Complex Adaptive Leadership And Its Effects On Change Process: Literature Review Essay.

• How does complexity affect the way that organisations are structured, function and change?
• What aspects of chaos theory managers can use in leading change within their organisations?
• What is and how relational leadership is related to change management?
• What is responsible leadership and what are the boundary conditions and contingency factors for responsible leadership in relation to change in organisations?

• What new ways of thinking in leadership are introduced by neuroscience and behavioral science? How thinking can help us
  understand change in our organisation?
• How we can understand, motivate and lead people better through brain science?
• What is the role of emotion in leadership and change process?
• How relational leadership is linked to Neuroleadership?

Leadership is the concept and action of inspiring others so that the concern group or individual could archive common goals or objectives. Nonetheless, leaders are witnessed to be existent in all the strata of any association. There are certain leaders who possess an authoritative and controlling identity thereby putting into the power that they derive from their respective positions within the organizations. This power mingled with their own personal power help in stimulating the other individuals. These leaders are thus termed as formal leaders. However, in comparison there are also informal leaders as they do not possess any formal authoritative designation but display leadership qualities through their personalities, ways of thinking and thus are instrumental in encouraging other people within the association. An admonition must be recognized that the leaders never believe upon the implementation of force to motivate other individuals. However, it is the individuals who willingly follow the set objectives and the goal of the leaders (Constitutes et al. 2008).

Nonetheless, there are few questions relating to leadership that linger in the minds of the readers. The first question is what the matter that contributes in effective leadership is. Then there are others that follow like what is the difference between the leaders and the followers, what steps are necessary in training more future leaders thereby developing the leadership qualities. Nonetheless, the answers to these questions are considered key ingredients to comprehend leadership theories. All over the globe, leaders are in most cases, considered responsible to a certain extent for the concerning success or failure that occurs in any organizations. For example, the CEOs of the business enterprises are rendered heavy pocket remuneration amounting to million dollars with the perception that the success mantra of the concerned business rest upon the strategies incorporated by the leaders (CEOs) (DeRue, 2011).

Leaders inspire through their action as much as they do with their words. It is something like bespeaking through steps and actions as to what has been stated. Setting standards and then upgrading those standards also significant in leading organizations (Highsmith, 2013).

This assignment will analyze the different aspects of complexity leadership and their effects on change process within an organization. A literature review will be based on the complex adaptive leadership and its effects on change process.

Hyatt has been selected for setting a practical example as it allocate large amount of money on research and developing new methods on leading and managing of associate compare to other hotel companies.

Complex adaptive leadership is a harmonious method of leadership that rest upon certain polyarchic perceptions. The word polyarchic refers to Robert Dahl who stated that considering certain Greek governments, the power is manifested within multiplenumbers of people. On the contrary, oligarchic refers to a group of individuals comprising few in numbers who possess the control to lead a nation, business and others according to Heifetz et al., (2009). Complex adaptive leadership does not possess oligarchic characteristics. This theory of leadership rest upon a complicated and dynamic procedure that includes all individuals rather than depending upon a role figure or upon the hierarchical distinction as posed by Uhl-Bien et al., (2007). Further it brings incorporation of the elements of skills, qualities as well as roles that are considered to be add-ons pertaining to traditional relationship. Traits of complexity science as well as complex adaptive systems principles can be traced within this leadership theory as per the statements of Highsmith, (2013).

Complex Adaptive leadership

Complex leadership exhibits a transition from the industrial era to an age that worships knowledge. It is further noticed that the leadership models pertaining to the bygone era mainly were resultants of “top-down, bureaucratic paradigms”. These models suited more to organizations whose economy depended on physical production. The current trend suggests that these models no more fit for an economy that is knowledge driven suggested Boal & Schultz, (2007). Complexity science has already come up with a diverse exemplar pertaining to leadership model. It set the leadership strategies as something complicated, dynamic and interactive model which culminates into some sort of adaptive outcomes. These adaptive outcomes denote learning, discovering as well as accommodativeness (DeRue, 2011). This literature review attracts sources that are based uponcomplexity science to build up a general system for the investigation of Complexity Leadership Hypothesis, a model that spotlights on empowering the learning, imaginative, and versatile limit of complex versatile frameworksinside a setting of knowledge and information delivering associations as per Oblensky, (2014). This reasonable system incorporates three intertwined influential roles such as“adaptive leadership, administrative leadership and empowering leadership” that mirror a dynamic connection corresponding to the bureaucratic, managerial elements of the association as well as the dawning, casual elements relating to complex adaptive systems (CAS) (Lichtenstein et al., 2006).

