Leadership And Organisational Change In An Emerging Digital Marketing Setup

Leadership at WME

Organisational behavior is an important concept which is used in the day to day activities in an organisation. There are several aspects of organisational behavior which is related to business in different ways and it could be understood with the way an organisation moves to achieve its organisational operation. The two main aspects of organisational behavior are leadership and organisational change (Yuan & Woodman, 2010). Organisational behavior could be understood in the best possible way through assessing the behavior of the employees during the change implemented in the organisation and also under different forms of leadership. The organisational behavior is a key concept and hence it is extremely important to assess the impact of organisational behavior from the personal experience (Colquitt, Leping & Wesson, 2011). Talking from the personal experience at the workplace organisational behavior is essential and hence analysing organisational behavior in terms of these aspects would help to make sure the objectives are achieved.

The present study will be done with the help of two different aspects of organisational behavior namely leadership and organisational change with reference to an emerging Digital Marketing Setup in the country WME. The present essay will critically discuss leadership and organisational change and will also highlight their relationship and suggest effective recommendations to complete the study. The aspect of leadership implemented in the organisation WME will be analysed based on the leadership styles applied in the organisation like autocratic, participative style et cetera. The present essay will analyse organisational change on the basis of the two relevant characteristics of whether the change applied in the organisation is planned or unplanned. The employee resistance skepticism will also be showed which would help to complete the study properly. 

Leadership could be defined as the process of leading people towards achieving certain objectives or the ability to do that for an organisation. Leadership is an extremely important aspect for an organisation as suitable leadership executed in the different levels of the organisation could have effective results for the organisation. From the parlance of management leadership is considered as one of the key jobs of the management in an organisation but leadership is smoothing more than that (Griffin & Moorehead, 2011). It is the much needed strategy of the organisation to bring all the employees under one marquee and lead them to personal and professional success. Leaders are mostly chosen in an organisation like WME because in contemporary business organisations people don’t want managers to manage teams but they want leaders to lead from the front and set examples which would help to make sure that the employees are motivated enough to work for the organisation. Hence it could be said that leadership is not only an important function of the management but it is also important for the overall organisational success (McShane & Von Glinow, 2011).

Types of Leadership styles

Leadership concept is an old concept and it has been there right from the beginning of the world which clearly makes it one of the ancient tricks to manage employees. It cannot be denied that leadership is an extremely important aspect for organisational success but leadership has a broader role to play (Hoel et al., 2010). Leadership is important for an organisation due to its immense ability to influence the employees to work for the organisation and also keep them in a state of content which is extremely important for the long term success of the organisation. Leadership development is considered vital as most of the organisations fail to communicate well with the different the different levels which definitely affect the productivity of the organisation. From the classical point of view of leadership it could be said that leaders have followers which means they have a significant trait of influencing people effectively which is extremely important for the growth and development of an organisation (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009). Especially for an organisation like WME leadership is important since it launched itself in one of the most competitive industries available in the contemporary market. From the bigger perspective leadership helps in influencing the overall behavior of the employees at the workplace which is extremely essential to achieve organisational success. Leadership is responsible to initiate actions by communicating the thoughts and organisational objectives. Leaders infuse confidence among the employees which is extremely important for the organisation and is likely to improve the overall organisational operations.

The leadership of the organisation could be analysed with the help of the leadership styles applied. It is important for the organisation to make sure that the right kind of leadership style is implemented in the organisation. There are different types of leadership styles which are important to be understood and implemented in the organisational operations (Doucet, Poitras & Chenvert, 2009).

The Autocratic style of leadership is a form of leadership where the leader is focused on making decisions by themselves and doesn’t involve employees in the decision making. In the present day market autocracy is not considered as a suitable form of market and hence it could be said that most of the organisations give up on autocratic style of leadership. Autocracy creates unrest among the employees and this is not applied in the contemporary business firms. On the other hand Participative style of leadership is one of the mostly used styles of leadership. In this form of leadership leaders are inclined to utilise the key insights of the employees in the decision making process which helps to make sure the decisions taken are suitable and effective for the organisation (Taylor & Pattie, 2014). Participative style of leadership improves the behavior of the employees to a large extent and creates enthusiasm among them to contribute to the overall success of the organisation. Participative style of leadership is extremely effective in the modern day market as employees feel they are equally responsible for the organisation and hence involving them in the decision making process is not only effective for the organisation but also for the employees as this fuels the overall personal and professional development of the employees. In this scenario participative leadership style is definitely a key approach to leadership for the modern and aspiring leaders. The laissez faire style of leadership is a kind of leadership where the employees are solely responsible for making decisions for the organisation and the leaders do not get involved in the decision making process even though they finally pass a policy (Meister, Willyerd & Foss, 2009).

