Leading Change in Subway: Barriers, Approaches, and Decision-Making

This report delves into the crucial aspects of change management and leadership within the context of Subway, a fast-food industry leader. It begins by identifying and analyzing various barriers to change, including organizational complexity, technological hurdles, lack of employee involvement, ineffective communication, and poor planning, and how these obstacles impact leadership decision-making. The report then examines different leadership approaches, such as Ken Blanchard's situational analysis model, which emphasizes adapting leadership styles based on the situation, and Lewin's model for change, which outlines a three-stage process of unfreezing, changing, and refreezing. The report highlights how these models can be applied to navigate organizational change, improve efficiency, and enhance employee engagement within Subway. Finally, the report concludes by underscoring the importance of leadership in successfully implementing change and adapting to the dynamic business environment, providing valuable insights for any organization undergoing transformation.

Understanding and
leading change

Table of Contents
P4. Different barriers for change and their influence on leadership decision making................3
P5. Different leadership approaches dealing with change in organisation.................................4

INTRODUCTION
Understanding and leading change is very important as it helps in analysing and
identifying the needs of the market. Changes are very crucial for every organisation to survive in
business environment. Organisation undertaken in this report is Subway which was founded in
1965 and deals in fast food industry. In this report, different barriers for change and their impact
on decision making is explained. Later part of the report will define the various approaches
dealing with change in organisation is explained.
TASK
P4. Different barriers for change and their influence on leadership decision making.
The management will always want change because this will bring momentous impact on
functioning of the organisation (Yoder-Wise, 2014). While change is necessary, for the benefit
of the organisation and people, still people resist to accept the change. Barriers or obstacles for
implementing change in Subway will always make it difficult to execute the planned policies and
programs. Following are the barriers for change discussed below :-
 Organisational complexity : The complexities includes complex processes, products
and systems, etc. as they are quiet difficult for the employees of the Subway to
understand. Leader will be accountable for breaking such barrier by introducing a keen
and skill full approach to manage organisational growth and complexity. Leaders can do
this by employing persevering, superior and extremely effectual task and change
management (Van der Voet, and et. al., 2015).
 Technological barrier : Technology is the most important barrier in implementing
changes. With the increase in development of technologies, it becomes very important for
Subway to adopt the latest technological equipment in their functioning and operation to
compete in the business environment. Leaders will guide and train the employees

regarding the functioning and operations of technology (Doppelt, 2017). They will also
communicate with the employees about the benefits of using technology and making
work simpler and cost effective.
 Lack of employee involvement: If employees of the Subway are not motivated to work
towards the attainment of goals and objectives of the organisation this will be one of the
most crucial barrier in implementing change. This is because employees always resist the
changes unless they are involved in the change process. Leader will take decisions
regarding active involvement of employees with providing relevant, sufficient resources
to drive them towards the change. This will help them in feeling comfortable and might
become ready to adapt the change within the Subway.
 Lack of effective communication strategy: Organisations if not following proper and
effective communication strategy then it will become very difficult for employees to get
adapt to the changes. Some organisations think that they will communicate the change to
the employees and they will accept and start working on that. But this is a very poor
assumption as employees not only required to know about the changes but they are also
required to be communicated about how those changes will affect their personal and
professional life (Hillson and Murray-Webster, 2017). Leader will adopt effective
communication strategy which will help employees in clarification of mission and vision
with the relevant advantage of adopting changes.
 Unknown current state : Change is always difficult for organisation that lacks the idea
of current state. If Subway is trying to implement and execute the changes without
analysing the current and present understanding of the organisations programmes then the
implemented change will become barrier for the organisation. In such conditions, leader
will have to analyse and fully understand the present scenario of the organisation before
implementing any change as this will become easier to plan and facilitate the future state
of change.
 Bad cultural shift planning : Sometimes the planning is totally unaware that the change
will affect people. The change management team will focus on planning administrative
structure, area responsibility, job responsibility and working culture and structure. So
planning team fails to make decisions on feelings and intuitions. To overcome this
barrier is to understand that organisation must not overlook the feelings of the employees.

