Factors Affecting Leadership - Essay Example

Number: Paper: Question a) Kotter’s table for comparing leadership and management With increased competition in the present business scenario, prominent changes are taking place in the global market. These changes are both favourable and unfavourable for the consumers. Such changes facilitate the adoption of new technologies and products with specific benefits. Then again, these changes are difficult to manage for the companies. Hence, the management of companies should communicate the needs for changes to employees and highlight on the solutions accordingly. The users or consumers often avoid changes owing fear of the unknown (Kotter, 1996). As effective communication contributes towards reducing the fear, it is necessary for the companies to manage as well as promote the changes. Such communication should be either active or verbal in nature. The management has to introduce change in business operations through effective leadership. The leaders are expected to provide proper guidance so that all organisational members are able to adopt the modifications implemented. According to Lewis Kotter, change management can be differentiated from leadership. The following tables present a comparison between leadership and change management. Figure 1: Management Vs Leadership (Source: Kotter, 1996) The table provided above was developed by Lewis Kotter, where the differences between management and leadership are highlighted. The point of difference is explained separately as it greatly contributes in rendering the contrast lucid and foregrounds effectiveness of leadership. Figure 2: Creating an agenda (Source: Kotter, 1996) Figure 3: Developing a human system (Source: Kotter, 1996) Figure 4: Execution (Source: Kotter, 1996) Figure 5: Outcome (Source: Kotter, 1996) The table presented above elaborates on the difference between leadership and management as described by Kotter (1996). b) Factors affecting leadership Several models have been framed in order to help the managers and leaders understand the changes occurring in an organisation, which will enable them to guide organisational members during the phase of change. According to the American Management Association, the key to facilitate successful change is leadership, followed by communication and corporate values (Kotter, 1996). If change is regarded as a process undertaken by an organisation to move towards a desired state in future, then it must not be overlooked that considerable of challenges are also entailed. In order to overcome these challenges, effective leadership skills are required along with appropriate management. The models of change that affect leadership are detailed below. Kurt Lewin’s Model of change Presently, business environment is exposed to a number of changes. Nevertheless, organisations are observed to resist these changes effectively. The technological advancement is fuelled by changes that occur in all aspects of life. Kurt Lewin had proposed a model that addresses the process of change. This model is very important for organisations as they need to follow the process of change in the way advocated by the model. The model is named as Three Step Model of Change, given that it is dependent on three significant steps. These steps provide easy transition as soon as a change occurs. The model is very helpful to the leaders, who are responsible for communicating the organisational changes to the employees. The stages are elaborated below (Kanter, Stein & Jick 1992). Unfreezing At this stage, the leaders or managers in an organisation strive to convince employees that the changes are required and mutually beneficial. The subordinates or employees tend to attach themselves to the usual policies, routines and practice. These practices and routines reflect constant changes with advancement in the business world. Consequently, the leaders have the responsibility to point out challenges, stating that changes are necessary so as to improve the present situation. In order to bring in changes in an organisation, the leaders portray the changes in an appealing manner, thereby encouraging employees to adopt the same (Bass, 1990; Kanter, Stein & Jick 1992). Transition The transition stage is both tedious and difficult to implement for the managers or leaders. It becomes further challenging if the previous stage is not executed properly. Transition takes place when the subordinates start adopting the changes made. The subordinates recognize the policies and practices that are determined in order to facilitate changes in the organisation. Proper execution of this step is time consuming because the employees are able to adopt the changes in a slow manner. Leadership in this stage is very important as leaders are responsible for communicating the changes and formulate new policies and practices (Burke, 1992; Kanter, Stein & Jick 1992). Refreeze The final stage is refreezing. In this step, the employees or subordinates accept the changes that are made within an organisation so as to cope with the present situation. Stability is the main concern under the stage of refreezing. Hence, it is a responsibility of the leaders to stabilize the present situation and develop a more comfortable and change-oriented environment for the employees so that they can work most efficiently. At this stage, no resistance is encountered from the subordinates or employees. In fact, they reconnect themselves with the organisation and new policies set. The process is slow as the employees take considerably long time to adapt to the new policies and practices (Buford & Jelinek, 2006; Kanter, Stein & Jick 1992). Kotter’s Eight steps model The following eight steps are formulated by John Kotter (1996) to identify modifications that are required in an organisation with the change in business environment. Develop sense of urgency A company can choose to alter its operational framework if required. The employees can be motivated to adopt the changes made for enhancing organisational welfare. The managers or leaders create urgency within the company, which is successful in 75% cases, according to Kotter. Even so, he has failed to elaborate on the reason behind ineffectiveness of change (Flannery, Hofrichter & Platten, 1996). Powerful coalition is formed While initiating a change, a change agent or leader must incorporate coalition for influencing people who have diverse base of power in the organisation. Hence, the leaders need to be selected very carefully so as to instil a serious and enduring emotional commitment for facilitating changes (Burns, 2004). Develop vision for change An efficient change agent or leader must portray a clear image of the change, before incorporating the same. The leaders must create a unique vision for change so as to ensure its success after implementation. Communication of vision The change agents should communicate the changes clearly and frequently to employees or subordinates. The information pertaining to changes includes desired benefits that can be subsequently derived. Removal of obstacle An efficient leader should identify obstacles that have the potential to prevent occurrence of changes in an organisation. The