Leadership and Change Management Report

Leadership and Change Management

Report

Executive Summary

Change has become a constant and permanent part of the current business environment because of the increased complexities and challenges in the environment. Consumer behaviour is the major change that takes place very frequently and the leaders need to lead the organisation accordingly. Sometimes it becomes really difficult for the organisation and the leaders to adopt the change. Till the time they understand and adapt the change, there is another change available in the market (Harris and Jones, 2018). Changes in the business environment can be related to anything like technology, consumer behaviour, organisational structure, environmental factors (Macro and Micro) etc. change is both natural as well as a manmade process. Sometimes because of natural conditions, it becomes necessary for the individuals to adopt the change for example the outbreak of COVID-19 is a natural change that has brought several huge changes in the business environment. Men made changes are developed by man itself for example change in the consumer demand due to the launch of a new product or services. The report presents a discussion about leadership and change management in the context of the given case scenario. The report has covered all the necessary aspects related to leadership and change in form of leadership theories or styles, cultural issues, barriers in management and ADKAR model etc (Delanoy and Kasztelnik, 2020).

Task 1

Leadership Styles

A leader is the one that leads the entire team into the correct direction and leads them towards success. For a leader, it is not possible to manage the team without implementing effective leadership strategies and styles. To manage the team as a leader and to let the team achieve desired goals and objectives successfully there are various types of leadership styles are being introduced. An individual may think that one leadership is style is better than the other but it depends on the situation to situation. It depends on the leader whose leadership style they want to implement according to the situation. At the primary level, there are seven types of leadership styles out of all some of the major and commonly used leadership styles are discussed below (Al Khajeh, 2018).

The first type of most used and implemented leadership style is the autocratic leadership style that refers to an authoritative style of leading. According to this theory, the leader has the authoritative style of leading the team and makes them the assigned work done according to their order. The statement “Do as I say” suits best to the autocratic style of the leadership. Such type of leadership style is suitable for those leaders who have to make any crucial and immediate decision for the organisation but for other leaders this theory or style of leadership may not suit. The style will not be suitable for the other leaders because this sounds more of an authority as compared to command and this may create a bad impression to the team members and develops a conflict between the members (Gandolfi and Stone, 2018).

Authoritative leadership is another form of leadership style that is closely related to the autocratic style of leadership but the difference is that in authoritative leaders has confidence in them while giving the authority to their team members and decides the planning according to the plan. Such types of leaders are beneficial for the company during a problematic situation. Most of the time such leadership styles are implemented during the uncertainties and unknown events that are organised on an immediate basis. As mentioned earlier autocratic leaders are always in hurry and they do not take time to conclude rather they make immediate decisions but authoritative leaders are always prepared and they take sufficient time to think and conclude. They are less lenient with their team members and love to authority them (Fiaz et al., 2017).

Third leadership theory is the democratic style of leadership that is the most beneficial type of leadership style and is used in most of the business organisation on regular basis. According to this style, leaders take the entire team as a whole and involve the suggestion of every team member while making the decision. At least such leaders give equal chance to each team member to mention their point of view or suggestion while making any of the important or crucial decisions for the company. In other terms team members or employees, opinion matters a lot to democratic leaders. They satisfy the statement "What do you think?" in the context of employee’s opinion. Democratic leadership style is also known as a participative leadership style because it includes the suggestions and opinion of all the team members equally (Sousa and Rocha, 2019).

Affiliative leadership style is the other type of effective leadership style whose primary objective states the “people comes first”. According to Affiliative leadership style leaders first, make the team members comfortable and get close enough to them so that they can share important information related to the organisation or decision with the leader. With the help of such type of leadership the chances of having a strong bond between the leader and the team increases. The priority of a leader is their team members and to fulfil the emotional need of the team members. Affiliative leaders create an open and comfortable working environment in the organisation that will motivate the employees and employees will perform the assigned work with high interests. Another advantage of having Affiliative leaders in an organisation is that it reduces the chances of conflicts among the employees and maintains the peaceful working culture and environment of the organisation (Abasilim et al., 2019).