It seems that the present era rest upon an economy that facilitates knowledge and information, while the governing methodologies reflect leadership models belonging to the Industrial Age. Therefore this is the time that looks forward to a new model of leadership. It is further reviewed that the current era is on the steeper and rocky side of a transition age where most of the business associations have been thwarted with a competitive landscape that is complex in nature and pushed further by the elements of globalization as well as technological revolution according to Constitutes et al., (2008). The new age considered corresponds to an economy in which knowledge is looked upon as a key commodity where the fast knowledge production as well as new discoveries is considered significant for the organizations to function productively and exhibit competitive advantage in their respective markets (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007).  

The model of complex and adaptive leadership concentrates on ever changing networks corresponding to informal interactions among the agents. In order to cultivate knowledge the personnel are expected to enable network dynamics that is informal in nature rather than suppressing it suggested Lichtenstein & Plowman, (2009). Further it is proposed recently that leadership can never be recognized as someone’s sole act but rest on the aspects that innumerable interactions’ interplay gives rise to complex and adaptive leadership. There are a few situating suppositions that underlie the complex and adaptive leadership paradigm which will be produced more in this literature review. Complexity Leadership Theory is essentially enmeshed inside a bureaucratic model concerning arranging, sorting out, as well as goals. It tries to see how empowering pioneers can associate with the administrative structure to both facilitate complex progression and upgrade the general adaptability of the association according to Lichtenstein et al., (2006).  Complexity Leadership Hypothesis presumes progressive organizing and varied empowering and versatile works crosswise over levels of the progression. The unit of examination pertaining to this Leadership Theory is the CAS (complex adaptive systems). The limits of CAS are differently characterized relying upon the purpose of the analyzer, yet however distinguished as open frameworks (Heifetz et al., 2009). Leadership thus may be characterized as just an element of connection and interactions.Traditional leadership was always observed to travel downwards. However, along with the changed perception, now leadership is known to travel upwards, sideways and even outside the organization (Obolensky, 2014).

Change management and relational leadership

Change is a lasting reality for any association. Change, by and large, evokes a constructive outcome in associations. In any case, it conveys an intricate segment to it which should be overseen too. The motivation behind this administration is to guarantee that all partners visualize eye-to-eye concerning the change procedure's significance and its expected advantages. This ought to make every partner bolster the procedure, in this manner making its usage less demanding and lessening the customary imperviousness to change (Anderson &Anderson, 2010).

Therefore in this sort of change management, in recent times, the complex leadership model is the best remedy as it caters readymade solutions which are personalized and involves all the stakeholders of the company rather than limiting to the bureaucratic idea and concept stated Randall & Coakley, (2007). This issue brings into light another leadership which is often termed as relational leadership which refers to the collective people working towards a shared vision to drive a change that is positive. The 5 elements that frame the relational leadership model are “purpose, inclusion, empowerment, ethics and process-orientation”. The purpose is shared through inclusion of people extending to the external stakeholders thereby following ethics through empowerment and process-orientation. A specific common ground is traced which drives the people to work together thus dismissing any sort of differences. It is noted that relational leadership is correlated with complex leadership as per Jones, (2010).

