Understanding and Leading Change

This document discusses the impacts of changes in strategy and operations of an organization, using Marks & Spencer as an example. It explores the drivers of change, their effects on individual, team, and leadership behavior, and measures to minimize negative impacts. It also evaluates the response to organizational change and discusses barriers for change and leadership approaches to deal with organizational changes.

Understanding and
Leading Change

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK1.............................................................................................................................................3
P1 With the help of example disclose the impacts of changes in the strategy and operations of
an organization.............................................................................................................................3
M1 Measures the drivers of the change.......................................................................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P2 Assess the ways of change drivers which effect individual, team and leadership behaviour.
......................................................................................................................................................6
P3 Measures to understate the negative impacts of changes on the organizational behaviour....7
M2 Evaluate the response of organizational change by applying the theories and models.........8
D1 Conclusion and recommendations with valid justification....................................................8
TASK3.............................................................................................................................................9
P4 Define the barriers for change and their impacts on leadership decision making..................9
M3 Use force field analysis to evaluate the driving forces..........................................................9
D2 Critically evaluate the forcefield model in meeting the objectives of organization............10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P5 Application of leadership approaches to deal with the organizational changes...................10
M4 Examine the leadership approach by using appropriate methods and theories...................11
D3 Critically evaluate the effectiveness of leadership approaches and models for change
management...............................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Understanding and leading change refers to overcome with the problems which comes at
a time of initiating and implementing the changes. During change participants examining the
issues related to political, technological, structural, social, psychological etc. as well as the whole
process of change (Neumann, James and Vince, 2019). Leading change is a leadership skill that
enables an organization for initiating the changes to secure the success of a company for long
time duration. To study the understanding and leading changes, Marks & Spencer is chosen. It is
a major British multinational company in retail sector with headquarters in London, UK and was
founded in 1884. The company deals in selling high quality clothing, food and home products
etc. In this report discussed the changes and its impacts on the organization, also identifying the
drivers of change. In addition it is necessary to know about the issues and barriers of change
which are faced by the company. To overcome from these problems several models and
leadership theories or approaches are applied for managing the changes.
TASK1
P1 With the help of example disclose the impacts of changes in the strategy and operations of an
organization.
Organizational strategy is a set of activities that are used for achieving the long term
goals and objectives of a company (Nadim and Singh, 2019). It will also helps in making a
strategic plan which are used in achieving competitive advantages against other organizations.
Changes associates with several factors allows Marks & Spencer to make new strategies for
providing a clear direction to take a competitive advantages as well as high profitability. It will
helps in satisfying the needs and wants of the customers in an appropriate manner. In the context
of M&S and Tesco PLC, understand the changes in operations and strategies that are described
below:
Basis M&S Tesco PLC
Technological
changes
It has major impacts on the retail
industries. Marks & Spencer was
suffering from the technological issues
related to the digital transformation
plans which results in dropping the
Tesco was facing issues mainly
related to the poor experience of
customers. This will impacts on the
company at a great extent. To regain
the trust of its customers a company

company's profits. It has shown from the
company's financial year report of 2017-
18 and it will be able to develop the
changes till 2022. For this changes a
company altered its strategies and
operations activity by implementing five
years plan.
Impact on strategies: To win the
optimistic outcome Marks & Spencer
has carried out changes in its business
strategies. Company was planning to
speed up the digital transformation
strategic plan to gain its positive results
related to firm's financial performance.
They modified in the retailing methods
via e-shopping or internet (Doppelt,
2017).
Impact on operations: Company is
going to follows the changes in their
operations by widespread techniques
adoption based on “Consumers are more
omni-channel in nature”. The chain of
supermarket aforesaid to develop their
business through accelerate changes to
provide better for customers who prefer
online shopping. In addition, a company
has plan to improve own websites and
eliminating its IT system through the
technology partnership with digital
consulting firm TCS, with the motive of
becoming more efficient.
need to do the advancement in
technologies. For adopting and
implementing the changes Tesco
PLC focused on modifying their
strategies and operations. It is a
major opportunity for the company.
Impact on strategies: The company
introduced RFID application to gain
the in-store experience for their
customers. It aids in counting the
stocks and get rid of after sales
automatically. This details assist for
store suppliers and refill when stock
needed.
Impact on operations: Tesco
acquire its own mobile payment
system which is called as PayQwid.
Customers can develop the app and
link with the Clubcard and NFC
application. It helps customers to pay
for shopping and acquire some
points in returns of loyalty. As well
as the company introduced “scan as
you shop” check points for those
customers who have passion of
convenience buying. It helps in save
the time as well as labour costs.

