Change and Leadership

How management can ensure that change happens fast

Jerffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (2006) Create dissatisfaction. Give direction. Have faith. Embrace the mess.

How to manage resistance to change ?

- Anticipating and managing reactions - Stakeholder analysis is useful in planning change and involves the following steps: - 1. Draw up a list of stakeholders affected by the proposed changes - Establish what each will gain or lose if it goes ahead - Use the potential benefits to strengthen support - Find ways to address the concerns of those who feel they will lose out by altering the nature of the changes or reducing their losses in other ways Kotter (2008) Education Communication Participation Negotiation Top-management support Coercion

Goleman Leadership theory

- Coercion and pacesetting have their use but have been showed to damage a working atmosphere, reduce flexibility and employee commitment. - The most successful leaders according to Goleman are those that have mastered four or more styles

What are the four styles of change?

- Collaborative - widespread employee participation in key decisions - Consultative - limited involvement in setting goals relevant to areas of responsibility - Directive - the use of authority in reaching decisions about change and the future - Coercive - senior management imposing change on the organisation

Assessing contingency theories

- Contingency theories argue that the most effective leadership style depends on the context. - No one style of leadership is universally best but research shows that a considerate, participative or democratic style of leadership is generally more effective than a directive autocratic style. - Main criticisms of contingency theories: - the ability of leaders to diagnose the context in which they are operating - Overlook the key dimensions of context eg working conditions and levels of stress - Whether leaders can adapt their styles to fit the context - Expectations of the managers can influence what is 'acceptable'

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard

- Like Fiedler they argue that the effective leader must be a good diagnostician - Unlike Fiedler they believe that leaders can adapt their style to meet the demands of the situation in which they operate - situational leadership = an approach to determining the most effective style of influencing, considering the direction and support a leader gives and the readiness of followers to perform a particular task. Has two dimensions: o Task behaviour Amount of direction a leader gives to subordinates o Supportive behaviour Social backup a leader gives to subordinates

What are the different depths of organisational change?

- Surface - Shallow - Penetrating - Deep - Transformational

Roles of transformational leaders

- Tichy and Devanna (1986) argue that transformational leaders have three main roles: o Recognising the need for revitalisation o Creating a new vision o Institutionalising change - Bass and Avolio (1990) similarly claim transformational leadership as: o Intellectual stimulation o Idealised influence o Individualised consideration o Inspirational motivation

Problem with distributed leadership

A problem with distributed leadership is the capabilities and contributions of those who are involved many not be recognised. Hewlett (2005) observe that members of ethnic minority groups, while holding junior post in their organisation, often have major community leadership roles with capabilities and talent that are not recognised by their employer.

Fast paced change/ acceleration trap. How to combat this issue?

Bruch and Menges (2010) fast paced change can lead to corporate burn out They called it the acceleration trap, it has three typical patterns: - Overloading - Multi-loading - Perpetual loading - How can a company 'break free' from the acceleration trap?: o Be clear about strategy and goals o Stop less important work o Have a system that identifies more and less important initiatives o Clear benefits o Strong leadership o Powerful change agents o Constant communication o Employee engagement o Short term wins o Change embedded in culture

Fred Fiedler

Contingency theory of leadership = a perspective which argues that leaders must adjust their style taking into account properties of the context. - leadership effectiveness is influenced by three sets of factors: o The extent to which the task in hand is structured o The leader's position power o The nature of the relationship between the leader and followers - This argument distinguishes between a structured task and an unstructured task o Structured task = a task with clear goals, few correct or satisfactory solutions and outcomes, few ways or performing it, and clear criteria of success o Unstructured task = a task with ambiguous goals, many good solutions, many ways of achieving acceptable outcomes, and vague criteria of success.

Evaluate OD values

Criticism - Ignores organisational power inequalities, claiming that conflict is due to poor communication and not to a conflict of interests between management and employees - Focuses on soft attitudes and values rather then hard operational and financial results - OD interventions take time. Improved effectiveness, difficult to measure, based on intangible values Benefits (Warrick, 1984) -Improved productivity and commitment to successes - Better understanding or organisational strengths and weaknesses - Improved communication, problem-solving and conflict resolution - Creativity, openness, opportunities for personal development - Decrease in politicking and teamwork and increased adaptability better ability to attract and retain quality people

Importance of anticipating change

E. E. Lawler and C. Worley (2009, p.28): Businesses need to be able to anticipate change and keep reconfiguring themselves to survive in a world that is changing increasingly quickly. To do this they must have a built in capacity to change

Women as leaders (good introduction points)

For most of the twentieth century, it was assumed that leaders had to be men. Women were still poorly represented in management roles and were largely ignored in leadership research until the 1990s. In 2005, Norway introduced quotas to ensure that 40% of companies boards are female. Countries like the UK have not done so and have lower proportions.

