Current Change Management Theory: Research And Interpretation Essay.

Task Details: Students need to research current change management theory by:
1. Researching a range of current academic journal articles related to the selected change management topic.
2. Explaining clearly what the current change management literature is saying about the topic.
3. Interpreting the research to demonstrate an understanding of the literature and be able to explain what it means in terms of today's organisations.
4. Drawing supported conclusions as to the validity of current change models discussed in the literature.

Change concept in today’s organizations

Organizations are increasingly becoming dynamic due to the changing operating environments. The management are therefore faced with the challenges of devising ways to combat with the challenges. Change Management therefore means the total ways that are adopted by a firm to solve transitions in the job affecting the people, group, companies and management. The process of change involves application of structural methods and designated frameworks that help navigate the business from its current situation to a planned state. The leadership of change is key in implementation of a change program in any organization. According to Belias and Koustelios (2014)leadership of an organizational is associated with the prevailing culture in the organization which directly affects change management. In our current environment of globalization, technological innovation, high demand of skilled workforce, changing social and demographic factors is the primary task for the leadership management to combat with in relation to organizational change. There are numerous benefits of change management to an organization. Its applications and advantages includes, reduction in expenditure budget, increased Return on Investment and more important the relevance of the business.

The change drivers in today’s business environment includes globalization, technology burst, increased skills demand, increased competition, financial problems and organizational factors. According to Carnall (2018) change management is the process of constant renewal of an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to meet the dynamic needs in the business environment. As the environment grows more harsh and complicated, the leadership of the organizations needs to manage change effectively. Change being a important activity in an organization, leadership should be closely linked to the management of change. Moreover, it is evident that changes in the vision, mission, systems, techniques of production and leadership style are targets of organizational change.  

Organizational change enables firms to improve their attitudes, values and those of their employees so as to enhance the growth of the organization as well as the growth of their employees. Nevertheless, it ensures that the organization is able to respond better and to adopt to the current market in technology, systems and processes among other factors. Organizational change affects the following:

It is believed that taking part in organizational development is to ensure a continuous improvement of the organization's processes. This ensures that employees do adapt to various changes in demands of the job requirements. Growing  organizations are believed to be sufficiently equipped with the changes in demands in the job market thus can easily maneuver through them.(Pieterse et al., 2012).

Management of change by organizations

Any change that is proposed in an organization may lead to change in the flow of communication. Therefore, communication plan is mostly affected by any new structure adopted in the organization. Most of the employees prefer horizontal communication as opposed to vertical communication structure. These change therefore can affect their relationship between workers and the top management. Subsequently, lack of communication has been identified to be the main cause of organization change resistance. Therefore, enhancing development can be an answer to such resistance because employees are equipped with various techniques, strategies and methods of communication that is important in organizational performance. Increased communication is believed to be another way of aligning employees to the company’s values and goals.

Change is a factor that affects both rules and procedures that governs processes in the business. However much as it is a significant tool to management, various changes in the rules and procedures away from the norms affects how the employees are managed. Various factors such as customer needs, growth opportunities, technology, the economy and status quo results in changes in rules and procedures of the organization thus affecting the business markets(Asumeng  and Osae-Larbi, 2015).

Organizations take into consideration the various business methods of expansions such as mergers, acquisitions, ventures or staffing because of the emerging issues in business operations. These changes allows workers to be more innovative as well as presenting challenges to them. On the other hand, a poor economy increases companies problems in the decision making of the employees’ benefits, salaries and even downsizing decisions (Akinbode and Al Shuhumi, 2018).

Therefore, all prospective change program ought to be accompanied by effective communication to convince the employees on the need for change. Moreover, the leadership style enables the management of change to be realized positively. A change can be either planned or unplanned, but in either situations, the employees must be actively involved in the change process to reduce resistance.  Leaders often encounter resistance to their efforts to redirect an organization. It is believed that often employees resist change partly as a result of the leader's failure to understand what motivates employees or individuals to change their behavior.

