Leadership in Business: Managing and Leading Changes in an Organization

This article discusses the challenges of managing and leading changes in an organization. It covers topics such as the importance of credibility, change receptivity, and change levers. The article also provides insights on how to successfully implement organizational change strategies.

Running head: LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS
Leadership in Business
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Author Note:

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Answer 1
Managing and leading changes in an organization can be difficult; however, it is not
impossible. It is often believed that with an urgent situation organization face issues to
achieve their desired results. Thus, they end up changing their working style, pattern and
structure. However, some employees tend to oppose this within the organization as they may
not have the mindset of accepting changes in their working pattern. The “we have always
done it in this manner” mentality needs to be changed as it highly impacts progress and
silences new ideas and views. Moreover, there are many employees who may not accept the
cultural and social changes within the workplace.
The change management simulation mentions that in order to remain competitive in
today’s business market, reactive changes are not enough. It gives an idea regarding the
planned changed efforts which can either be revolutionary or evolutionary in nature. The
change management simulation mentions about the companies engaging into various
incremental adaptations in order to remain competitive, reduce costs and improve quality. At
times, when the organizational capabilities or strategies are misaligned along with some
demands with the competitive environment, more and more dramatic changes are required
Groysberg & Slind (2012).
Answer 2
Power and urgency in the organization can directly impact the leading change
initiatives. In order to successfully react to the windows of opportunities, regardless of the
focuses, innovation, culture, growth, technology and cost structure, a new methodology of the
changed leadership is required. The urgency level is considered to be a degree to which the
people believe that change is an imperative part of any organization. It is regarded as the

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energy which helps the organization to move from its current state. The origin of a change is
highly impacted by the nature of urgency. Firstly, some changes are being derived from the
situations which become obsolete.
The simulation states that it is harder to create a sense of urgency or dissatisfaction in
order to address the opportunity gaps than the performance gaps. The change agents, in the
lower context have luxury of time for implementing the changes because of their efforts for
preparing for the future. The changes agents are considered to be in a higher urgency context
that generally reacts to some changes within the competitive environment. The sustainability
efforts help in improving the corporate outcomes and fits in the organization’s personal
values. Therefore, there is an urgent need of addressing these immediate problems in an
appropriate, yet efficient manner.
Answer 3
Credibility plays an important role in the individual’s ability of leading change.
Credibility refers to the quality of being believed in or trusted. The trustworthiness,
reliability, dependability and integrity of the leaders and managers play an immensely
important role in order to lead the organizational changes. The organizational leaders are
responsible to manage the changes in an effective as well as efficient manner for leading its
organization as well as employees to the ultimate success level.
I lost my credibility at the time when I withhold some information from my parents
and friends. There were certain reasons for my behavior and I explained them the same, later.
However, according to me, withholding information was the biggest mistake of my life and
later, I understood that it had left me no good. Rather, some serious issues popped up and it
worsened the situation, than before. I believe that withholding information is a wrong
practice, which nobody should ever do, as it makes people lose their credibility.

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It took time for me, to regain my credibility back; however, I was happy. I told my
parents and friends the actual reason of withholding the information and what led to that
situation. Moreover, outlining the actions helped in generating the feelings of trust between
me and my parents as well as friends. Credibility has the power to make a person or say,
organization and can break it as well. If an organization is not being able to build trust among
the employees, it will never succeed. Therefore, it is immensely necessary for the
organizational leaders and managers to maintain their credibility well, in order to lead the
employees as well as the organization to their success.
Answer 4
Change receptivity is highly recognized as an immensely important factor for
successfully implementing organizational change strategies. The overall procedure of change,
in the initial stages, indicates the change targets to be the resultant receptivity. The simulation
mentions about organizational change communication to be an important element for the
employees’ receptivity to change. The researches have revealed the fact that initial change
communication is a bit problematic. This is because the employees hesitate to respond to the
change communication as they like things doing the way they did. In order to manage the
overall implications of the continuous organizational change, companies need to
communicate along with a constructivist communication approach. The organizational
leaders as well as the managers need to align with their employees’ level of expectations
along with the understanding of the changed goals or objectives.
On discussing about the differences, it is important to mention that in order to be
effective, the change agents need to discern the one who is likely to be most receptive
towards the change efforts and the one who may talk against it. I came to learn about these
differences from the simulation itself. It gave a detailed description about the individuals who

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differ in their ability and desire to change. The differences had been explained by giving
instances of the workplace, in the simulation. It mentions about persuading the members of
the organizational networks to support the changes. On the contrary, if the change agents do
something which harms the organization or employees, he/she might lose the trust or
credibility of the employees (Hbr.org. 2018). However, the simulation assumes that the social
ties are actually closer than the formal ties and thus, it emphasizes upon the multiplier effects
of the informal social-network relationships of change targets, instead of the professional or
formal ones.
Answer 5
The change levers were being categorized into three categories which included;
credibility levers, communication levers and the training levers. The credibility levers are
used to build and maintain the trustworthiness of the change agents. The communication
levers help in facilitating the information flow that is related to the change initiatives and the
training levers helped in changing the targets for understanding what can be expected from
them. It also helps in addressing the deficits of the skills and abilities. It is immensely
important for the change agents to be prepared for choosing or selecting the tactics of change.
The main challenge for the students is to select the change levers and to deploy them in the
correct sequence and that too, at the right time (Kotter 2014).
Answer 6
The simulation has helped me a lot in understanding the overall concept of
organizational change. It gave some valid points regarding performance in leading changes,
change levers, organizational change management and many other points. In addition to this,
it also gave a detailed description of the receptivity of the changed targets. Change
management is the term which is often used at the organizations in order to describe the

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significant alterations of an existing business philosophy, model or approach (Hbr.org. 2018).
It is designed to manage the performances of leading change and to improve the overall
operations of the company.

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References
Groysberg, B., & Slind, M. (2012). Leadership is a conversation. Harvard business
review, 90(6), 76-84.
Hbr.org. (2018). Retrieved 24 April 2018, from https://hbr.org/2011/11/fire-snowball-mask-
movie-how-leaders-spark-and-sustain-change
Kotter, J. P. (2014). Accelerate: Building strategic agility for a faster-moving world. Harvard
Business Review Press.