What are the type of leadership required to organizational change?

Foundations for Business Leadership

Successfully navigate the complexity of general management

For professionals wanting to develop cross-functional business skills to become an effective general manager/ business leader. Typical profiles include: Country Manager, Regional Manager, Business Lead, Functional…

Abstract

The importance of change management has become prominent in the last period when organizations have started to show changes in many areas to compete. Organizational change has an important place on the agenda of many organizations. There are many factors in the success of change processes. In this study, the effects of leadership on organizational change are examined.

Introduction

Today, everything is changing fast and organizations are in a struggle to keep up with this rapid change in order to compete. Equipped leaders are also needed to adapt to this change process. It does not seem possible to carry out an organizational change with ordinary managers. Leadership characteristics required for organizational change and transformation may differ according to the culture, goals and structure of the organizations. However, there are still behaviors and characteristics that leaders must demonstrate for a successful change process. Examples of these behaviors are inspiration, team building, motivation.

As the role of pioneering and initiating organizational change belongs to the top management, there is a need for managers who see the need for change and want change, as long as the management staff is sustained. For this reason, the approach of leaders to the change process has a significant importance as a result of change without success or failure.

Organizational Change

Organizational change in the sense of adaptation to the internal environment of organizations, on the one hand, of all elements and forms of formal and natural interaction, on the other hand, of the elements of a higher level system where it is a differentiated sub-system, on the other, and its interaction, is even more important today. and in order to protect and increase organizational effectiveness, it must be examined and explained.

Change is also considered to move from an existing situation to a new future situation. The future of this change is uncertain and a situation that concerns people's values, coping skills and competencies. For this reason, the organization may not support change unless people are convinced of their own questions. The organization may also have invested heavily in its current state; it will then resist the change process to avoid the organization's uncertain future. A cycle has been formed to reduce this resistance and to realize the change process step by step. Lewin's 3-step change model clearly conveys this cycle. This three step model consists of unfreezing, changing and refreezing stages (Hussain et. All,2016). For a change to be applied, it must go through the first unfreezing step. Since many people will naturally resist change, in the freezing stage, the goal is to raise awareness of how the status quo or current level of acceptability somehow prevents the organization. Old behaviors, ways of thinking, processes, people and organizational structures should be carefully examined to show employees how much a change is necessary for the organization to create or maintain competitive advantage in the market. Communication is especially important during the freezing phase, so employees can be informed about the logic behind it and how it will benefit each employee. The idea is that the more we know about a change and the more we feel it is necessary and urgent, the more motivated we are to accept the change. In another step, people can now start acting because they are 'not frozen'. Lewin acknowledged that change is a process in which the organization needs to move into this new state of existence. This change, also called 'transition' or 'act', is determined by the implementation of the change. That's when the change comes true. As a result, it is time for most people to tackle the new reality. This is a time marked by uncertainty and fear and is the most difficult step to overcome. During the changing step, people begin to learn new behaviors, processes and ways of thinking. The more they are prepared for this step, the easier it is to complete. Therefore, education, communication, support and time are critical for employees as they are familiar with change. Change is again a process that needs to be carefully planned and carried out. Throughout this process, employees should be reminded about the reasons for the change and how it will take full advantage of it. Lewin called the last stage of the change model as freezing, but many call it re-freezing to symbolize the action of reinforcement, the main goal is to balance and consolidate the new situation after the change. Changes in organizational processes, goals, structure, proposals or people are accepted as the new norm or status quo and re-frozen. Lewin found that the freezing step is particularly important to ensure that people do not revert to the old ways of thinking or doing before the change is implemented. Efforts should be made to ensure that the change does not disappear; rather, it should be consolidated into the culture of the institution and maintained as an acceptable way of thinking or doing.

The resistance that organizations may experience while traveling to the desired point is the obstacles that must be eliminated. There are different classifications of organizational change in traditional understanding;

- Planned-unplanned change: In case each stage of the change process is decided in advance, it is possible to talk about planned change. In traditional view, unplanned change expresses an undesirable situation due to an uncontrolled process.

- Macro-micro exchange: It relates to the number of units and topics subject to change within the organization. With this understanding, change can be spread across the organization or it can be limited to only a few units within the organization.