Environmental
changes
Environment is corrupting at a fast
proportion, people are effort more
concerned about it. Due to the
environmental changes, Marks &
Spencer has adopts some changes in its
strategies and operations to reduce the
harms and hazardous substances from
the nature.
Impact on strategies: Moving towards
positive changes a company altered its
business strategies. For reduction the
deforestation a company has adopted
cashless payment method as a plan of
action. Also, uses of plastic bags are
prohibited by the organization for the
intention of reducing the utility of non-
redeemable commodity.
Impact on operations: The company is
going to eliminate the wastages and
choose those resources that are not man-
made in creation. By engaging in the
sustainable activities the company has
been able to cut down carbon dioxide
emissions by almost 40%. along with
accredited with efficient energy usage,
reduced gas leaks, better use of waste
management techniques as well as
encourage its suppliers to practice eco-
friendly and go green concept to achieve
the high efficiency. It will helps in
solving environmental issues.
Environmental factors impacts on the
retailer businesses at a great extent.
Most of the companies are facing
immense pressure from governments
to address the environmental issues.
To get the societal benefits the
company needs to responding on that
factors (Shanafelt, Ripp and Trockel,
2020). The company develop
changes in its strategies as well as its
operations for increasing the
business efficiency.
Impact on strategies: Tesco PLC
encourages its customers to use their
own website for shopping like
tesco.com. In addition it focused on
the collection of discarded plastics
and recycle them to safe and clean
the nature and take a advantages of
social benefits.
Impact on operations: The
company bound up to usage
renewable origin, decrease up to
50% carbon footmark by 2020 and
centred on render 100% utilization of
its electrical energy by 2030. To use
the fuel saving routes and also
collects the unwanted plastic bags
from the customers for the purpose
of recycling them. This kind of
changes impacts on the company's

operations.
M1 Measures the drivers of the change.
Internal and external are two major drivers of change that helps in modifying the plans,
strategies, technologies, policies, designs, products and services as well. Internal drivers of
change includes the rules and regulations, capabilities, culture etc. that are complex to change
but an organization have more control over alteration (Owusu-Ansah, 2020). External drivers
includes the government policies, technologies, customers etc. are not easy to initiate as well as
implemented (Glass and Cook, 2016).
Types of organizational change:
Developmental change: This kind of changes are occurs when a company need to make
an improvements to an existing situation. In the context of Marks & Spencer, company can
develop new software to selling their products online via internet and e-shopping to get better
efficiency.
Transitional change: This changes will takes place when a company needs to implement a
completely new course of action (DeMatthews, Serafini and Watson, 2020). In the context of
Marks & Spencer, company can destroy excess manpower so, the money can be invested in the
execution of new alteration and plan of action.
TASK 2
P2 Assess the ways of change drivers which effect individual, team and leadership behaviour.
In the context of M&S, here two different change drivers such as internal and external are
discussed below that influence the behaviour of individual, team as well as leadership:
Internal drivers:
Capabilities: If the members of an organization is capable to adopt changes easily then it
will results in positive manner. In the context of Marks & Spencer, if companies hire or select
the skilful and knowledgable workforce who are able to work in a proper manner with team as
well as individually. This will helps in meets the objectives of company in an effective and
efficient manner (Koens, Postma and Papp, 2018). Although, leaders plays an important role in
change management because they needs to have ability for adopting and managing the changes
by using the appropriate leadership approaches.

