recognized and explained by the theorists from time to time and it has been widely accepted that different leadership approaches significantly affect the process of change management and strongly influence the process of readiness for change within the organization. Organizational readiness for change refers to the state of preparedness, psychological and behavioural response towards the change that could be attained and managed through knowledge, management skills, resources and support. The readiness for change has been discusses by the social scientists, researchers and organizational studies experts from different perspective. It is widely agrees that the change readiness could be analysed from seven important perspective including the perception of members toward change efforts, vision for change, mutual trust and respect, change initiatives, management support, acceptance, and management of change process by the organization. It implies that change readiness could be attained through the transformation of individual cognition across the members of the organization. Since the member of firm play defining role in assuring the success of change, it is imperative to prepare them for change before its implementation. The readiness of change could be expected only of the leadership succeeds to understand the importance of above mentioned seven core aspects of readiness for change and manages them affectively to transform the cognition of the stakeholders in desired direction. An important aspect of readiness for change is perception of employees towards the change efforts that could support as well as undermine the effectiveness of change initiatives taken within the organization. The success of change depends upon the employees perception because their attitude, performance and response to the change estimate the success level of change. The perception of the employees is affected from their past experiences as well as from their present observation of the organizations measures taken for change implementation. McDonald and Siegal (1993), Iacovini (1993) and McManus, et al. (1995) discussed the aspects of employees perception for change readiness and found that the attitude of the employees has the potential to affect the turnover intentions, productivity, performance level and morale of the organization. Another important aspect of change readiness is the vision for change. It tells about the direction in which the organizations need to move. Kotter (1996) explains that the creation of vision for change is an important step in change management and implementation. Similarly, the mutual trust and respect expressed by the management for the employees also affect their views and compromises for the organization and their readiness for change is affected from the level of trust and respect the members of organization have to each other. Sundstrom et al (1990) explains that the organization generally take several initiative for building mutual trust and respect that later affect the readiness for change within the organization. The readiness for change is also determined by the change initiatives taken by the management and leadership. The members of organization must be given the chance to propose some actions and initiative for change implementation. The leader also has to decide the change initiatives keeping in view the overall opinion of the members. If change initiatives are taken while keeping inconsideration the interest, choices and reservations of the members then it could be expected to have readiness for change within the organization. The support of management for change efforts also possesses great importance in the creation of change readiness. As explained by Armenakis, et al. (1993) the support provided by the management to the change initiatives and policies affect the perception of employees to the change efforts and ultimately the entire change process is supported from the management support and the readiness of change is created. The acceptance for change is also important in creating readiness for change. It is imperative to demonstrate member about the benefits and advantages of change both in short and long run so that rather developing misconceptions about the change they could respond positively and could accept the change. In addition to these issues, the change readiness could be expected through the effective management of change. The management has to assure that there are no conflicting programs in the environment of the organization that could affect the progression of change initiatives. The process of change implementation must be planned and manages keeping in view all the possibilities and problems related with the organizational environment. The change could lead towards desired level of performance and productivity only if it is managed affectively. It implies that change readiness could be expected through the proper management of these aspects of readiness for change and the leadership has the main role in managing all of these aspects of readiness for change. Leadership and Readiness for Change The leadership qualities play vital role in promoting change within organization and making people ready for the change. Leadership is an art and capability that works to mobilize people towards common goal. In case of any organizational change the leader are supposed to act as agents of change that motivate people to follow them towards the change. Changes pose great challenging responsibility upon the leadership because it lead towards cultural and organizational change and the leaders have to make their people believe that their interests and values would not be destroyed from the change but they will continue working in acceptable working environment (Rowe et al, 2005, p291). The role of the leadership possesses great importance in preparing the employees’ perception towards the change efforts because the leadership has the responsibility to study the history of the employee’s response towards the change and to take the necessary initiatives to divert the perception of the members in favourable direction to the change. The leadership has to make the strategies and policies focusing upon the aspects of readiness for change so that the members of the organization could be prepared for change and they can also feel them ready for accepting the change. The theories and concepts explaining the dynamics of leadership and change management also focus upon the role of leadership and affirm that the leaders have the central role in the implementation of change management and readiness for change could also be attained through effective