Lesson 6: Leading Change and Leader Development. Social Sciences Essay

MB661 Leadership and Motivation

Lesson 6: Leading Change and Leader Development

Upon completion of the Required Readings, write a thorough, well-planned narrative answer to the following discussion question.  Rely on your Required Readings and the Lecture and Research Update for specific information to answer the discussion question, but turn to your original thoughts when asked to apply, evaluate, analyze, or synthesize the information.  Your Discussion Question response should be both grammatically and mechanically correct, and formatted in the same fashion as the question itself.  If there is a Part A, your response should identify a Part A, etc.  In addition, you must appropriately cite all resources used in your responses and document in a bibliography using APA style.

Discussion Question 1 (50 points)

What are the elements of an organizational culture that support change, and what role do leaders play in developing that culture?

Organizations face pressure for change from both inside and outside. Internal factors include: low performance, new leadership, low satisfaction, new mission, and conflict. Low performance, also referred to as the performance gap, is the difference between expected and actual performance. Various changes are implemented to address the gap. New leadership from either inside or outside the organization is another factor that leads to pressure for change. Additionally, low satisfaction is likely to push organizations to make changes, as are a new mission or on-going conflict inside the organization. External forces for change include economic and political changes. Additionally, as cultures evolve and social changes occur, organizations are often forced to change to address them. Demographic changes such as an aging population or a more diverse workforce further pressure organizations to make internal changes. Finally, technology and changes in an industry can force changes in organizations.

Culture can impact how leaders view change, either as an opportunity or a threat. Tolerance for ambiguity and the perception of time are two cultural values that impact how we view change. Not tolerating ambiguity and being risk averse, which are values in cultures such as Greece, Portugal, and Japan, can lead leaders to view change as a threat and look for ways to neutralize its impact. In other cultures such as the United States and Canada, the short-term orientation and tolerance for ambiguity leads leaders to manage change more easily and make adjustments as the need arises.

Leadership competencies are directly linked to change management. McClelland originally identified these competencies in the 1970s. Later, Goleman “noted the very best corporate leaders, while diverse in their leadership styles, share in common the characteristics of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill. These skills according to Goleman allow superb leaders to understand their own as well as others' emotional makeup well enough to move people to accomplish institutional objectives. Goleman's (1995) original work on emotional intelligence described the following essential elements or abilities: knowing one's emotions; managing emotions; motivating oneself; recognizing emotions in others; and handling relationships” (Hess & Bacigalupo, 2011, p. 713).

More recently, Galvin, Gibbs, Sullivan, & Williams (Mar 2014) comment that there are

…three specific leadership styles: Intellectual, Managerial, and Emotional. Individuals will not just only possess attributes for one leadership style, but normally a combination of two or more. This is exceedingly important to identify because in today's corporate world, project manager or leaders/managers alike, must be flexible in every aspect of their job. No matter what the type of industry is, project acquired, or team members they are assigned, these leadership styles and competencies define the type of person and leader they are. (p. 38)

As a leader, creativity, practicality, and a high level of emotional intelligence can be the greatest assets you bring to any assignment. Creativity will help you determine new and different courses of action, practicality will assist you in realizing which approaches will work in a given situation, and emotional intelligence will guide your working relationships.

According to Holten, Brenner, & Olof (2015), leadership style has “a significant, direct impact on followers' appraisal of change” (p.19). They further explain that:

During the initial stage of change, we found that both leadership styles (the espoused values) impacted followers' long-term change appraisal. Transformational leadership had a positive, long-term effect on followers' appraisal of change. Thus, when preparing for and implementing change, the more managers are visionary change role models, the more followers appraise the change positively during the final stages of change. Contrarily, transactional leadership performed during the initial stage of change, has a negative effect on followers' change appraisal. (p.20)

Change can be planned or unplanned. When forces for change are stronger than those opposing them, the organization will move toward making changes. When forces for status quo are stronger, people will resist change. To implement change, leaders must either increase the strength of the forces for change or decrease those who resist it. Additionally, as Lewin proposed, change occurs in three stages of unfreezing, change, and freezing. In the first stage, organizations prepare for change and understand the need for change. After change is introduced in the second stage, there must be a period during which change is allowed to freeze and settle down. Organizations often focus on the second stage and ignore the first and third, not taking enough time to prepare for change or to support it once it has taken place. Successful change requires careful attention to all three stages.

An effective way to implement successful change is to develop a culture that accepts change and is ready to learn. Such a culture is called a learning organization where people continually expand their capacity to create, where innovation and cooperation are nurtured, and where knowledge is shared and transferred throughout the organization. According to your text, the elements of learning organizations are:

Actions that leaders can take to prepare for unplanned change also support change in general. These include:

• Avoid becoming too formal, hierarchical, rigid, and inflexible.
• Infuse moderate amounts of uncertainty, unpredictability, and spontaneity into decisions to help prevent complacency.
• Stay on the offensive and be proactive with introducing new strategies, products, services, or processes.
• Replace and rotate leaders to bring in fresh ideas, methods, and visions
• Experiment often with new methods, products, processes, structures, and so forth, to help

As you read the text and the assigned articles, you will learn many new concepts and gather several new tools, all of which are valuable in the right circumstances. Leadership has always been a difficult task, but never more so than in today's fast-moving and changing business environment. You will need to adopt the style best fitting your personality and the situation at hand. In addition, you must work to develop the areas in which you can improve, use the tools that make sense at the time, and simply be a pragmatic leader.

Lecture and Research Update Bibliography

Galvin, T., Gibbs, M., Sullivan, J., and Williams, C. (Mar 2014). Leadership Competencies of Project Managers: An Empirical Study of Emotional, Intellectual, and Managerial Dimensions. Journal of Economic Development, Management, I T, Finance, and Marketing,6.1, 35-60. 

Hess, J. D. and Bacigalupo, A. C. (2011). Enhancing Decisions and Decision-Making Processes Through the Application of Emotional Intelligence Skills. Management Decision, 49.5, 710-721.

Holten, A. and Brenner, S. (2015). Leadership Style and the Process of Organizational Change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36.1 : 16-22. 

Nahavandi, A. (2015). The Art and Science of Leadership (7th ed). Pearson.

Grading Rubric

Please refer to the rubric below for the grading criteria for this assignment.