Leadership Theories and Cultural Issues

Leadership theories are the modals introduced by various management experts to manage the leadership events in the business organisations successfully. The current business environment is highly complex and competitive that requires the highly effective and efficient leader to lead the organisation and make the company survive in the market for the long run. Leaders play a crucial role in the management of business organisations and to lead the organisation towards success. Culture of the business organisation refers to the working environments and ethics adopted by the particular organisation. To have a better understanding of cultural issues in the prescribed case Hofstede Cultural model is being used further. Before understanding the cultural issues, some effective leadership theories are closely related to leadership management and are effective for present leadership management (Foti et al., 2017).

Trait theory: According to the trait theory of leader primary focus of an individual are the traits in the personality. Traits refer to the quality or feature present in an individual. Trait theory will be successful for an individual to become a leader when the person’s personality will have some of the other traits or qualities of a leader. The main aim to introduce the theory is to identify the traits of a leader in an individual and identify a good leader in them. According to the theory traits of a leader are not always inbuilt in the person but sometimes they have to nurture it in them. For example, societal, economics and psychological traits are to be learned by a leader they are not in them by birth (Offermann and Coasts, 2018).

Contingency theory: The theory can be considered an extension or expansion of traits theory because contingency theory deals with the situational or practical aspect of the leadership. Various situations have been found for situational variables but no solid theory can be formed. In contingency leadership theory trainee or intern employees are asked to analyse the situation that can arise in the business organisations and to give effective alternative solutions for the same. Through this leadership, modal or theory employees will be well trained before the start of the job and will prove to an effective and efficient leader for the company (Bratton, 2020).

Path goal theory: The theory is being extracted from the motivational theory of leadership that states that a leader’s behaviour is highly dependent on the team member’s motivation, satisfaction and performances. Under the path-goal theory of leadership, there are 3 types of situational factors that play a major role in influencing subordinates’ performances, perception and motivation. Those their major effective factors are directive leadership, participative leadership and achievement-oriented leadership. These factors are also known as leadership styles that are discussed above. By using these leadership styles and factors it will be easier for the leader to influence their subordinate’s performance according to the path-goal theory of leadership (Sriyakul et al., 2019).

Group and Exchange Theory: As per the theory it is necessary to have followers for a leader based on social psychology and the leaders must give something beneficial in return like rewards and cost. According to the theory or modal leader and followers both go hand in hand and there will be no value of the other without any one of them both. In simple terms, a leader without followers is not a leader and followers will not be following if there is no leader. Similarly, leader and follower’s words or actions have a great impact on each other’s performances. For example, if the leader does something wrong it will affect the followers and the same (Bratton, 2020).

Hofstede Cultural Model

A model is an analysis tool that is conducted by most of the business organisations to analyse the change in values in the workplace because of culture change. In the given case of JLP and Atterley merger and acquisition, there can be a possibility of cultural change because all the employees and staff working in Atterley are now hired by JLP. But the staffs need not make a lot of changes and adjustments because both the companies are in the UK itself. The difficulty in adapting the change will increase when the company needs to shift from one location to an entirely different location. The cultural issues for both the company’s will be highly related to organisational ethics and norms. After the acquisition employees may need to adjust with the changed norms and working ethics of the company and this procedure may take certain time (Pinpathomrat, 2017). Hofstede cultural model will be an effective analysis modal that will help to understand better about all the required changes and cultural issues after acquisition and merger. The Hofstede cultural model has major 6 dimensions for properly analysing the cultural changes. Those six dimensions are power distance index (PDI), individualism versus collectivism (IDV), masculinity versus femininity (MAS), uncertainty avoidance index (UAI), long term orientation versus short term normative orientation (LTO) and indulgence versus restraint (IVR). Not all the dimensions or cultural issues are applicable in the given case. Some of the applicable cultural dimensions are mentioned below-

Power Distance Index: In this dimension cultural issue related to power distribution is being discussed. The issue of in equal power distribution may arise because of the merger old employees of JLP may dominate the new group of employees from Atterley. And employees from Atterley may also be nervous because of the sudden changes.

