Leadership Styles and Change Management in Amazon: A Case Study

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LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
1. Identify and analyse the leadership styles which have been adopted to deliver the
organisation’s change programme to date and justify whether these have proven appropriate.
Evaluate how leadership approaches have might evolve to take account of emerging needs as
the organisation progresses through the projected stages of its lifecycle....................................2
2. Discuss potential resistance to change that key stakeholders may experience and how you
would manage an effective communication strategy to overcome this resistance before, during
and after the change process........................................................................................................6
Conclusion and recommendations.................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Lewin’s change management model................................................................................8

Introduction
The current report is discussing with the aim of developing understanding of different leadership
styles and approaches that managers and leaders can use and apply to adopt the organizational
change efficiently and effectively. The report has discussed the example or case study of
Amazon that is the world largest e-commerce and multinational technology organization. The
report will discuss that how different leadership approaches or styles can be used to implement
the technological change in the organization. The report will discuss and developed
understanding of organizational life cycle and different phases of the organization’s life.
Different types of stakeholders and their resistance to change will be discussed and also
effectiveness of communication will be discussed for performing and managing the
organizational change. the report will also discuss and develop understanding of an appropriate
change management model for successfully managing and adopting the organizational change.
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1. Identify and analyse the leadership styles which have been adopted to deliver the
organisation’s change programme to date and justify whether these have proven appropriate.
Evaluate how leadership approaches have might evolve to take account of emerging needs as the
organisation progresses through the projected stages of its lifecycle.
Different types of Leadership styles
In the current task, the Amazon organization has taken that is planning to make or adopt the
technological change to enhance the productivity, profitability and growth of the business.
Amazon needs to adopt or use appropriate leadership styles for implementing technological
change in the organization efficiently and effectively. There are given below different types of
leadership styles that can be used by the Amazon to successfully implement the organizational
change.
Democratic leadership: This is the most commonly used leadership styles in which leaders
encourage their team members or subordinates to participate in the decision-making and to
provide best appropriate ideas and suggestions to enhance the productivity and profitability and
hence accomplish the organizational goal efficiently and effectively. Amazon is adopting or
implementing the technological change so it can use democratic leadership style for successfully
implementing the change in the organization (Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy, 2014). The
leaders or managers in the Amazon need to encourage or allow employees to participate in the
decision-making and to support in implementing the change by giving their suggestions and
ideas.
Autocratic leadership: This is the just opposite of the democratic leadership in which leaders
take major decisions by using their own abilities and understandings and without involving
subordinates or lower employees in the decision-making. Leaders and managers in the Amazon
need to make effective decisions by using their own potential and skills for successfully
implementing technological change and providing maximum benefits to the business
(Nanjundeswaraswamy and Swamy, 2014). By using this leadership style, leaders and managers
in the Amazon need not to take any concern or confirmation from subordinates or employees that
will save time and hence ensure the quick decision-making.
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Laissez-Faire leadership: As per this leadership style, leaders and managers in the Amazon can
allow subordinates or employees to make appropriate decisions as per their own understandings
and abilities. Leaders can delegate authority and responsibility among employees and can allow
them to make effective decisions for successfully implementing the technological change that
will lead to increase in productivity, sales and hence profitability of the business organization.
But as per study or research, it has identified that laissez-faire leadership is an ineffective
leadership style that results in lower productivity and performance of the employees (Appelbaum
et.al, 2015).
Transformational leadership: As per this leadership style, leaders in the Amazon needs to work
with their team members for identifying their needed change, developing objectives to direct the
change by inspiring and motivating team members and then implement the change with
committed members or employees. Leaders can encourage and motivate employees for adopting
innovation and creativity for successfully implementing the technological change in the
organization. Leaders can transform employees by developing their innovative skills and abilities
so that they will perform their assigned tasks efficiently and effectively during the change
implementation.
Transactional leadership: As per this leadership style, leaders in the Amazon can motivate their
team members or employees through giving both rewards and punishments. This can be helpful
for the leaders to encourage and enable employees for performing well during the organizational
change that will leads to successfully implementation of technological change (Aarons et.al,
2015). This leadership style will keep employees in discipline manner to perform their assigned
work more efficiently and effectively for executing organizational change and hence increase in
productivity, sales and profitability of the e-commerce business. Leaders can start giving
incentives on accomplishing the target on time efficiently and also can punish on breaching rules
and poor performance for enabling them to perform well for successfully adopting the
organizational change.
Bureaucratic leadership: As per this style, leaders and managers in the Amazon can set specific
standards, rule, regulations and line of authority as per which employees need to perform their
roles and responsibilities to execute and perform the organizational change efficiently and
effectively. This leadership style can be rarely effective for the Amazon as this lack of freedom
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to employees and they needs to perform their assign work, roles and responsibilities as per set
rules, regulations and standards.