There's no scrutinizing the way that organizations today are confronted with developing many-sided complexities. Natural, political, and focused changes plan to make a testing and complex working condition (Greenwood et al., 2011). Because of these always advancing forces, organizations frequently attempt to reflect outer complexity in their inward surroundings. For instance, they may react to more advanced client requests by making custom-made services. They might incorporate the requirement of cost cutting by building network organizational frameworks. They may endeavor to club new procedures addressing business sector needs. In separation, each of these reactions bodes well, however in blend they can essentially influence organizational execution (Harper, 2015). Hence, the question arises how to take care of an organization during the time of complexity. In most cases, the sort of complexity has to be evaluated and given preference. It is observed that relational leadership which is correlated with adaptive leadership plays a pivotal part in change management thus forming organizational structures according to the requirements of the changing environment such as unpredictable circumstances and others. For instance, the competitive differentiation complexity can be termed as a good one and thus might be made effective. Extensive simplification agenda can be set; by rationalizing the services catered which indicates that the services that do not add any value must be abandoned in order to make the process simple and profiting. Further personal incentives must be offered to fulfill the organizational goals as stated by Chen & Huang, (2007). All these strategies might be put to use under a modern leadership model (relational and adaptive) during organizational change. 

The discourse starts off effectively driving and overseeing change from the view of chaos theory. Chaos theory can be referred as the investigation of nonlinear element frameworks. As the perspective of the associations is considered it is comprehended that a large number of variables both inwardly as well as outwardly pertaining to the association influences it. This is the place a frameworks perspective of associations winds up noticeably vital as frameworks are portrayed by connections that are neither straight by plan nor in presence (Gröschl, 2011). For instance, a choice incorporated by a higher rank official to present new item or set up another arrangement will by implication influence the connections between laborers, workers and directors, and so forth. It is also included that a not planned reaction by a pioneer could likewise in a roundabout way influence connections and reactions in an association suggested Yang, (2007). Thus chaos theory bolsters this introduction that little changes might have noteworthy effect on frameworks of the organizations.

Thus there are certain aspects of chaos theory that are implemented by the mangers to lead change within their organizations. The managers keeping in mind the chaos theory get connected with the workers thereby changing the underlying significance of their thought process that entail becoming a part of the organization as well as work together in groups. They incorporate the aspects of aligning both the social and economic changes with that to the organizational changes and its structures as per Harper, (2015). To establish social alignment, the managers plan accordingly to change the organizing structure of the groups. This is done to achieve organizational profits also.

The hotel that has been selected for this study is Hyatt Hotels Corporation. It has its headquarters in Chicago and is looked upon as one of the leading brands in hotel industry all over the globe. Moreover, the hotel company takes pride for its heritage and legacy of giving a great feel to its customers in the fact that their guests nurture the notion that they are welcomed in the manner as if they are at their homes (yang, 2007). There are also well known brands of Hyatt which are Park Hyatt, Andaz, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Hyatt Zilara as well as Hyatt Ziva. The hotel company has made its presence felt in around 6 continents. Hyatt Residential Group, Inc., which is another subsidiary of the company expand, operates, markets as well as certifies Hyatt Residences, Residences Club. The portfolio of the company as noted during 2014 exhibited its 554 properties around 47 destinations. Nonetheless, the founder father of Hyatt is Jay Pritzker while he bought the Hyatt house motel during 1957. It globalized during 1968. The number of employees that work within this association is almost 96,627 as was noted during 2015 (Ogbeide& Harrington, 2011).

Diversity has been one basic agenda for Hyatt Hotels in building its brand. The company puts conscious effort in valuing diversity and comprehends that their associates and workers must be given the feeling that while working with Hyatt, it feels like home. It also strives to encourage the personal authenticity of its employees and associates so that they are able to offer the similar extended feeling to their guests. Hence, this strategy displays the resonating characteristics of complex leadership which is knowledge driven and flows everywhere (Beerel, 2009).

The members of the Hyatt group are well versed with their set goals and objectives, accountabilities and responsibilities. They possess a common objective which they comprehend well. Thus the team seems to be in perfect alignment with each other’s charter and agenda which help them to stride their ways through complex situations, change process thereby aptly deciding the right sort of accountability pertaining to every member of the group. Colleagues can express disparate perspectives and let know to recognize when they require assistance. They completely put stock in each other to scrutinize thoughts inside the group. They exhibit an eagerness to tune in to restricting perspectives and points of view and the members are rendered equivalent space to voice out their own particular assessments (Palmer &Dunford, 2008).