leadership. Kotter (1996, p65) proposes that in order to led the organizations or sector towards successful implementation of changes and reforms, it is important to follow a series of actions determined through a model of understanding and managing the change. All the eight steps identified by Kotter are related to the response and approach of the people towards the change that affirms change should be implemented keeping in view the attitudes and behaviours of the people involved. The corporate leaders generally face some level of resistance from the employees and other stakeholders when they initiate their efforts to redirect the organization towards the new goals and direction backed by the change (Daniel, 1999, p19). The core reason behind the resistance for change from the employees must be understood very deeply and carefully by the management so that their problems could be resolved and the employees could be satisfied and motivated to give their full potential to the organization (Marks and Mirvis, 2001, p80). Cartwright and Cooper (1990, p76) propose that the employees usually feel uncomfortable and unsecured when they experience change in the working culture or pattern of the organization. They realize the presence of threat around them in form of new organizational culture. The role of leadership in this scenario is very important in building the confidence of the employees. The provision of this confidence from the leaders help employees in regaining their confidence and trust and ultimately the performance level of the employee could be expected to improve (Quah and Youg, 2005, p75). Pablo and Javidan (2002, p206) also identify the importance of leadership is creating readiness for change within an organization. They unveiled that leadership has to study in detail the perception and opinion of the stakeholders while managing change so that they can manage their behaviours and thinking after the change implementation in the desired direction. In some cases, the leaders do the mistake by thinking that the change in the working culture of the organization will also change the individual behaviours. However, it is a fact that the individuals resist the change when the leader fail to grasp their behaviour and the steps that could help in changing the behaviours of the employees and other stakeholders attached with the organization and having concerns regarding the new organizational culture (Birkinshaw et al, 2000, p395). Most of the early theories of leadership focus upon the qualities that renowned between the leaders and their followers however, the approach of modern day theories is different towards leadership concept and the modern theories mostly look towards leadership from different perspectives line as situational factors and ability level (Gardner et al, 1998, p58). It implies that the leadership is supposed to play chief agent’s role in change implementation process. Starting from the Great Man and Trait theory to the transformational or charismatic leadership theories, the expected role and responsibilities of leaders have changed considerably (Gardner et al, 1998, p58) and the responsibility of change management also start occupying considerable place among the duties of the leaders (Schuler and Jackson, 2001, p253). The classical theories of leadership view leaders as exceptional and extra ordinary people. The Great man theories explain that the leaders are different from the normal people because they are supposed to possess some innate qualities by birth that allows them to lead people. These qualities also include their capabilities to influence the responses and behaviour of people in certain direction and making them prepare to accept change (Graves, 1981, p113). The Great Man theories were followed by the Trait theories in which the qualities of a leader are given most importance. Hamlin (2005, p25) also suggests that the qualities of leadership to influence the behaviour of followers possess great importance. The behaviourist theories introduced some changed trends in the perception of a leader’s qualities. The concept of the style of leadership is presented in this theory that is based on different patterns of behaviours that could be observed in a leader. The Fiedlers Contingency model based upon the belief that managers cannot lead their group or organization by adopting any single way but when the situations are changed within organizations, the leadership requirements and demands also tent to be changed. Thus, in order to cope up with this challenging situation it is essential for the managers to remain contingent towards the factors that possess the potential to affect the situation. The environment and work setting of the organization has the major role to play in determining the demands of the leadership style within the organization. (Fiedler, 1967, p98) The leadership model presented by John Adair in 1973 is also regarded an important approach towards the leader’s role and responsibilities. Adair put forwards the concept that action is base for the activities of a leader because an action based leaders can successfully accomplish the goals of an organization by getting different jobs done by the teams of the workers and fellow managers and staff. Schweiger and Weber (1989, p86) explain that the relationship of the leader and the staff also possesses great importance to assure successful achievement of company goals. Conclusion It is unveiled that the leadership could influence the outcome of the implementation of any change. The readiness for change depends upon some important factors that could be achieved through effective leadership. The leadership can work for dealing with the issues that can contribute towards the failure of the change implementation. Effective leadership is the key to open the door of organizational success after any change through the use of effective change management strategies. The leadership style determines the satisfaction among the employees and contributes towards the success of the change introduced in the organization. The management of change is possible through effective strategies and capabilities of the leadership. The entire discussion could be sum up with the conclusion that the readiness for change within the organization depends upon perception of employees, change initiates, vision, mutual trust and respect and change management etc. All of these aspects could be directed towards achieving readiness for change only if the leadership has the capability to manage these matters and develop positive attitude of members towards the change. 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