The management of change by organizations requires much training and involvement of the employees as change agents. According to Akinbode and Al Shuhumi (2018) there are seven types of change and the way to be handled successfully. They are: cultural, incremental, transformational, systems and processes, strategic, organizational and behavioral. These factors can be managed effectively without resistance through initiating innovations that will make people progressively familiarize with the new initiatives.

Change and leadership styles

Transformational change means that the change manager implements major change programmes in order to meet the new demands. It is characterized with radical breakthroughs in paradigms, beliefs and behavior over a period of time (Odor, 2018a). Strategic change on the other hand has to do with broad, long-term and organization-wide range issues. In implementing this change, the purpose and mission of the organization, as well as its corporate philosophy are considered. The change leaders also carry out SWOT analysis to determine how the change programme will be initiated.

Change can be managed through the following strategies

Communicating the need to the employees about the need for the change could reduce the resistance. This communication should also be adopted in an environment where the employees have an open session to discuss their concerns, fears, and frustrations thus enhancing the credibility of the organization, as well as those leading the change(Chong, 2007).

Employees accordingly are the most valuable assets of an organization. Therefore, there is always a need to equip their skills, knowledge, attitudes, and methods to fit the changing demand in the business environment(Odor, 2018b). Therefore, organizational development enables managers to plan for coaching, team building, and career development.

A successful change and development management is a key to improved performance; therefore, employees must be on the integral point of involvement in participation and implementation. Also, the management ought to provide support to the employees in the implementation of the change.

The plan proposed schedule of an organizational change should meet the timeline expectations of the employees. Stringent timeline measure increases anxiety which leads to change resistance.

According to Baesu and Bejinaru (2013) the success of change progress is dependent on the leadership style of a leader. According to the leadership styles of the change leaders, the success of change management is dependent on the leadership style of the leaders. Furthermore, through proper leadership styles, the employees are influenced to change their behavior towards positive change management.

Leaders have a role of acting as change agents in a successful change programme. The Leadership styles and leaders’ participation are factors of success in organizational change programme. There are four leadership styles in relation to the change management process. They are transactional, Laisses-faire, change-oriented and transformational (Skakon et al., 2010).

Laisses-faire is a free rule leadership where the management or leaders allows their subordinates to deliberate on their managerial activities. Therefore, in relation to the change management, this leadership style tries to avoid change but as soon as change occurs the leaders shun their responsibilities. Consequently, the leaders under this style are found to be physically and emotionally away from their employees. Therefore, this kind of leadership style is not effective in managing change in organizations (Todnem By, 2005).

Transactional leadership is also known as managerial leadership is a style that focuses on the planning, performance of group and supervision. This type of leadership demands the leaders to exhibit more focus on tasks, effort to meet the psychological needs of the employees in exchange for anticipated services or behavior. They are more concerned about the daily operational duties, chores and tasks in the organization. Consequently, they seek to comply to the required standards of performance through rewards and punishment methodology to their employees. Therefore, according to change process, this leadership style appeals only to the satisfaction of lower-order of individual need (Shvindina, 2017).

The theories of transformational leadership emphasize that change is accomplished through the leader's implementation of a exceptional vision of the organization through influential personal characteristics intended to change the core organizational cultural norms. Leaders under this style define the need for change through developing a vision for the future and mobilizing the employees towards achieving the set standards (Akinbode and Al Shuhumi, 2018).

Transformational leaders impart confidence in their employees through training, rewards and addressing their psychological needs as well as emotional needs. Through this style the leader will be able to achieve both the organizational and employees’ objectives. Therefore, adopting this leadership technique enables the management to contain any resistance to change that might occur due to change in management aspects(Belias and Koustelios, 2014).

Transformational leader as a change leader performs the role of: communicating the change to the employees, empowering the employees towards working to their desired goals, guiding the employees through the change programme, planning short term gains to celebrate the success, giving authority to the employees to work independently and sharing the change in vision(Kidney, 2015).