Analysis of the Leadership Style at WME

WME is an emerging digital marketing organisation which has operated in the Australia for around 9 years and the company has been able to generate significant market share. The work environment at the organisation is professional enough. The leadership style that fits the organisation best is the participative style of leadership as it helps to understand the mindsets and the insights of the employees effectively. Since it is a digital marketing organisation the employees have to be very creative and intellectual and hence implementing the participative form of leadership helps to provoke these employees to think more and initiate conversation among the group which helps to effectively focus on improving the decision making process and allow the organisation to make the best possible decision. The application of participative leadership is effective for the organisation as it helps to building morale and builds up effective coordination among the employees that would help to compete in the market and gain competitive advantage (Huang et al., 2010). Hence it could be said that applying the participative leadership in the operations of WME is extremely effective in making sure the organisation is able to make its decisions. It could be said that implementing the participative style of leadership also improves the overall behavior of the employees and acts as one of the important factors that affects the individual behavior at work. Looking at the concept of participation it could be said that participative leaders are more inclined towards understanding the ideas and thought process of the employees with who he or she is working that largely helps to improve the decision making process in the organisation (Rok, 2009). WME has to do a lot of creative work which basically means that the organisation needs significant amount of intellectual property that could be received through group discussion and participative sessions with the leader that allows the organisation to get the best possible result from the employees. To conclude it could be said that participative leadership style has helped the organisation to improve its overall work environment of the organisation (Salahuddin, 2010). When the management and the employees work together the workplace becomes communal in nature and the work environment becomes better and effective which allows the organisation to improve its operations and succeed in this highly competitive business environment.

One of the major decisions that an organisation has to make in its organisational operation is the decision of change. Change management is one of the toughest jobs for the leaders and managers at the workplace and hence it is extremely important to understand change and its need. Organisational change could be defined as the process of changing organisational strategies and plans, procedure, technology et cetera in order to make sure the organisation is able to cope up with the market pressure as well as the changing trends of the market. The organisational change is planned for the betterment of an organisation but it might have negative result if not managed properly (Marshall, 2010). The organisational change is mainly influenced by factors like change in the market operations, change in the external environment (political, social, economic or environmental or technological), change in consumption trends et cetera. Organisational change is applied in order to cope with these visible changes and get the best possible result from it but it wouldn’t be possible without the support of the employees of an organisation and hence it is important to regulate the behavior of the employees effectively. Organisational change could normally be of two different types planned or unplanned (Smith, 2011). The unplanned changes are sudden and have to be made due to the immense pressure of the market. In this kind of change the planning is rare and are reactive since the organisations hardly get time to plan change process and hence they implement the change tend to monitor the change in order to make changes in the strategies and operations in the overall process of organisational operations. On the other hand the planned change is intentional and hence it has to be handled effectively by the organisation which would help to implement change (Küng, 2013).

Organisational Change

Planned change faces number of hindrances and one of the major hindrances is the resistance to change showed by the employees. Normally the planned changes are implemented by a change agent and mostly employees of the organisation focuses on resisting to change because they feel skeptic about the change. The employees tend to be in a comfort zone and when change is applies each and every level of the organisation has to pull up their socks and indulge actively in change which at times threaten their position in the organisation and this leads to the resistance. The Employees at WME resisted changing of process of technological change. The organisation focused on applying Internet of Things in the organisation but a certain section of employees being not aware of it created issues and resisted to change by remaining absent from the meetings, filing memos and petitions about the change (Boohene & Williams, 2012). They felt it was a threat to their expertise and will somehow lose their job which was shown by the overt resistance to change. It was important for the leadership at WME to mitigate the impact of change through direct communication, posing more responsibilities on the employees, effective training and development program and applying participative leadership style and involve employees effectively in the decision making process which would help to make the employees realise their importance for the organisation. There are number of change models which are effective in implementing change in the organisation but McKinsey’s 7s Model will be effective in implementing the change (Muijs, 2011).