 Resistance to change : People become flexible with the ongoing methods and structures
of organisation and they resist to accept the changes. When they resist, it becomes
difficult for the company to implement and execute the changes.
P5. Different leadership approaches dealing with change in organisation.
A leaders involvement in change is critical to the success of change management. It
emphasis on effects that leadership generates for the organisation. In present world, manager
consider leaders as an instrument with great potential for shaping the organisation (Bascia and
Hargreaves, 2014). Their attentiveness is changed towards the style, model or strategy of
leadership that will help in initiating change. There are various model and approaches that
Subway will use in dealing with changes and they are discussed below :
Situational analysis of Ken Blanchard's
It is an accommodative leadership style. This encourages leaders to take stock of their
team members, analyse the various variables at the workplace and selecting the appropriate
leadership style that suits the best in accomplishing goals and objectives of Subway.
Ken Blanchard situational model outlines four leadership styles that can be adopted by
Subway depending upon the various situations and tasks. This has two fundamental approaches
namely individual style and performance readiness. Following are the styles discussed below:-
Individual style
 Directing : This is denoted as S1 in the model. This explains that an individual lacks the
specific skills which are required for the jobs and they are willing to work at the task.
They are enthusiastic. In this leader will deal with employees that lacks the competency.
Further the employees will receive a lot of direction from the leader for the task which
they have not fulfilled as per the expectations. Thus, it becomes important that all the
instructions are clear to the people,
 Coaching : This is denoted as S2 in the model. With the help of appropriate coaching,
individuals in Subway will be able to do the task effectively. Though they will be
demotivated so high level of motivation is required. In this, leader actually assign the task
to the employees and convince them that they are able to do the work. Further, the
employees wants to work in this level, but could not due to the lack of appropriate skills
and competencies.

 Supporting : This is denoted as S3 in the model. With support, individuals will be able to
gain the experience but lacks the confidence and unwilling to take charge or
responsibility. In this, employees are qualified enough to work but they are unwilling to
perform the task due to the various work.
 Delegating : It is denoted with S4. This is regarded as the best situation because in this
individuals working in subway are experienced, comfortable, ability to do the task and
take responsibilities (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2015). It is a good idea as leader
discusses the final goals with the employees regarding the implementation and execution
of the plans and programs.
Development levels
Different levels are used to describe the competency and commitment and they are
discussed below:-
 D1: It refers to the low competency level with high commitment.
 D2 : It has low commitment with low competency.
 D3 : High competency with higher commitment.
 D4: High competency and high commitment.
Lewin's model for change
It is the most important and and effective model of change management that makes
organisation understand the organisational and structured change. This model emphasis on
behaviour modification of people and employee. This model has three stages which are
necessary for leading change and they are discussed below :
 Unfreeze stage : At this stage people faces some issues which focuses on the need for
change. This makes them realise that something is going to change and they need to
understand the importance of accepting those changes.
 Change stage : It is important for the organisation to understand that change is
implemented successfully. This stage is also known as moving stage because it causes a
ripple effect in the company. It further concentrates on making people understand the
importance of change by implementing it in a shorter time.
 Refreeze stage : When change is implemented successfully at change state then people
revert back to their old system and process of working so it becomes advisable to make
proper arrangements and carry out interim evaluations and monitor the same. Only then

the new situations can be stabilised and employees will realise that there is no option of
going back.
In order to guide their employees, leader will motivate their followers. This model tends
to acts as a positioning of improvement as an evolutionary form promotion in development. In
this process, individuals moves from developing stage to developed stage. This approach helped
Subway in adopting automation and digital technology. As the organisation changes its
operations and functions and adopts technology and further use of NFS technology, the model
helps in smooth operations. This model also helps in adopting technology which reduces the cost
of production in Subway and increases efficiency and effectiveness.
CONCLUSION
The above report concluded the various barriers which affect the decision making and
different leadership approaches are discussed which explains the importance of changes in an
organisation and how organisation deals with those changes are described in detail.

REFRENCES
Books and journals
Yoder-Wise, P.S., 2014. Leading and managing in nursing-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Van der Voet, and et. al., 2015. Held back and pushed forward: leading change in a complex
public sector environment. Journal of Organizational Change Management.28(2).
pp.290-300.
Doppelt, B., 2017. Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for
business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Hillson, D. and Murray-Webster, R., 2017. Understanding and managing risk attitude.
Routledge.
Bascia, N. and Hargreaves, A., 2014.The sharp edge of educational change: Teaching, leading
and the realities of reform. Routledge.
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015.Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work
in progress. Routledge.