- Spread over time - sudden change: Based on the time elapsed between the start and the end of the change. Accordingly, short-term revolutionary changes, such as long-term evolutionary changes, exist.

- Predictive - reactive change: It is the definition of future conditions with the foresight at the planning stage of the change and the realization of a structuring suitable for these conditions. Sudden changes may be unavoidable due to reasons such as strain of circumstances before making predictions for some organizational changes.

- Active-passive change: It is about taking the organization as the source of change or based on the environment. In this context, it is necessary to see the process of change from inside to outside by defining the starting place of change as an organization, and from outside to inside by defining it as an environment (Sığrı; Gürbüz; 2017).

In addition to these traditional classifications, the change process should be improved by taking into account the impact, scope and leadership. It is the goal of every organization to manage these processes and complete a successful change process. It is also seen in the literature studies that there are many factors to successfully complete this process. It is known that the role of leadership, one of these factors, is an important structure in the organizational change process. In a process of change, organizations seek leadership competencies to tackle the demands and new challenges of the changing environment.

Organizational Change and Leadership in the Literature

In organizations, a comprehensive social change has begun in which interventionist policy practices have been abandoned under the influence of globalization. With this change that emerged in the 1980s, organizations are trying to keep up with the technological developments in products and services. In organizations, this phase of change is generally carried out under the guidance of senior management and the team formed.

The leader cannot achieve success alone. In order for leaders to determine the approach of employees to innovation, they need to know the institution very well and recognize and identify the innovations that need to be done in the institution. In this respect, leadership is not a task that everyone can fulfill. Societies may have different views and expectations about change. For example, the change in Turkish culture is a situation explained by the words '' bringing new pieces to the old village ''. In this respect, knowing that the "new custom" supports the organization manager can help eliminate some obstacles to change (Baltaş, 2016).

Successful management of change is an extremely necessary skill. However, the management of organizational change tends to be generally reactive, discontinuous and instantaneous. Failure rate in the studies in the literature is seen to be approximately 70 percent of all the change programs started (By,2005). An environment where change management is so important, leadership also stands out as the subject that needs to be examined the most.

Effective leadership is essential in managing change. As always in the field, change is difficult for people, people feel uncomfortable with change, and sometimes they don't even resist and accept change. They want to continue everything as they do. Therefore, leadership can be seen as an encouraging factor for people to constantly change and push them into change. Leadership plays a role in an organization to motivate and encourage employees to maintain and adapt to the business environment, to ensure the organization's development and innovation(Hao;Yazdanifard,2015).

Change and innovation are increasingly critical to corporate survival and continued success. In a study, the relationship between the perceived style of a leader - transformational, operational, laissez-faire and assertive leadership - follower mentality and attitudes towards error learning was investigated. According to the results, it is concluded that transformational leadership develops more positive attitudes towards employee error learning, while laissez-faire and extreme leadership styles actively prevent employee error learning. These results examined the relationship between leadership style and employee error learning, and emphasized that careless leaders can be particularly devastating in work environments that want to develop creativity and innovation as part of the organizational change process (Bligh;Kohle;Yan, 2018). For this reason, the approaches of leaders to learning in the process of change have an important place.

There are a lot of studies in the literature suggesting that leadership behavior will have direct effects on employees' results. For example, transformational leadership has been found to help trigger a transformative effect where leaders can increase awareness and acceptance among employees (as cited in Tichy & Devana, 1986). From another point of view, leaders are thought to be successful only with strong support from their subordinates. However, Meyer and Allen (1997) have claimed that organizational change can be successful if employees commit to do this job. They claimed that loyalty was the best, based on the value of the enterprise and the belief in employees who wanted to see it succeed. In summary, greater organizational commitment should lead to successful organizational preparation for a change process. For this reason, it is stated that leadership is both very effective and managing the change process with this loyalty with its business-related attitude and their effect on organizational change (Nordin, 2011). In order to successfully lead an organization for a major change, it seems very important that management balances both human and organizational needs. Organizational change should be encouraged and supported by personal change. Individual change is also needed for organizational change to be successful (Bovey; Hede, 2001). In a study, it was found that the readiness of employees for change is in strong positive relationships with trust in senior leaders. In cases where trust in leaders is high, employees feel more ready for change (Rafferty,et. all, 2006).