Leadership has a direct relationship with organisational change. Effective leadership is important for the effective application of organisational change. During the organisational change the organisation needs effective leadership which would help to handle the resistance of the employees effectively and implement the organisational change successfully. The organisation WME had been able to implement the technological change in-spite of the resistance that followed the company from their employees. The effective participative leadership application has helped to communicate and reason with the employees regarding the application of organisational change in the organisation (Waddell et al., 2013). The company WME has applied the technological change of integrating Internet of Things (IOT) in its operations which would help to ease the pressure at work and also help to improve the efficacy of the organisational operations. It is extremely important to make sure the change implemented with the help of McKinsey’s 7s Model is supervised by the leaders so that it involves all the employees and help them participate in the change process. The 7s Model needs leadership at every stage as:

Impact of Organisational Change on Employee Behavior at WME

                     

                                                         McKinsey’s 7s Model

Strategy is developed with the help of leaders and with the participative leadership implemented the employees will come into the action and will help to improve the change strategy effectively.

The structure of the organisation has to have effective leaders at every level which would help to make sure any kind of issue is properly mitigated.

The overall system of the organisations cannot be complete without employees and hence implementing participative leadership is effective for the organisation WME.

The shared value is communicated by the leaders across the organisation which means it is important for the leaders to take responsibilities of the employees and motivate them during change (Burnes & By, 2012).

During the change participative leadership style prevails as it will help to get the employees to trust the organisation and its future plans for the employees which would help to implement change successfully.

The staffs are important and with participative leadership style the organisation will realise the training needs of the employees as well as it would be able to understand the other possible grievances faced by the employees that resist change and accordingly implement the change properly.

The employees of the organisation WME have effective technical skills which are required by the employees and the constant assessment of training needs by the employees helps the organisation to make the change a success (Smith, 2011).

Conclusion And Recommendations

To conclude it could be said that the present study has analysed the key aspects related to organisational behavior leadership and organisational change and it has also highlighted their relationship with reference to the organisation WME which is one of the emerging digital marketing organisation in the Australian Market. It is clear from the evaluation that leadership is an extremely important aspect for an organisation as it can fuel change in the organisation and can also motivate staffs and employees to work in the company. There is a direct relationship between leadership and organisational change and it could be said that effective leadership could get positive result out of organisational change. From the above evaluative discussion certain recommendations could be made which would be effective in improving the performance and quality of the organisation in terms of organisational behavior which are given below:

• In order to improve the organisational behavior of the employees during change the organisation WME should focus on developing valid and justified rationale which will influence and motivate the staffs of the organisation (Salahuddin, 2010).
• The leaders of the organisation should be more communicative with the employees.
• The participative style of leadership is effective and hence it is important to make sure in every level of the organisation it is implemented especially in the lower level employees as they often seem to be caught in nap about organisational decisions.
• Regular team meetings and professional conferences within the organisation to influence and motivate the employees to take part in the change process.
• Giving more responsibilities to the employees during change (Küng, 2013).