Relational leadership traits are also noticed strongly in its strategies while Hyatt visualizes about its inclusive policy. It wants to construct an all inclusive environment for its colleagues, associates and guests where the objective would be to value each individual for what they are. Hyatt began concentrating on this ‘inclusive vision’ from the early 2000. Previously it was concentrated only within US which now have spread formidably all over. During 2014, Hyatt collaborated with a coalition by formally endorsing a benchmark U.S. bill for the protection of LGBTQA people’s rights considering the areas of education, employment, housing and others. It has also been known to be “a great place to work” for Hispanics, African Americans, and also for women. Therefore under the lineage of complex, relational and adaptive leadership that concentrates on two words “diversity and inclusion”, Hyatt has been sustaining its competitive advantage (Ogbeide& Harrington, 2011).

During 2014, Mark Hoplamazian, the President and CEO of Hyatt declared certain organizational changes to evoke the company’s strategy which pushes the preferences further thereby offering brand experiences that are classified. The changes incorporated the amalgamation of its worldwide operational frameworks, the genesis of a collective team that will help in leading the association’s selective services thus designing an upcoming franchising strategy unit all over the globe. Actually irrespective of thinking big, Hoplamazian is still rooted at the ground level as he desires to connect the Global Operations Center of Hyatt World with that to the local and regional teams in order to fulfill the regional market demands. The strategies might be changing and complex, but the leadership is adaptive, not traditional top-down leadership but travels downwards, upwards, sideways as well as outside the organization. Hoplamazian further added that “I expect to maintain a high degree of visibility and engagement with the regional teams as Chuck works to create better coordination and efficiency in areas where a common approach across the Company is appropriate”. Chuck Floyd is picked up as the Global President of Operations from 2014 (Investors.hyatt.com, 2014)

The above scenario displays certain characteristics of responsible leadership which puts equal significance to business decisions, the shareholders as well as the other stakeholders like workers, suppliers and so on. Hoplamazian is exhibited as the responsible leader. Precisely it can be stated that there is no consistent leadership pattern which can deliver consistent success to the company. There are certain contingency factors and boundary conditions to change management that affect the leadership style and model. They can be any sort of crisis, external problems, political, and others. To stay at par with the changed environment, which poses to be one aspect of the contingency factors, organizational changes become significant with differing leadership models (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2007). Contingency factors like leader and team member rapport, structure of the work, any sort of crisis (environmental, financial, etc.), positional power of the leader can be considered depending on which the leadership style and models are incorporated. Hyatt has been beautifully taking care of these aspects with the usage of ‘culture’ which Hoplamazian think to be their competitive strength. Nonetheless, the company has been an international leader in the genre of hospitality while knowing well that aspects like diversity and inclusion will necessarily stimulate the service quality and the intangible product that the company flaunts to sell. Significance is not only given to the guests but also the co-workers. It seems to value and motivate differing opinions and perceptions that come from its different stakeholders. Hyatt is not only known to value the opinions of the co-workers and its guests but hold on to them seeking guidance and asking them to perform for the concerned circumstances which emit spark of adaptive leadership (Yang, 2007).

Hyatt proceed to use and keep up solid leadership support, which is considered as a convincing business importance and activity plans that prompt attraction, involvement, retention and progression for associates and its employees. With the help of this perspective, the business of Hyatt World sketches a sustainable technique that focuses the route towards Diversity and Inclusion to increase the value of the business, ability, operational systems and other. Inclusion is considered to be one key ingredient that stimulates the work environment because all the concerning colleagues are rendered with the sense that they are valuable assets and very much a part of the organization (Investors.hyatt.com, 2014).

Though there is complexity in the Hyatt World as can be seen and since it is an international enterprise that has often undergone change process such as cultural, strategically, through diversity, still everytime it has excelled in its sphere in delivering performance, commitment as well as productivity. It certainly calls for a successful leadership strategy which is at times complex, adaptive and responsible. It depends on a business that is basically leadership driven comprising integrated strategies. Externally the adaptive leadership takes care of the brand, recognition, corporate social responsibility, vendor connections and others while internally aspects like talent management, cultural competence and others are considered (Yukl&Mahsud, 2010).

Hyatt has also showed ways to leading change by implementing aspects of chaos theory. For example, while the CEO, Hoplamazian stated that in order to give preference to the local and regional market needs, he would align with the local and regional workers so that quality is maintained, change process and its strategies are smoothly taken care of thereby delivering productivity and acceptance among its colleagues, customers and other stakeholders (Rogers, 2008).  

