Analyzing Role of Leaders in Organizational Change Management

This paper delves into the pivotal role of leadership in organizational change management. It explores how leaders influence change processes, examining the importance of adapting management styles to organizational needs and the impact of communication and collaboration. The essay discusses the diagnosis of change needs using models like Weisbord's Six-Box Model and McKinsey's 7-S Framework, differentiating between incremental and transformational changes. It emphasizes the importance of transparent communication and the integration of leadership development with change management. The paper highlights the challenges leaders face in overcoming resistance to change and fostering a culture that supports transformation, offering insights into effective strategies for navigating organizational transitions and achieving successful outcomes.

Running head: ROLE OF LEADERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Role of Leaders in Organizational Change Management
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1ROLE OF LEADERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
In this paper, it is seen how leadership management has an influence on the change
management within an organization and this paper sheds light on the factors of leadership
management regarding the overall changes the organization goes through.
Understanding issues of why organizations change
I have learned that the changes in the organizations can be seen as a confluence of a
whole process, moreover like representing a specific kind of chaos. In the model of
organizational changes, 12 basic organizational variables can be considered when things get
out of the hand of the management and the organization is in desperate need of change. It can
also be said that, these variables actually represents the linkage and interdependencies of
some sort of influences that started from the external factors and ending with some internal
factors regarding individual employees and regarding their performances at work. When a
particular organization changes the level or changes the strategy, structure or organizational
culture, it can be said that, control systems can become a necessary tool and the role of senior
management becomes very important for the organization. I have experienced that the
concept of readiness for changes take various forms. Organizational developmental activities
and the objectives are the primary human resource management focus regarding establishing
and maintaining different aspects of an organization, like company policies, core
competencies, or at times the culture of the organization. In this paper, our main focus would
be on the fact that how organizational leaders take part in successfully changing the
organization and how they navigate the organization through the much needed
transformational changes.

2ROLE OF LEADERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
In today’s world, business trends are changing in a very rapid manner and if the
management of those organizations does not take initiatives to change, in no time their
organization will be out of business (Goetsch and Davis 2014). I think that, change means to
alter the present state of the organization and it can be achieved by coordination of a
structured transitional period successfully. In an organization, the leaders are the ones who
promote the required changes in the organization and he or she has to customize the style of
management according to the needs. In most cases, the style of the leader’s leading the
organization is somewhat influenced by the numerous factors and might be analyzed from the
position of a manager. Success of the changes within an organization is thus dependent on the
way the manager cooperates and communicates with the workforce and numerous
collaborative on the way the leader stimulates the workers to get engaged in the process of
change.
Diagnosing the needs for change
The organizational models are the basic representative of the organization that help
the individuals develop a cognitive idea about the organization in a more detailed manner.
There are several models for this purpose and in this section we are going to discuss about the
6 box organizational model and the 7 S frameworks in details.
Six box model
I have learned that Weisbord proposed six major groups in his model of change for
the organization and that includes purposes, structures, leadership, relationships, rewards and
helpful mechanisms (Nahavandi 2016). Weisbord referred his structure in a way that where
the company is somewhat organized and this might be a function where the specialists has to
work together for a program, project or a product, in a way where various multi-skilled teams
work together to achieve success. In his model Weisbord indentifies money, ideas, people

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and machineries as the valuable inputs and that are used to meet up the organizational goals
and missions. There are two premises that are not obvious in Weisbord’s model and these are
vital for the understanding of the boxes within the model. The first premise refers to the
formal versus informal systems. The formal systems are those policies and the procedures
that the organizations claim to do. Contrasting this theory it is seen that informal systems are
the behaviours that actually takes place in the organizations. Within the organizations, the
bigger the gap is present between the formal and informal systems the lesser effective the
organization would be (Cameron and Green 2015). On the other hand, the second premise
refers to the fit between the environment and the organization. In my opinion, the discrepancy
persists between the existing association and the way that company should function to satisfy
the external demands (Goetsch and Davis 2014). Weisbord defined external demands or
pressures as the government, clients or the unions. In his model, Weisbord poses several
questions for each box of his model and it can be said, OD consultants determine whether the
members of the organization agree and support the missions and goals of the company within
the purposes box. This particular question refers to the premise relating to the nature of the
formal and informal systems within the company. Thus, it can be said that Weisbord’s model
sheds light on the internal issues within the company primarily by posing the diagnostic
questions which have to fit between ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’. It is seen that, Weisbord
has omitted various interconnection between the boxes of his model, but he tangentially sheds
light on the external environment in the model.