It is therefore implied that transformational leaders enable their followers to demonstrate high levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment and engage in organizational citizenship behaviors. With such a devoted workforce, it will be useful to consider making efforts towards developing ways of transforming organization through leadership (Shvindina, 2017).

New leadership theories such as transformational leadership provide answers to the competitive challenges and innovations faced by organizations and managers. Shvindina (2017) transformational leaders can facilitate these changeover processes by placing value on the development of a vision and by inspiring followers to pursue that vision. Consequently, organizations have begun to incorporate the philosophy behind the transformational leadership model into their management development programmes. Because transformational leadership covers a wide range of aspects within leadership, there are no specific steps for a manager to follow(Golden III, 2016). Becoming an effective transformational leader is a process. This means that conscious effort must be made to adopt a transformational style.

Conclusion

Change is a component in every organization that continually affect its operations and processes. It is clear that the change process doesn’t match the ever-dynamic business environment, therefore, change management is not inevitable in today’s organizations. Moreover, today’s change management is more reactive than being pro-active due to an anticipated change which proves hard to overcome. This therefore causes high failure in the change management process.

Change management may affect the vision of an organization which is a major facet of leadership and is associated with organizational culture. This therefore affects the leadership styles of the organization. As discussed, leaders play a critical role in selecting and planning appropriate change management strategies. consequently, leadership acts as a bridge between the environment and organization system.  Transformational leadership is a vital role for effective young managers because leader effectiveness determines the success level of the organization. Accordingly, to organizations that adopt good leadership styles are competitive in the business environment as compared to others.

References

Akinbode, A. I. & Al Shuhumi, S. R. A. 2018. Change Management Process And Leadership Styles. People: International Journal Of Social Sciences, 4.

Asumeng , M. A. & Osae-Larbi, J. A. 2015. Organization Development Models: A Critical Review And Implications For Creating Learning Organizations. European Journal Of Training And Development Studies, 2, 29-43.

Baesu, C. & Bejinaru, R. 2013. Perspectives Regarding Strategic Dynamics In Modern Organizations. Anuarul Institutului De Cercetari Economice" Gheorghe Zane"-Iasi, 22, 63.

Belias, D. & Koustelios, A. 2014. The Impact Of Leadership And Change Management Strategy On Organizational Culture. European Scientific Journal, Esj, 10.

Carnall, C. 2018. Managing Change, Routledge.

Chong, M. 2007. The Role Of Internal Communication And Training In Infusing Corporate Values And Delivering Brand Promise: Singapore Airlines' Experience. Corporate Reputation Review, 10, 201-212.

Golden Iii, J. H. 2016. Examining Relationships Between Transformational Leadership And Employee Creativity And Innovation Performance: The Moderator Effects Of Organizational Culture, Northcentral University.

Kidney, R. 2015. Transformational/Transactional Leadership. Wiley Encyclopedia Of Management, 1-4.

Odor, H. 2018a. A Literature Review On Organizational Learning And Learning Organizations. Int J Econ Manag Sci, 7, 2.

Odor, H. 2018b. Organisational Change And Development. Journal Of Business And Management, 10, 63.

Pieterse, J. H., Caniels, M. C. J. & Homan, T. 2012. Professional Discourses And Resistance To Change. Journal Of Organizational Change Management, 25, 798-818.

Shvindina, H. O. 2017. Leadership As A Driver For Organizational Change.

Skakon, J., Nielsen, K., Borg, V. & Guzman, J. 2010. Are Leaders' Well-Being, Behaviours And Style Associated With The Affective Well-Being Of Their Employees? A Systematic Review Of Three Decades Of Research. Work & Stress, 24, 107-139.

Todnem By, R. 2005. Organisational Change Management: A Critical Review. Journal Of Change Management, 5, 369-380.