To confront with the cutting edge, personalized services and other elements that have gained momentum globally, the adaptive leadership comes to play in the forefront in Hyatt World. It is a resultant of the volatile, complex, unknown and a debatable era. The complex and adaptive leadership model has been witnessed to transform complex problems into lucid actions thereby deriving calculative results. The model is seemingly based on the recent complexity science of the West mingled with chaotic calculations and traditional wisdom of China. Similar connotations are to be traced in Hyatt World through the inclusion and diversification policy. With the concept being globalized, the company along with its strategies has undergone globalizing change management too. Nonetheless, the global idea of complex leadership fits well with the global concept of Hyatt World (Investors.hyatt.com, 2014).

Mr. Hoplamazian, the face and leader of the company has been aggressively penetrating the Asian market especially in India and China while saying, “We’re punching above our weight” to FT, 2014. Even during and after the recession, Hyatt’s earning scored to $32m upon revenues estimated as $1.09bn though there was suppression in the noticeable consumption as exhibited by Chinese government and sluggish economic condition could be traced in other parts of Asia as well. Therefore, once again Hyatt exhibits culture, diversity and inclusion to be its key ingredients in managing and leading the organization (Raval, 2014).  

Conclusions and Recommendations

Taking a gander at leadership that has been evolving endogenously through interactive agents though it has been rooted within business associations, the so-termed leaders are not taken into consideration to control collective action. Further no straight cause and effect connection can be invented. However, leadership which is complex and adaptive is considered as an expression that describes certain social connections and forces which interact with each other involving the so-called formal leader (Cameron & Green, 2015). By taking into consideration the aspect of leadership action while putting forth endogenous and time contingent factors, it is better comprehensible to coordinate the time measurement of social frameworks with theorganizational theories, uncovering an exceptional technique which might tend to the sociological hypothesis as to how the upcoming social structures are discovered. Nonetheless, there are certain points that must be recognized while dealing with the significance of leadership. They are the ethics, leading through operation, setting a standard, setting higher standards and others. Therefore it must be considered that ethics play a pivotal role in any effective leadership (Burke, 2013). Ethics are certain innate substance that inspires the leader to decide aptly and stride towards positive action

In simpler ways, complexity leadership hatches adaptive leadership which is dynamic in nature and certainly does not tend to be bureaucratic in ways. Previously it was noticed that the traditional leadership mainly followed the top-down level of leadership strategies which with the existence of complex leadership has gone in vogue. Nonetheless the new complex leadership focuses on all ways interaction such as upwards, downwards, within the organization as well as outside the organization suggested Greenwood et al., 2011). It is much knowledge and learning oriented and with each new discovery it tends to get accommodated with change process. Similar scenario can be noticed with the hotel company that has been taken as an example to demonstrate the discussion better. Firstly it is noted that Hyatt is a globalized company that has undergone certain change process during its journey from private to public and then international. Presently it is noticed that the company mainly puts emphasis on the two aspects like the diversity and inclusion which again calls for adaptive leadership. Further the aspects of adaptive leadership are also echoed in the statements of the CEO of the association, Hoplamazian(Investors.hyatt.com, 2014).

There are more evolving organizational changes that are trending recently. Culture remains a complex element to be studied. This is because it is culture that requires and calls for diversity and inclusion aspects that is so greatly emphasized by Hyatt World. Moreover, the change management and strategies, globalization do have a correlation with culture. All these aspects call for change within organizations. Thus a detailed and in-depth study of organizational change and culture becomes the necessity which is again correlated with complex and adaptive leadership as stated by Lichtenstein et al., (2006). Again on the contrary, it is observed that researches based on leadership are mainly concentrated upon durable and distinguishing characteristics of elements giving way to a leadership model that is complex in nature and bestows a different conceptual framework the basis of which is connections among interactive agents, relationships that influence the situations. Nonetheless, it is a mirror to the globalized world and thus it is recommended to conduct a detailed research on change management and complex leadership models pertaining to other industry segments as well (Highsmith, 2013).

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