Organisational setting – WM E Digital Marketing Team
OB 1. concept – Leadership	OB 2. concept –Organisational Change
Text source: (Doucet, Poitras, & Chênevert, 2009)	Text source: (Boohene & Williams, 2012)
A: Useful tools/concepts: Participative leadership model, Transformational leadership style, Innovation framework.	A: Useful tools/concepts: McKinsey’s 7S Model, Kotter’s Six change approach to reduce resistance, Collaborative communication model.
a).  Participative leadership model Used to get effective insights from the employees and to operate in the best possible manner. The Digital marketing team is most important team in the organisation and hence it is important to implement a kind of leadership which will influence them. This model of leadership has influenced the employees at work to come up with new ideas (Küng, 2013).	a). McKinsey’s 7S Model Used to implement change with the help of the contribution from the 7 attributes like structure, strategy, system, skills, staffs, style and share value. Changes in these attributes have helped to implement change effectively in the organisation.
b). Transformational leadership style The Transformational leadership style is Used for making the digital marketing team working at WME to get better at their work and become visionary in their own line of job. The transformational leadership is effective in making changes in the team and makes the employees visionary and more effective.	b).  Kotter’s Six change approach to reduce resistance This model is used to reduce the resistance received to make change in the organisational operations. This model involves communication and education for employees about change, participation and involvement of the employees to make the change successful, support from the employees, negotiation and agreement on certain issues, manipulation and coercion to make the change complete. With the implementation of this tool the organisation WME is able to make the change successful (Küng, 2013).
c). Innovation framework Leadership means innovation. The leaders at WME had to be very innovative so that the organisation is able to combat the period of change and emerge successful. Innovation is extremely important and implementing innovation framework at the workplace by leaders is important to manage change in the operation of the digital marketing team and implementation of the IOT technology.	c).Collaborative Communication Model An extension of the first section of Kotter’s model communication is considered highly important to make change successful. Communication in open forum helps to identify and point out number of issues and this clearly helps to manage change properly and ensure communication gets the best possible result from the organisational change (Salahuddin, 2010).
B: Tool applied to setting – findings Communication sessions, team meetings, one on one with the leaders, innovation framework on the work.	B: Tool applied to setting – findings Team meetings, open forums, educational campaigns within the organisation.
a). Communication sessions Applying the tools relevant to leadership has been effective for the organisation. The participative style of leadership has helped employees to become more communicative and thoughtful.	a). Team meetings Through team meetings the different key aspects of the team have been identified. The employees’ skeptic of change has been identified.
b). One on One with the leaders This helped the leaders to understand each and every employee effectively and find out the loopholes of the operations at WME.  The transformational style of leadership has helped to make the employees visionary and think about possible improvements at work which would work as a long term asset for the organisation. The innovation framework has influenced people to think and innovate their work and get the best possible result from the change (Smith, 2011).	b). open forums Open forums are effective to get new ideas and possible resistance to change which helps the organisation WME to pick out issues of change.
c). Innovation Framework This is a tool which helped the employees to think more about improvement in the work and what new could be brought to develop thee business. At WME this helped to improve the organisational operations and helped to implement change with everyone’s awareness.	c). Educational campaigns within the organisation Educational campaigns at WME helped the employees to realise the need for change in the organisation and helped to gain support of the employees.

1. WME needs to work on the communication between the employees as it will help to make sure the business could implement organisational change effectively. Since employees are skeptical of technological change in the organisation the company needs to improve its educational and training campaigns which would help to get the employees engaged effectively in the process of change.

Recommendations and Conclusion

2. The concepts presented in the above table are imperative for an organisation like WME to change their core operational abilities and get the best possible result of the change implemented. Leadership is important for change and it is quite known but it is important to be able to implement transformational style of leadership to be able to transform the thought process of the organisation which would help to embrace change much more effectively. The concepts discussed are highly relevant like communication and innovation and need to be applied strategically in the organisational operation to get the best possible result from change (Smith, 2011).

1. The ideas of improvement are based on the shortcomings that the organisation might face during the change process and hence the findings exactly support them. For instance communication has been reflected to be used as a tool to improve the understanding of the leaders on the workforce and once that takes place the camaraderie among the leaders and workers change which helps to get the best possible result of the change implemented. These ideas of improvement discussed are in line with the findings in Section B and hence it could be said that both the sections are complementary to each other.

Suggest a recommendation that will overcome or support this finding

For the findings reflected in the section B of the concept table a recommendation that could suit and support it is to improve its training and education program. The training and education program will help the organisation and the leaders to improve the overall knowledge of the employees and get the best possible effort from them even in the period of change.

Training and education is indispensable for employees working for a company and especially during the period of change they needs to be supervised which could be best done with the help of training campaigns. The education and training campaign will help to eliminate the ignorance of the employees and help him or her to support the cause of change which will bring good fortune for everyone in the organisation. Especially to implement technological change creating awareness is important and for that education and training is important.

Training and education is the tool that improves the raw talent or the capabilities of the employees to good effect and prepares the individual for practical challenge in any stage of his or her professional career. Period of change is a precarious position for an organisation and this is where the support of the employees is highly asked for, and hence having an employee well equipped with knowledge and capacity to face challenges stand to be extremely important. Training and education does that for an organisation. Making an employee a professional and molding them to survive any pressure situation. Hence it could be said that training and education is extremely important to be applied to get best possible result from organisational change.