Why does organisational change fail?

John Kotter (2007) 1. No urgency 2. No coalition 3. no vision 4. Poor communication 5. Obstacles not removed 6. No wins 7. Premature victory 8. No anchoring Kotter suggested the following to me more successful in change: - Careful planning process - Working through the above eight issues in sequence without rushing or skipping any of them

What are the OD values?

Judge (2008) OD argues that bureaucracy is bad and that caring, sharing, empowering organisation is a better place to work It values: - Respect - Trust - Power equalisation o No emphasis on hierarchical control - Confrontation o Problems shouldn't be hidden - Participation o Those involved in change will be more committed to its success Kurt Lewin, a founder of OD, argued that the process of change must pass through three changes: unfreezing, transition, refreezing

How to create an environment that favours creativity and innovation?

Kanter (1983) - Segmentalise culture = preoccupied with hierarchy, compartmentalises its decision making, emphasises rules and efficiency - Integrative culture = based on teams and collaboration, adopts a holistic approach to problem-solving, has no time for history or precedent and emphasises results. Organisational climate: Challenge, Freedom, Idea support, Trust and openness, dynamism and liveliness, playfulness and humour, debates, conflicts, risk- taking, idea time Amy Edmondson (2011) argues that not all failures are bad and that they all offers opportunities for learning. She created a spectrum ranging from blameworthy to praiseworthy. At one extreme, deviance, breaking the rules deliberately is blameworthy whereas at the other end of the spectrum, experiments to discover whether something new will work or not are praiseworthy. The five habits of disruptive innovators (Dyer, Gregersen, Christensen 2011) Associating - Questioning Observing - experimenting networking

Michigan and Ohio studies

Katz et all (1950) identified two dimensions of leadership behaviour in the Michigan study: 1. Employee centred behaviour: focusing on relationship and employee needs 2. Job centred behaviour: focusing on getting the job done The Ohio results also identified two categories of leadership behaviour which they termed 1. consideration and 2. initiating structure. The work of another Michigan researcher, Likert (1961) , reinforced the benefits of considerate, performance orientated leadership. He found that supervisors in highly productive sections were more likely to: - Receive general as opposed to close supervision from their superiors - Give general as opposed to close supervision from their subordinates - Enjoy their responsibility and authority and spend more time on supervision - Be employee rather then production orientated

Which methods can be used to carry our transformational changes successfully?

Keller (2010) - Progressive change with stretch targets - Logical programme structure - Exercising strong leadership

Types of innovation

Kenagy (2000) - Sustaining innovations = innovations which make improvements to existing processes, procedures, services and products - Disruptive innovations = innovations which involved the development of wholly new processes, procedures, services and products - operational innovation = inventing entirely new ways of doing work

Contributions that women directors make

Konrad and Kramar (2006) 1. Women broaden the discussion to include a range of stakeholders: employees, customers, community 2. Women are persistent in getting answers to awkward questions; men don't like to admit when they don't understand 3. Women are more collaborative, which improves communications Woolley and Malone (2011) Collective intelligence was higher in groups that included more women. What do you hear about great groups? They listen to each other, they share criticism , they have open minds, they are not autocratic.

What is the difference between Leadership and management?

Leaders are often seen as visionaries who drive new initiatives, managers simply seek to maintain order and stability. Kotters (1990) made this good guys, bad guys caricature which highlights the importance of leadership and consigns management to a lesser role. Birkinshaw (2010) argues that leadership and management must be seen as complementary as the roles that the same person plays at different times

Who needs leaders?

Morgan (2001) argues that organisations should reduce the amount of change and focus instead on incremental improvements. . Huy (2001) also dismisses the role of visionary leadership and argues that it is the middle managers who achieve the balance between change and continuity Khurana - Reject limits to their scope and authority - Encourage attribution of errors to prominent leaders wile over looking the interplay of social, economic and other impersonal forces. - New chief executives often deliberately destabilise their organisation to foster revitalisation. But this can be harmful.