Resources: It includes the financial, human as well as technological resources that are
essential for every business organization. In the context of M&S, if company fails to facilitates
the proper resources to the workers impacts on the in-appropriate functioning of an organization.
In addition an individual as well as team members are unable to perform the operational
activities smoothly. As well as without resources, it is impossible for the leaders to use the
leadership skills to guide and motivate their employees for better performance.
External drivers:
Customers: Customers are treated as a heart of a business as well as king of the market.
Market is wholly depends upon the requirements of the customers and company focused on that
kind of market condition in order to satisfying them (Belasen and Luber, 2017). In the context of
M&S, employees as well as teams continuously serves the different varieties of products to
satisfying the needs and wants of the end users. Although, the leaders needs to rapidly
implemented the changes by using approaches of leaderships and initiate and manage the
alteration in an effective manner.
Government policies: Changes related to positive aspects can impacts on the rules,
regulations, policies, practices of a company. In the context of Marks & Spencer, a company
avoiding these regulations results in the charges heavy rate of taxes and penalties. Due to this
failure, action of an individual and teams and the leadership skills of leaders will automatically
decreased as they feel driven at a time of acting the business responsibility.
P3 Measures to understate the negative impacts of changes on the organizational behaviour.
To minimise the negative impacts of changes on the working of Marks & Spencer, there
are needs to measures them which are adopted by the company's manager that are as follows:
Participative management: If employees of M&S involves in the strategic and
operational changes of the company, they will be competent to take these alteration in a correct
and systematic way (Wang, Han and Beynon-Davies, 2019). It will results in good relationship
between management and employees to maintain their positive behaviour in an organization.
Learning culture: Learning is considered as a long term permanent change in the
behaviour of a person. If Marks & Spencer create and develop the learning culture at their
workplace, will results in future success and growth of a business. Acquisition behaviour is
helpful in creating the better organization because people as well as leaders are able to face the
new challenges and acquire the effective skills of leaderships.

Develop communication channels: Interaction and communication is very important to
adequate implementation of changes in Marks & Spencer. This involves the blueprint for how to
communicate the changes, its methods, message, channels etc. of plans. If the changes are
properly communicated with all members of an organization then they are willing to learn as
well as do in a proper manner (Deardorff and Charles, 2018).
M2 Evaluate the response of organizational change by applying the theories and models.
To identifying the consequence of changes Marks & Spencer use situational leadership as
a strategic method. This model permits leaders to set their theory which are based on their
followers (Situational leadership theory, 2019). It is different from the change management
which tackle the large scale changes. Whereas, situational leadership focuses on the guiding
individuals employees in day to day work. This splitting the change process into four categories
such as delegating, participating, selling and telling. Managers can delegated tasks when it is
needed and allows to make direct reports to take decisions regarding change and prioritise their
own work. Managers facilitates the clear-cut instructions about pattern and procedures, but
support workers to control how they accomplished their activity. Selling style of leadership
helps managers to supervise their subordinate while supply ongoing encouragement. At the
telling stage leader's role is more efficient to provide the clear direction and guidelines about the
changes. This model helps in creating comfortable working environment for workers as well as
increase the awareness of leaders (Silcox and MacNeill, 2021). Along with it has demerits also
because it focuses on the immediate needs rather then the long term needs and it may also create
confusion within the company.
D1 Conclusion and recommendations with valid justification.
For planning of change in an effective manner and analysing the impacts of applying the
changes, Marks & Spencer needs to examining the internal and external drivers. Internal change
drivers helps in managing the internal resources, capital and funds for an organization to increase
the profit margin (Shaked, Schechter and Daly, 2018). External drivers helps in determining the
external environment of a company to take a competitive advantages.
Some recommendations to Marks and Spencer are as follows: manager of M&S should
needs to forecast the impacts of changes before the implementation in business. Also, needs to
adopts a proper communication channel to distribute appropriate informations and increase the
participative management.

