The Leadership of Successful Organizations - Research Proposal Example

?Discuss how can the leadership of successful organizations encourage support for, and overcome resistance to, transformation of the underlying business model of the organization? Introduction: In any organization, change is inevitable. The micro environment of an organization is always influenced by and interconnected with the macro environment. Because of this relationship, culture of an organization is constantly modified in accordance with the socioeconomic factors and the political turmoil in a country. However, in a vast majority of cases, change is not welcomed by the organizational personnel and a resistance cultivates in the personnel against the managers who aim at implementing change in the organization. A research based on the investigation of 288 companies identified the resistance from employees at various levels as the biggest factor that hindered the implementation of change (Creasey cited in Haslam and Pennington, n.d., p. 3). This is so because the personnel tend to gain benefits from the existing business model of the organization. They have their ways formulated in such a way that any change in the existing business model can be a potential threat to their profitability. A leader is responsible to quell the resistance among people towards the implementation of a change that is compulsory for the organizational growth. The process of transition comprises three entirely distinct processes, each of which upsets the organizational personnel in its own way. The three stages are “1) Saying Goodbye, 2) The Neutral Zone, and 3) Moving Forward” (Haslam and Pennington, n.d., p. 3). Employees have reason to resist the first stage. At least they know how to work in the old system whether or not it works. Having worked in the old setup for quite some time, they develop a comfort level with the first stage. Lacking the set of competencies required by the new system, people tend to revert to the old system. The Neutral Zone, which is essentially the second stage, consumes most of the time and energy of people. Instead of taking the discomfort as a challenge and working their way towards the new comfort, people tend to go back to the same old ineffective but convenient ways of doing things. In organizations which have the culture of punishing employees for their mistakes, people hesitate to adopt the new system unless they are sure they will not make any mistake in the Moving Forward stage, which is the third stage. The need of security and safety causes people to resist change. It rests with the transformational leader to make the change implemented with minimum inconvenience. According to Herold et al (2008), not much study has been done to find the impact of transformational leadership on outcomes of the change. Personal outcomes are the fundamental specialty of transformational leadership (Givens, 2008, p. 4). “The vision, drive, passion and ability of leaders to inspire their followers into action largely make up … charismatic leadership style [of the leaders]” (Parry and Proctor-Thomson, 2002). A transformational leader necessarily has five crucial qualities that make him an effective transformational leader. A leader must be a Visionary; A leader must be a person of Integrity and Honesty and have Values; A leader must know how to properly motivate others; and A leader must be able to lead change and finally, A leader must be able to lead a culture of change. (Cornelius & Associates, n.d.). Despite their individualistic identity and significance in organizational leadership, these qualities are largely interdependent. Changes in an organization can be fundamentally classified into two types, namely the planned and the emergent. Initiatives drives in an organization from top to bottom are termed as planned changes whereas emergent changes are those which develop from any level in the hierarchical structure of an organization. In either of the two types of changes, leader assumes a crucial role to play. In order for the planned change to be effective, it is imperative that the leader has a clear vision. The leader must know how to involve people in the change and develops the rationale in support of the change. On the other hand, in order to implement an emergent change, a leader needs to formulate and cultivate a culture which encourages the origination of change within the organization. There are certain elements that need to be inculcated in the organizational culture in order make it conducive for the implementation of change. These elements are fundamentally ingrained in the leadership style of the leader. Some of them are discussed below: Realistic plan of project: The organizational leader needs to develop a step-by-step plan right in the planning stage of the project. This plan comprises both an analysis of risk and that of the business case. Making organization structure conducive for the management of change: In order for the change to be implemented, installment of the organization structure for adequate development, implementation and management of change is compulsory. In ideal terms, key stakeholders need to be involved in such a system and a team