Indulgence versus Restraint (IVR): This is the second barrier or issue that may affect the merger of JLP and Atterley and reduces the chances of the merger being successful. As per the dimension of Hofstede, the term indulgence refers to the free and comfortable working environment for employees and on the other hand, restraint means an environment full of restrictions and barriers. After the acquisition of employees, the new staff may find a high rate of restraint in the new working environment that will affect the performance of the new employees.

These were the main two cultural issues that are to be suffered by new employees because of the merger (Pelau and Pop, 2018).

Task 2

ADKAR Model

Change is the constant part of every individual’s life and the business environment too. Because of high complexities and competitiveness in the business environment change has become a regular and important part of it. ADKAR model is an effective tool that can be used to analyse the personal as well as organisational changes by the leaders and to plan the future activities accordingly. As given in the case of JLP and Atterley merger there will be some changes that both the companies employees need to adopt so below are the observed changes through ADKAR Model (Karambelkar and Bhattacharya, 2017)-

Awareness: It refers to the awareness about the change to the employees and other management staff. The reaction for the change can have two types of reaction by the employees. If employees are aware of the change and they know the benefits of the change then they may react positively but if they are unaware of the change and the change does not seem beneficial for them then they will resist the change and react negatively.

Desire: The meaning of desire in terms of the ADKAR model refers that every person may have their reasons for not accepting the change in the business organisation. Because of lack of desire and interests, many of the employees may leave the organisation and on the other hand, if employees have high desire to adopt the change then they may adopt the change and stay in the same organisation for a longer period.

Knowledge: It is the third element of the process that states that after an employee is aware of the change and have the desire to adopt the change organisations needs to provides the detailed knowledge about the new working norms, styles and ethics to the new employees.

Ability: It is the most important element of the entire model because this bridges the gap between knowledge and ability. It is not possible for every employee who has the desire to adopt change but also can accept it. The changes sometimes are not adopted by employee’s incorrect direction and they may think that they are not going into the correct direction.

Reinforcement: It is the last element of the entire modal that states the habits of an individual. According to the element, it is possible that because of lack of ability to adapt the change correctly the employees may think that the change is difficult to adopt so they will go for the old manner of working for which they are habitual. And this nature is inbuilt in humans if they do not get or understand anything they will try to perform the task in the habitual manner (Suliistiyani et al., 2020).

Recommendations

There are some of the recommendations being the change lead of JLP for the CEO of JLP business organisations to make the merger a great success-

Before implementing the merger, the CEO should have a clear vision in the mind for the merger. Vision refers that she should be clear with the outcomes of the merger and impact of the merger on the company. And also, she should have been already prepared with the alternatives of change implementing strategies that will result in a successful merger.

She should decide before a certain timeline or duration for the new employees to adjust with the new changes and adopt them. If some duration is not provided to the new staff for adjusting the change they may leave the organisation. With the passage of time employees will adopt the change and will get habitual to the new norms.

To develop the desire of change in the employees of Atterley CEO should convey them about the benefits of changes and motivate them to adopt the change. Benefits of change will attract new employees and will develop the desire to adopt changes. As a result, the merger will be successful and will be beneficial for JLP.

Proper training and development program should be arranged for the new employees for their skill development. For the development of skills, the merging company must have cleared two-way communications with the employees so that they can feel comfortable to share their issues.

Conclusion

The entire report concludes that leadership is an integral as well as an important part of the organizational structure and management that plays the vital role in directing the whole organization into correct direction to achieve the desired goals and objectives. In the report, the given case of JLP and Atterley business organisations merger is being discussed in detail. The discussion in the report started with leadership styles and theories brief explanation. The discussion continues with cultural issues in a business organisation because of change. The considered change is a merger of the businesses. Because of the mergers, the major changes are to be adjusted by the employees and the management. Barriers to the change are also mentioned in the report. This whole discussion was task 1 of the report. The second part of the assignment is discussed in task 2. In task 2 ADKAR model of Prosci's and Kubler-Ross' Change model is being discussed in the context of the given case scenario of the merger of two organisations. With the help of these two models, the business management will be able to manage the implementing changes peacefully in the organisation and maintain the peaceful work culture of the company.

References

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