Each paragraph is very precise and has tried to address the requirements effectively. It is important to note that each paragraph discussed could have been further discussed and explained. Training and education is a vast HR aspect and hence in all the paragraphs the importance of training and education could have been given. There was still space to support the recommendation with further literature.

Each paragraph could appear in the essay in the recommendations part where it would have been precise and suited to the need of the assessment subject.

It is important to mention that the assessment criteria wanted the writers to discuss the OB topics and their relations and finally support them with recommendations and hence including this paragraph in the recommendation and conclusion column could have been of help to address the assessment criteria.

Talking from a much more critical perspective on the role of education and training during the time of change in an organisation would have been highly effective and relevant for the study and would have helped to address the assessment criteria fully.

Group and organisational behavior is an extremely important part of the organisational operations. OB is a key subject which is required by each and every employer and employee at the workplace. It is important to make sure the key aspects of OB are present in the organisational operation. The present study has mainly taken the opportunity to discuss the relation between each and every Organisational behavior aspects and its impact on the operation of the business. The paper has gone on to discuss the importance and relevance of the OB topics and it has emphasised on doing this by separately discussing the chosen OB subjects leadership and organisational change and have discussed their relationship and accordingly critically discussed their impact and importance for an organisation which is likely to help the readers to understand the concept effectively.

References

Boohene, R., & Williams, A. A. (2012). Resistance to organisational change:

A case study of Oti Yeboah Complex Limited. International Business and Management, 4(1), 135-145.

Burnes, B., & By, R. T. (2012). Leadership and change:

The case for greater ethical clarity. Journal of business ethics, 108(2), 239-252.

Colquitt, J., Lepine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2011). Organizational behavior:

Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Doucet, O., Poitras, J., & Chênevert, D. (2009). The impacts of leadership on workplace conflicts.

 International Journal of Conflict Management, 20(4), 340-354.

Griffin, R., & Moorhead, G. (2011). Organizational behavior. Nelson Education.

Gumusluoglu, L., & Ilsev, A. (2009). Transformational leadership, creativity, and organizational innovation. Journal of business research, 62(4), 461-473.

Hoel, H., Glasø, L., Hetland, J., Cooper, C. L., & Einarsen, S. (2010).

Leadership styles as predictors of self?reported and observed workplace bullying. British Journal of Management, 21(2), 453-468.

Huang, X., Iun, J., Liu, A., & Gong, Y. (2010). Does participative leadership enhance work performance by inducing empowerment or trust?

The differential effects on managerial and non?managerial subordinates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(1), 122-143.

Johns, G. (2010). Presenteeism in the workplace:

A review and research agenda. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(4), 519-542.

Küng, L. (2013). Innovation, Technology and Organisational Change. Media Innovations: A Multidisciplinary Study of Change, 9-12.

Marshall, S. (2010). Change, technology and higher education:

are universities capable of organisational change?. ALT-J, 18(3), 179-192.

McShane, S., & Von Glinow, M. (2011). M:

Organizational behavior. Irwin/McGraw-Hill.

Meister, J. C., Willyerd, K., & Foss, E. (2010). The 2020 workplace:

How innovative companies attract, develop, and keep tomorrow's employees today (p. 5). New York, NY: Harper Business.

Muijs, D. (2011). Leadership and organisational performance: from research to prescription?.

International Journal of Educational Management, 25(1), 45-60.

Rok, B. (2009). Ethical context of the participative leadership model: t

aking people into account. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 461-472.

Salahuddin, M. M. (2010). Generational differences impact on leadership style and organizational success. Journal of Diversity Management, 5(2), 1.

Smith, I. (2011). Organisational quality and organisational change:

interconnecting paths to effectiveness. Library Management, 32(1/2), 111-128.

Taylor, S. G., & Pattie, M. W. (2014). When Does Ethical Leadership Affect Workplace Incivility?:

The Moderating Role of Follower Personality. Business Ethics Quarterly.

Waddell, D., Creed, A., Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. (2013). Organisational change: Development and transformation. Cengage Learning.

Yuan, F., & Woodman, R. W. (2010). Innovative behavior in the workplace:

The role of performance and image outcome expectations. Academy of Management Journal, 53(2), 323-342.