In the literature, it has been stated for a long time that research on transformational and charismatic leadership has examined the relationship between leadership characteristics or behavior and organizational change. It was also emphasized that there are many studies showing that leadership characteristics and behaviors in the process of change affect the success or failure of organizational change initiatives.

The type of leadership that emphasizes organizational change is also stated as transformational leadership. It has been added that transformational leaders are the people who best demonstrate why change is necessary and that can motivate those around it. Transformational leaders can create an exciting vision for the future and motivate the people in the organization. This is stated as the first step of a change. If a higher degree of transformational leadership behavior is demonstrated in a change process, a higher level of employees will be willing to change. (Voet, 2013).

It is an important point for people to know why there is a need for change in organizations. At this point, leaders are expected to convey the purpose of change well in order to manage uncertainties in people's minds, control their mood and minimize stress. It is stated that people-oriented leaders attach importance to communication and manage processes through communication. In this case, it has been suggested that the leaders can transfer the reasons for change to their team through communication effectively. In the process of change, people in the organization must accept this change and work in a coordinated manner. Leaders are also expected to adopt approaches that will coordinate people and bring them together for a common purpose. This also applies to both human-oriented and business-oriented leadership behaviors (Battilana et. all,2010).

In general, when all these results are examined, we can draw the following conclusions.

Successful change leaders should be very careful about communication. They see this as a critical part of their roles. When communicating, they draw attention to the reason for the change and what it focuses on.

Successful change leaders structure is not limited. By including employees early in the decision-making process, it creates the necessary resource for cooperation in planning and implementation in the change process. They encourage their employees to achieve this cooperation.

Successful change leaders do not expect others to make changes that they do not consider fully linked to them. They express their own discomfort as they go through change, but they insist on continuing the change process until the desired results are achieved and do not give up. In contrast, unsuccessful leaders are impatient with the results and do not show continuity.

R. Pınar Şimşek

References :

- Baltaş, A. (2016). “Türk kültüründe yönetmek” (9.Baskı). İstanbul: Remzi kitabevi

- Battilana ,Julie; Gilmartinb, Mattia; Sengul,Metin; Pache, Anne-Claire; Alexander, Jeffrey A.(2010). “Leadership competencies for implementing planned organizational change”; The Leadership Quarterly; DOI:10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.03.007

- Bligh, Michelle C.; Kohles, Jeffrey C.; Yan, Qing (Helen), (2018). “Leading and Learning to Change: The Role of Leadership Style and Mindset in Error Learning and Organizational Change”. Journal of Change Management; Vol18; Pages 116-141.

- Bovey, W H, and A Hede, (2001). “Resistance to Organizaitonal Change: the Role of Cognitive and Affective Processes.” Leadership Organizational Development Journal, vol. 22, no. 8, 372–382.

- By, Rune Todnem (2005).; “Organisational change management: A critical review; Journal of Change Management”; 5:4, 369-380, DOI:10.1080/14697010500359250

- Hao, By Moo Jun; Yazdanifard, Rashad (2015). “How Effective Leadership can Facilitate Change in Organizations through Improvement and Innovation”; Global Journal of Management and Business Research; Online ISSN: 2249-4588 & Print ISSN: 0975-5853

- Hussain, S. Talib; Lei, Shen; Akram,Tayyaba; Haider, M.Jamal; Hussain, S. Hadi; Ali, Muhammad (2016). “Kurt Lewin’s change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee involvement in organizational change”; Journal of Innovation & Knowledge.

- Nordin, Norshidah (2011). “The Influence of Emotional intelligence, Leadership Behaviour and Organizational Commitment on Organizational Readiness for Change in Higher Learning Institution”; Social and Behavioral Sciences.

- Rafferty, A. E., & Simons, R. H. (2006). “An examination of the antecedents of readiness for fine tuning and corporate transformation changes”. Journal of Business Psychology, 20, 325- 350.

- Sığrı,Ünsal; Gürbüz, Sait (2017). “Örgütsel Davranış” (4. Baskı). İstanbul: Beta Yayınları

- Voet, Joris van der (2013). “The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure”; European Management Journal.