Organizational lifecycle
The organizational life cycle can be defined as the life cycle of the organization from its start-up
or creation phase to decline or termination phase. Organization is not static as it grows like a
child and there are many phases which the organization has to go through during it lifecycle. The
organization is a social system that grows through different phases such as start up, growth
phase, organizational decline, renewal and death. The organization is known as the social system
because children or people go through different phases such as they grow, become mature, start
understanding more about the world, faces different challenges in their life and workplace. They
also develop certain plans and adopt discipline to implement those plans to became successful in
the life as well as in the workplace (Fisher et.al, 2016). The organization system includes some
practices and activities such as business & strategic planning, product & service development,
financial management, marketing, etc. Amazon is planning for adopting organizational change in
the technical aspects so it may be go through different phases that are briefly explained below:
Start-up phase: In this phase, the management in the Amazon needs to develop an effective plan
and to form skilled team for adopting the technological change. The management in the Amazon
needs to make planning about resources such as financial, technical and human resources will
required to execute and perform different activities to successfully adopt the technological
change in the organization (Fisher et.al, 2016). The management needs to develop effective
business model for upgrading the traditional technologies with innovative or digital technologies
to enhance the productivity, sales and profitability of the e-commerce business of the Amazon.
The planning also needs to make related to marketing and distribution of products by adopting
the digital technology and how it will enhance its sales and revenue.
Growth phase: After successfully implementation of the technological change or upgrading
traditional technology with digital technology, this phase will include the development of new
products or services, recruitment of new skilled employees and rapidly increase in sales and
revenue of the Amazon. In this phase, the Amazon will enjoy the competitive advantage and
hence ensure the continuous growth of the business and development of good market image.
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Organizational decline phase: It is the phase during which the Amazon may start declining due
to numbers of reasons. The organization can start declining due to reasons such as inappropriate
planning, inexperienced and ineffective management and leadership, low generation or decline in
revenue and change failure. Therefore, this phase leads to decrease in sales, profitability, market
share and market value of the business organization and hence decline in growth of business
organization (Barbera, 2014).
Organizational renewal: The management in the Amazon needs to take appropriate action plan
and develop effective strategies to overcome the organizational declining phase. It is expected
that there will be need to develop effective business plan and model, and improve effectiveness
of the management as well as leadership to come out from the organizational declining phase.
The management in the Amazon needs to transform the organizational culture, and needs to
adopt the appropriate leadership styles to adopt changes and enhance and improve the sales and
revenue of the business organization.
Organizational death: Organizational death or failure may occur due to ineffective management
and leadership and failure of the organizational change. This phase may leads to dissolve or
closure of the Amazon because of the failure in business model, organizational change and
ineffective leadership (Barbera, 2014).
It is essential for the management in the Amazon to adopt the effective leadership styles or
approaches to overcome the problems of organizational decline, death and hence to adopt the
technological change in the organizational efficiently and effectively. As per study and analysis
of different leadership styles, it has identified that democratic leadership style will be appropriate
to address the change in the Amazon and hence to enhance and improve sales, productivity and
revenue of this e-commerce business organization. as per this leadership styles, managers and
leaders can invite employees to get their suggestion, ideas and opinions about the areas where
there is need of technological updation to increase online sales and hence revenue and
profitability. The management in the Amazon can also use the transformational leadership style
as per which leaders can transform subordinates or employees by developing creativity and
innovative skills and abilities in them. This will help the management in the Amazon to
successfully implement the change in the organization by utilizing creative skills of employees.
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2. Discuss potential resistance to change that key stakeholders may experience and how you
would manage an effective communication strategy to overcome this resistance before, during
and after the change process.
Stakeholders and barriers to change
Amazon is the world largest e-commerce organization that has numbers of stakeholders that
impact or impacted by the success or failure of the business organization. stakeholders of the
Amazon includes investors, employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, government and general
public that influence or influenced by any organizational change and failure and success of the
business. Amazon is planning to adopt the technological change for enhancing the productivity,
sales and revenue of the e-commerce business. Amazon is implementing the change but there
will be numbers of barriers that may resist or restrict the organizational change. Following are
given below brief explanation of some stakeholders of the Amazon and reasons they might resist
the technological change in the organization:
Management: Management is the important part in every business organization that manages,
organize, coordinate and control the performance of employees so that business organization can
achieve its desired goal. Effective management performance will help the Amazon to
successfully execute and perform change in the organization. Skilled and experienced managers
will help the organization to plan business model, organize resources, direct and coordinate with
employees and control the performance of employees for effectively manage and implement
technological change in the organization (Benn et.al, 2018). And if the organization has lack of
skilled managerial personnel and they are using inappropriate management and leadership styles
then this may restrict the change programmes in the Amazon.