change agent has the skills and ability to neutralise the processes and procedures that require modification. Creating short term wins The leaders or change agents should have the ability to prove that the vision for change is adequately effective to bring about the same. To achieve a long-term vision, short-term objectives are formulated (Bossidy & Charan, 2002). Building the change Successful incremental changes results from the analysis, which identifies the change area. Inject changes in corporate culture The leaders should inject the changes into intrinsic business operations so that all employees are aware of the policies and practices. The policies gradually become the new organisational culture (Buford & Jelinek, 2006; Kanter, Stein & Jick 1992). Question 2 a) Many paradigms are prevalent in the organisational theory, which organisations adopt at the critical times. These theories are important in events, where organisations encounter complexity in technology, turbulence in financial market and volatile political condition. So, during times of uncertainty, these paradigms are required to be considered. Punctuated equilibrium paradigm has originated from evolutionary biology. The application of this paradigm in biology signifies that the development of species is very slow and is characterised by stability with no or little change. This concept helps in clarifying certain aspects of uncertainty. It highlights on active mechanism of the organisation for changing the main pattern of activities conducted (Beer & Nohria, 2000). When the concept is described with respect to an organisation, it identifies the elements of change required therein. The elements pertain to processes, technology, function, incentive, structure, culture, competence and strategy (Bibler, 1989). The mentioned elements are developed under equilibrium period. In this equilibrium stage, a sudden intense and pervasive change in the process is noticed, which disturbs the stable position. This stage is called the period of inertia (Beer & Nohria, 2000). The new mission and structure are created, thereby discarding the old ones. The transformation is facilitated in order to obtain second equilibrium, following a short change in the fundamental structure. On failing to do so, the organisational performance appears to deteriorate. However, another paradigm is required for addressing the organisational changes, which is known as the gradualist paradigm. Gradualism represents culmination of the small changes over large ones over a period of time (Gilley, 2005). b) Planned change management aims at foreseeing the difference between desired and present state. It also gives emphasis on the ways to attain a desired state (Beer & Nohria, 2000). Figure 6: Planned changes (Source: Beer & Nohria, 2000) The process of planned change management assumes that the desired result is obtained after highlighting on the present state, without encountering excessive disruption arising from the external and internal factors. The planned change models are described below. Figure 7: Planned change model (Source: Beer & Nohria, 2000) The models lay emphasis on different stages that are followed in order to reach the desired result. Lewin’s 3-Stage Model, Cumin’s Model of Planned Change and Lippii, Watson and Westley Model of Planned Change are important models that have been explained. If viewed closely, stages involved in all the models are interrelated significantly. The unfreezing step of the 3-Stage Model is similar to the three steps of Cumin’s model and so on and so forth. From the above figure, it is evident that all these models follow the same process of identifying the need for change and subsequently proceed towards the next steps (Lussier & Achua, 2007; Beer & Nohria, 2000). Firstly, the need for change is determined by leaders of the companies. The areas of changes are identified by collecting relevant data from the employees. This process is time consuming and leaders cannot take decisions abruptly due to the fear of harming organisational reputation. With the changes occurring in present business environment, the leaders have become greatly concerned regarding the areas requiring change as the primary aim is to improve the organisational performance. After the areas of changes are identified by the leaders, they aim at generating a number of solutions in order to select the most suitable one. Changes are adopted by selecting the best alternatives. These changes are communicated to the employees and subordinates. In this stage, the employees strive to adopt the changes made in operations of the organisation. However, they adjust to these changes very cautiously so that the organisational values are not harmed by individual behaviour. The leaders form the main source of motivation for the employees and subordinates by way of driving the change process. In the last stage, changes made are adopted by the employees and subordinates, who gradually become accustomed to the new policies and ensure that they add value to the organisation. The organisational changes are adopted in order to cope up with those taking place in the external business environment regularly (Beer & Nohria, 2000). The above mentioned models have adequate relation with transformational and evolutionary change. Transformational changes in an organisation take place when drastic changes occur in the initial practices and policies. In such a situation, transformation is greatly needed. These types of change are noted in case of technological modifications as well as significant changes in respect to demand and supply of the products, lack of revenue and major shifts in business. Evolutionary changes are undertaken so as to improvise upon responsibilities and frame reasonable timelines for an organisation (Beer & Nohria, 2000). References Bass, B. (1990). Stogdill’s handbook of leadership. New York: Free Press. Beer, M. & Nohria, N. (2000). Breaking the code of change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Bibler, R. S. (1989). The Arthur Young management guide to mergers and acquisitions. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Bossidy, L., & Charan, R. (2002). Execution: The discipline of getting things done. New York: Crown Publishing. Buford, J. A., & Jelinek, S. M. (2006). Traditional pay in public organizations. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing. Burke, W. W. (1992). Organizational development: A process of learning and changing. Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley. Burns, B. (2004). Managing change. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Flannery, T. P., Hofrichter, D. A. & Platten, P. E. (1996). People performance and pay: Dynamic compensation for changing organizations. New York: Free Press. Gilley, A. (2005). The manager as change leader. Westport: Praeger. Kanter, R. M., Stein, B. A. & Jick, T. D. (1992). The challenge of organizational change: How companies experience it and leaders guide it. New York: Free Press. Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Lussier, R. N. & Achua, C. F. (2007). Leadership: Theory, application, and skill development. Mason: Thomson South-Western. Read More