TASK3
P4 Define the barriers for change and their impacts on leadership decision making.
There are various barriers and issues are displayed whenever changes are implemented in
an organization (Chambers and Ryder, 2017) . This impacts on the effective leadership decision
making in a considerable manner. In the context of Marks & Spencer, barriers and issues can be
described as:
Government rules and regulations: Different rules and policies of UK government acts
as a barrier at a time of adopting organizational changes. This will reduce the potentiality of
employees as well as company's profit margins. In order to fulfil the requirements of businesses,
Marks & Spencer needs to follow up the government policies which will benefited company to
cover the large market area. Due to this obstacle decisions and policies of an organization is
effected in an appreciable manner, because leaders and managers are unable to take a effective
and efficient judgement towards their organization.
Poor employment engagement: This is the most common barrier of change management
because employees are afraid to follows the changes so, they take less participation in the change
management process (He and Oxendine, 2019). In the context of Marks & Spencer, if a company
wants to implemented the changes in an positive manner then it needs to treated their employees
as an assets. Without the employment engagement a company not succeed in the effective
change management. So, the firm will be given appropriate informations to employees for
adopting the changes and make sure the improvement of workers participation.
M3 Use force field analysis to evaluate the driving forces.
Forcefield analysis is a framework for determining the factors which influence the
situations. Driving change means promote modification and restraining forces tries to hold the
place. In the context of Marks & Spencer, this model can use to placed changes in an appropriate
manner (Donald, 2019). This will benefited to the managers of a company in analysing the
initiation and implementation of changes. There are mainly two kinds of forces which are as
follows: when company's are not capable for manipulation the technologies in the near future, is
considered as a restraining forces. Whereas, driving factors benefits the company in changes
adoption in proper manner through achieving the organizational goals in desired manner.

D2 Critically evaluate the forcefield model in meeting the objectives of organization.
Forcefield technique is a easy and simple to analyse the initiating and implementing of
changes. This will benefits Marks & Spencer for dealings with the complex situations in an
effective manner. Whereas, in the motive conditions, it will be less impactful because resisting
forces will increase the stress level of employees (Khalifa, 2017). This is also helpful for the
business organizations and employees to achieve the goals and objective within the time frame.
TASK 4
P5 Application of leadership approaches to deal with the organizational changes.
Leadership is very essential for the manager and leader of Marks & Spencer to choose the
leadership approaches for providing motivation to its employees towards the better attainment of
goals in an effective manner. It plays important role in every organization to adopts the changes
successfully at their workplace (Garbellano and Da Veiga, 2019). Some leadership approaches
are described under:
Situational leadership: In an organization several situations are arises, to deal with them
a company use situational leadership style. The M&S can use this style to adopt the changes on
the immediate situations that are facing by their employees. It is critically evaluated that the
leadership style is flexible in nature because it helpful for solving the different conditions.
Although, it can not be effective in the task oriented environment as it deals in immediate goals
rather then long term needs.
Autocratic leadership: This kind of leaders behaviour deals in overall control in one hand
only or can say that accepts very little input from the workforce (Herrington, Bonem and Furr,
2020). In the M&S, company can use this style for learning the new things to their members and
that type of leader do not worry about the followers reaction or action. In addition, the work load
is only on the one person it creates the health issues and stress.
Democratic leadership: This helps in increasing the participative management and the
employees engagement in the activities. In Marks & Spencer's context, company can choose this
approach for maintaining the good relationships with their employees but, it takes more time to
interact with number of persons and collects their opinions.

M4 Examine the leadership approach by using appropriate methods and theories.
In order to evaluate the leadership style the manager of M&S can use the Lewin's change
management models which will be useful in adopting the changes at their workplace. This model
is used by the management to understand the changes related to organization and structure. It is
classified into main three categories such as: Marks & Spencer can use unfreezing to initiate the
process of changes through motivating their employees. After initiating the changes, proper
leadership style can use to implementing the changes as well as communicate with its team
members. At last the changes has been successfully accepted or refreezing by its members to
sustain the company and also staff get confidence and feel comfortable of the taking changes.
Although, it impacts negatively in changing the process direction and it also a time consuming
model (Lin, Featherman and Sarker, 2017).
D3 Critically evaluate the effectiveness of leadership approaches and models for change
management.
After analysing the above informations, it has been analysed that situational leadership
style is most effective for Marks & Spencer because it helps management in making the positive
environments at their workplace. Although it helps in motivating employees to participate in the
activities as well as solving the issues and conflicts of members of an organization. In addition, it
is ineffective also because sometimes the management of company do not want to take support
from their employees, it leads in dissatisfaction among them and failure of implementing
changes (Shanafelt, Ripp and Trockel, 2020).
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that changes are necessary on timely basis,
without alteration in the operational functions a company not able to achieve the sustainable
growth and profitability. Also, there are several drivers of changes are available which impacts
on the company's working and gives the positive as well as negative impacts. There are different
theories and methods are presents to take a effective decisions and remove the negative impacts.
Along with, various leadership approaches that benefits in handling the changes in appropriate
manner.

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through :<https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/LODJ-10-2013
0130/full/html>.