Give an example of an organisational change

One of the largest organisational changes have been the restructuring of the Australian police service where a police commissioner from the UK was bought in to stamp out corruption in the force. He adopted a management style that was hard, firm and autocratic as it was what the organisation understood. The approach to change implementation is summarised below. This is a contingency model which recommends using an approach which fits the context. This challenges the model of participative change. Consolation can expose irreconcilable differences in view, and it takes time which may not always be available in a rapidly changing environment

Senge (1990)

Peter Senge (1990) argues that depositions toward change vary on a broad continuum from commitment to compliance Senge argues that it is not necessary to have everyone fully committed to organisational change

Leadership trait spotting (Inborn qualities)

Ralph Stogdill (1948) reviewed hundreds of trait studies and compiled this typical list: - Strong drive for responsibility - Focus on completing the task - Vigour and persistence in pursuit of goals - Originality in problem solving - Drive to exercise initiative in social settings - Self confidence - Sense of personal identity - Willingness to accept consequences of decisions and actions - Readiness to absorb interpersonal stress - Willingness to tolerate frustration and delay - Ability to influence the behaviour of others - Capacity to structure social systems to the purpose in hand Research didn't produce a consistent set of leadership traits There are four types of alpha leaders, each with good and bad characteristics: - Commanders o Intense, magnetic, push others hard, ignore rules and create fear - Visionaries o Creative, inspiring, ignore reality and closed to input - Strategist o Quick, analytical, opinionated, not a team player, don't admit mistakes - Executors o Problem solvers, eye for detail , get things done, over critical, micromanagers The trait spotting approach was abandoned and researchers switched attention to leadership style and then to characteristics of context.

Implementing innovation in organisations

Rogers (1995) - the probability of an innovation being adopted is increased when its seen to have the following six properties: o Advantageous when compared with existing properties o Compatible with existing practises o Easy to understand o Observable in demonstration sites o Testable o Adaptable to fit local needs the perception of adopters and properties of the organisational context are as important as the innovation itself. this pattern is influenced by the five groups described

Michigan and Ohio perspective in context

Tannenbaum and Schmidt: Should managers be democratic or autocratic- or something in between? Leadership style depends on the context depends on three sets of forces: - Forces in the manager (personality, values, preferences etc) - Forces in the subordinates (need for independence, tolerance etc) - Forces in the situation (organisational norms, size, location of work groups etc) The properties of the context in which a leader is operating: - The people being led - Nature of the work they're doing - Wider organisation setting Contingency theory of leadership = a perspective which argues that leaders must adjust their style taking into account properties of the context.

Difference between transformational and transactional leaders

Transactional leaders see their relationship with followers in terms of trades, swaps or bargains. Transformational leaders are charismatic and inspire and motivate others to perform beyond contract

organisational change and pressure

Yerkes-Dodson Law = psychology hypothesis which state that performance increases with arousal until we become overwhelmed after which performance falls if the pressure gets too high, the individual will become stressed and exhausted and performance will fall. Les Worral and Cary Cooper (2006) concluded that pressures to cut costs and improve performance etc damaged loyalty, morale, well being. We can apply the Yerkes Dodson law to work settings to try and decide the optimum level of pressure (but this is hard as it depends on the individual and difficulty of the task etc) Inverted U theory

Rees (2004)

identifies three categories of women in management: 1. Corporate high-flyers a. Motivated by influence and power, have pursued management careers and achieved senior roles 2. Soloists and pioneers a. Motivated by freedom and self control, work on their own, or set up their own businesses 3. Submarines a. As work is neither rewarding nor flexible enough, do not pursue traditional carrers and direct energies elsewhere Soloists and pioneers and submarines said they disliked the 'political and clubby atmosphere' at the top of male-dominated organisations. For males it seemed that winning and beating others was good while being nice to each other was not valuable. Despite working longer hours, soloists and pioneers expressed higher levels of satisfaction.

Distributed leadership

the collective exercise of leadership behaviours, often informal and spontaneous, by staff at all levels of an organisation Gron (2002) contrasts this traditional idea of focused leadership, emphasising the individual with distributed leadership. Distributed leadership involves many people acting in concert, in formal and informal, spontaneous and intuintive roles. Flatter organisation structure encourage distributed leadership Meyerson (2001) highlights the importance of behind the scenes change leadership of middle managers.

Definitions of Leadership

the process of influencing the activities of an organised group in its efforts towards goal setting and goal achievement Ralph Stogdill (1950) defined leadership as an influencing process aimed at goal achievement. His definition has three components: - defines leadership as an interpersonal process in which one individual seeks to influence the behaviour of another - sets leadership in a social context, in which other members of the group to be influecd are subordinates for followers - identifies a criterion for effective leadership: goal achievement.