Leadership Styles and Change Implementation at Xerox

Running Head: Leadership
Leadership
Xerox

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Leadership
Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Leadership Styles at Xerox..........................................................................................................................2
Difference between Radical and Incremental Change Processes.................................................................4
Incremental innovation........................................................................................................................4
Radical innovation...................................................................................................................................5
Implementation of change in Xerox........................................................................................................6
Barriers to Implementation at Xerox...........................................................................................................7
Framework Mulcahy Used for Affecting Change........................................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Xerox Company is the US based corporation which works for managing the documents and also
sell quite a range of printers which are black and white and multifunctional, printing presses,
consulting services and supplies and photo copiers. It is located in Connecticut, Norwalk.
Though most of their employees are based in Rochester, New York in which the company was
actually founded (Xerox, 2018).
Leadership Styles at Xerox
The style of leadership in which the aims are defined earlier and the leader uses the reward and
the punishment both for motivating the followers is known as transactional leadership. This type
of leadership always emphasizes on the present scenario of the firm by creating and framing the
stages and controlling the firm’s activities. The major aim of this type of leadership is to restore
the corporate culture which presently exists and also to modify the current procedures and
policies (Hussain, Abbas, Lei, Haider, & Akram, 2017).
The leadership style in which the leader uses the power and his or her influence and also the
enthusiasm for motivating the followers for making them perform better for the firm is known as
the transformational Leadership. In this leadership style, the leader will seek for the change in
the present firm culture, provides a vision to the employees, adds mission and implement the
change with the help and support of his followers (Jiang, Zhao, & Ni, 2017).
As the CEO Anne Mulcahy, she emphasized on the employees as well as her customers for
saving her company from the losses. The leadership style of Anne Mulcahy actually falls in to
transactional and transformational. One can relate with the leadership style that she followed.
She communicated with her workers about the actions which could actually help their company
to be saved from the losses. To keep in loop the employee of the company and take their support
and opinions in order to save the firm from the losses is a huge step and a very different step

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which a company or the CEO of the company ca take. This seems more like a transformational
style she followed.
According to Kellerman (1984), the leaders who follow transactional leadership style brings their
subordinates in to a relation who bonds leader and the follower and then the contributions are
there from both the sides together with acknowledgement and the rewards. Now the transactional
leader who is effective should fulfill the expectations of their subordinates as they are influential
and have the power (Sarros & Cooper, 2006). In case of Anne, she actually met the top 100
executives for gaining the support from the team of leadership and she asked them as to if they
are willing to commit themselves and the result of that was that 98 of those 100 leaders were
happy to stay. In the year 1986, Graen, Liden and Hoel also can support this act. All three found
that the employee who are linked in the relationships which includes support and the emotional
exchange of both qualities high and low were most likely to leave the firm. While there was
crisis in the firm, Anne spent approximately 90 days in the airplanes for visiting different offices
just to listen to the employees and the customer’s perspectives about the firm. This shows the
active management dimension by exception when Anne took corrective actions that involved the
employees and the focus of the customer for getting the company to return to its normal
profitability (Heuvel, 2010).
Transformational Leadership emphasizes on the dimensions like Charisma, Inspiration,
Intellectual Stimulation and individual consideration. In case of the leadership style followed at
Xerox by Anne, there are some of the dimensions which explain the leadership style of Anne
towards her employees which is all the dimensions like charisma, inspiration, intellectual
simulation and consideration of the individual. Charisma will always give the mission and the
vision in which the leader brings pride with respect and trust. This happened when Anne thought
that her turnaround plan for the company was very aggressive and of this would work or not as
her employees also did not question her at all with respect to the plan she had in mind. Rather
than going skeptical, she outlined the new vision for the company for it to become the reality.
The result of this action was that they were able to achieve approximately 80% of the target they
has in mind (Bryant, 2003).