approach should be adopted for the same. Motivation of employees: Motivation of employees is essential for change implementation. In an organization where change is frequent to occur, the best style of leadership is essentially the one which can inculcate motivation in the followers to make their views consistent with those of the leader (Transformational Leadership, 2002). Identification of internal change agents: Intellectual stimulation is a cardinal skill of the transformational leaders (Lowder, 2009) which results into increased commitment of the personnel towards implementation of the change (Huang, 2010). Quite often, successful leaders seek help from the internal change agents who need to be called into a coalition. If the leaders can take the internal change agents into confidence, they can be made to serve as “cheerleaders” for the change. “Change is not accepted and work cannot be done without the buy-in of key stakeholders” (Anon, n.d.). Communication plan: For the entire duration consumed by the change initiative, the leader should develop a formal plan of communication. The communication plan should tell what needs to be communicated to whom, when, how and how much in every meeting. The communication parties should be clearly identified in the communications plan. Training plan: With every change is associated a whole range of competencies which the organizational personnel are required to demonstrate while the change is implemented. Indeed, it is the very requirement of skills that upsets most of the employees and inculcates controversies against the leader implementing the change. In order to minimize the negative influence of change, the leader should develop and introduce training programs that educate the organizational personnel on the new areas of skills to raise their confidence level and ultimately, their approval of the change. Conclusion: In light of the above discussion, it is evident that implementation of change in an organization fundamentally depends upon the skills of the leader. “…leadership competencies is about one’s ability to modify or change existing patterns of behaviour, and ultimately to regulate those depending of the different circumstances that leaders are faced with” (Bernal, 2009, p. 7). Brockner and Higgins (2001) also determined a link among regulatory focus, transformational leadership, organizational change, and employee satisfaction. In order for the change to be implemented easily, leadership should be integrated at all levels in the organization. According to Mahoney (2000), Let me say from the start that in my view leadership must exist at all levels in an organization, regardless of the size, for it to consider itself a learning organization….there is no excuse for them [leaders] not creating an environment where everyone can participate in this process. (Crawford, n.d., p. 6). References: Anon. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.managingchange.biz/transformational_leadership.html. Bernal, E. (2009). Designing Transformational Leadership Development Programme. Business Leadership Review. 6(4): 1-17. Retrieved from http://www.mbaworld.com/blr-archive/issues-64/1/index.pdf. Brockner, J., Higgins, E. T. (2001). Regulatory focus theory: Implications for the study of emotions at work. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process. 61(1): 35-66. Cornelius & Associates. (n.d.). The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change. Retrieved from http://www.corneliusassoc.com/articles/The%20Roles%20of%20Leadership%20leading%20change.pdf. Crawford, C. B. (n.d.). Transformational Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Management: Empirical Findings and Emergent Conclusions. Transformational Leadership and Knowledge Management. Retrieved from http://www.leadershipeducators.org/Resources/Documents/Conferences/Memphis/crawford.pdf. Givens, R. J. (2008). Transformational Leadership: The Impact on Organizational and Personal Outcomes. Emerging Leadership Journeys. 1(1): 4-24. Haslam, S., and Pennington, R. (n.d.). Reducing Resistance to Change and Conflict: A Key to Successful Leadership. Retrieved from http://www.resource-i.com/Leadership_series.pdf. Herold, D. M., Fedor, D. B., Caldwell, S., and Liu, Y. (2008). The effects of transformational and change leadership on employees' commitment to a change: A multilevel study. Journal of Applied Psychology. 93(2): 346-357. Huang, L. (2010). Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment: The Moderating Role of Leaders' Centrality in Influence Networks: Implications for Human Resource Management Practices. Management and Service Science (MASS). Doi: 10.1109/ICMSS.2010.5577532. Lowder, B. T. (2009). The Best Leadership Model for Organizational Change Management: Transformational Verses Servant Leadership. Saint Leo University. Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=1418796. Parry, K. W., and Proctor-Thomson, S. B. (2001). Perceived Integrity of Transformational Leaders in Organisational Settings. Journal of Business Ethics. Retrieved from http://www.aacorn.net/members_all/parry_ken/perceived.pdf. Transformational Leadership @ Apple. (2002). Strategic Direction, 18(6): 5-7. Read More