Employees: Employees are important asset or stakeholder of the business organization like
Amazon and hence their contribution majorly ensures the success or failure of the business.
Amazon is the world largest e-commerce business organization in which there is large numbers
employees to perform daily activities and ensure the effective business operations. Amazon is
adopting the digital technology by replacing with traditional technologies with the motive to
enhance sales, revenue and market share (Alasadi and Askary, 2014). But the effective use of
digital technologies is only possible if employees are fully technically skilled and have
knowledge and understanding of using digital technologies and tools then they will be helpful for
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the organization in successfully adopting technological change. If the employees in the Amazon
are not fully technically skilled then it may resist or restrict the technological change in the
organization. If employees don’t have knowledge and understanding of using the digital
technology and tools then management in the Amazon will face difficulty in adopting digital
technology for enhancing the sales, productivity and market share.
Investors: These are those financiers and shareholders that invest their money as a capital in the
Amazon for receiving financial returns. Amazon is implementing the technological change so it
needs to invest more money as a capital to update traditional technology with digital technology.
Due to technological advancement, the competition in the e-commerce business has increased
that is majorly influencing the success and growth of the business organization. Amazon needs to
invite or encourage more investors to invest as capital in the organization so that it can
implement and perform the technological change efficiently and effectively (Benn et.al, 2018).
The organization needs to invest more funds in providing technical skill training to employees to
ensure the success of the technological updation in the organization. Further, the organization
will require more funds to recruit new skilled employees so that they will contribute in
enhancing productivity, sales and market share by using digital technology and tools.
The organization will require huge funds to upgrade its traditional technology with the digital
technology so that it can provide fast, efficient and quality service to its customers. But if the
investors are taking less interest to invest funds in the organization due to decrease in sale,
revenue and productivity of the business organization then the organization may face difficulty
in upgrading its current technology with new digital technology.
Communication in change management
Communication plays an important role in the change management that ensures the effective
coordination and cooperation between different stakeholders of the business. Communication is
the most effective aspect that will ensure the successfully execution and performance of change
in the Amazon. It is essential for the management in the Amazon to establish an effective
communication system or channel through which all the stakeholders communicate and
coordinate with each others during the change execution planning and performance so that
change can be managed and implemented efficiently and effectively. Change can be managed
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efficiently by ensuring effective coordination and communication between management,
investors or owners and employees (Matos and Esposito, 2014).
For successfully implementing technological change in the Amazon, the management needs to
regularly communicate and coordinate with investors for making available required fund as a
capital to install new technologies and hire new skilled employees. through effective
communication system or channel, the management also needs to regularly communicate and
coordinate with employees to check and ensure that they are performing assigned work as per set
plan and objectives or not. An effective communication system or channel will also help the
management in the Amazon to effectively manage organizational change by making
coordination with investors, employees and other stakeholders. the management in the Amazon
needs to follow or use effective change management model like Lewin’s change management
model for effectively managing and executing the organizational change. , Lewin’s has defined
the changing state of ice blocks in three stages for managing the change in the organization
efficiently and effectively.
Figure 1: Lewin’s change management model
(Source: Burnes, 2014)
Unfreeze: This stage will involves developing plans and strategies for executing and performing
the technological change in the Amazon. Investors, management and employees needs to get
ready themselves for executing change in the organization. Management needs to communicate
and coordinate with investors as well as employees and then needs to develop plan about capital
that will needed to bring technology, tool and skilled human resources to perform and manage
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the change efficiently (Cummings et.al, 2016). Therefore, all stakeholders need to develop plans
and strategies effectively and get ready to perform the organizational change.
Change: This stage will involve the actual execution of technological change in the Amazon
during which stakeholders need to start performing as per set plan and strategies. Investors need
to provide or supply sufficient fund to the organizational management so that it can execute the
organizational change accordingly by bringing technical as well as human resources. The
management also needs to assign roles and responsibilities as per skills and abilities of
employees so that they will perform their work efficiently and effectively. It is essential that
managers and leaders use effective leadership styles to lead, encourage, guide and motivate
employees for performing their assigned work more efficiently and effectively. At the same time,
employees need to start performing as per instructions and guidelines of the management so that
change will be implemented successfully.
Refreeze: This stage will involve the actual implementation of change and hence change
becomes permanent. The management in the Amazon needs to start performing their activities as
per new business model, strategies and technological change in the organization to enhance the
sales, revenue and market share. Employees need to start using the digital tools and techniques to
provide efficient, quality and quick services to customers. At this stage, the whole organization
needs to operate their business digitally for meeting needs and expectations of customers by
supplying them products or services on time and resolving various queries and complaints
(Cummings et.al, 2016).
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