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Fig 1: Weisbord’s Six- Box Model
(Mujtaba 2013)
McKinsey’s 7 S models
I have experienced that McKinsey 7 S Framework is named after a consulting
organization which has conducted an applied research on business and industry (Beck, and
Cowan 2014). This model is very useful for the change management system for any
organization. The model was used in more than seventy large corporations and initially the
framework was created as they are recognizable and can be easily remembered model in
business organizations. The seven variables of this framework which are termed as levelers
are named differently and all those names starts with initial letter‘s’.
;

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Fig 2: Illustration of 7-S framework
(Mujtaba 2013)
The shape of this model was actually designed to demonstrate the interdependency of
all the variables and the demonstration of this model is been termed as ‘Managerial
Molecule’. When the experts thought that the other variables that existed within the complex
organizations, these variables represented in this particular model can be considered as vital
to the leaders and the practitioners (Beck, and Cowan 2014). This model is necessary to
determine the change management system of any organization. These variables include
structure, style, skills, staffs and shared values. The structure can be described as the skeleton
of the company and the strategy is referred to as the course of action while allocating the
resources in order to achieve the identified goals over time. Systems are the scheduled
process and procedure that is followed within the company. Staffs are referred to as the
employees’ categories within the company, such as engineers. Skills are the capabilities of
the general workforce, and Style can be referred to as the thought to encompass the cultural
style of the organization (Nahavandi 2016).
What are the things that changes the organizations
The Incremental change refers to the small adjustments that can be made towards
a targeted result. In the business field, making incremental changes does not have any

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noteworthy impact on the existing structures or modify the current methods (Goetsch and
Davis 2014). The suitable examples of incremental change may include a continuous
improvement like a quality management process or the implementation of new computer
system to increase the efficiencies (Cameron and Green 2015). On contrary to the
incremental changes, transformational change can be said, is a process of changing the basic
elements of a company’s culture, including all the norms, assumptions, and values under
which the business functions. In business environment, the transformational changes deals
with an organization making a fundamental change in its business model; often requiring the
changes in organizational structure, culture and management. An instance of transformational
change is the change in a company’s structure and culture from the traditional top and down,
hierarchical structure to a large sum of self and directing teams (Beck, and Cowan 2014). In
some cases it is more appropriate to pursue the incremental change rather than
transformational change (Mujtaba 2013). The Incremental change is very efficient when a
corporation wants to be cautious in changing its strategies, and policies. Incremental change
method allows the companies to take lesser risks when changing their existing structure.
When there is a risk in changing a company’s structure, the transformational change is not at
all appropriate (Nahavandi 2016).
Communicating Change
The leaders or the managers of the organizations must not forget the essentiality of the
communication between the workforce of the organization and the management of the
organization for making the most of the productivity achieved by the employees of the
organization (Goetsch and Davis 2014). When an organization goes through any types of
changes, the communication between the workers and the managers must be transparent as it
is the duty of the managers to train and develop the employees according to the changes the

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organization is going through (Beck, and Cowan 2014). The managers should communicate
regarding all that is known to them regarding the changing process for the benefit of the
workers as well as the organization (Cameron and Green 2015). The employees must have a
clear idea about the changes their organization is going through and thus making transparent
communication is very essential when the organization is going through a process of changes
(Mujtaba 2013). The managers should listen to the employees about their problems and
communicate with them to resolve the issues and hold interactive workshops to let them
know about the changes the company is going through (Nahavandi 2016) .
Leadership and organizational culture in change management
From my learning, it can be said that leadership development and change
management are among the top priorities for many companies my opinion, but the majority
of the corporations falls short of their missions regarding both the issues (Beck, and Cowan
2014). The main issue behind this can be said that they treat leadership development and
change management as two different aspects of the organization (Beck, and Cowan 2014).
Without a proper leadership making changes in an organization cannot take place and the
management of the organizations must not forget this fact. To achieve better results, the
managers of the organizations must coordinate their leadership development and change
management efforts considering both as same. Proper leadership involves deviating from
cultural expectations in many ways that inspires other individuals to follow. The managers
from all the levels of a company must overcome the resistance if a logical cultural change
takes place (Goetsch and Davis 2014). Thus it can be said that, the bottom up part of the
integrated development and the change process needs proper effective leaders throughout the
organization to get engaged in a method of learning how to enable a desired change within
the culture of the organization. For an example, I can say that if an organization all of a

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sudden finds itself audited at the request of their one of the most important clients, and were
told that they needed to change their procedure of accounting. In response to that, the
employees of the organization can insist that the changes cannot be made by the deadline
which was demanded on the first place (Mujtaba 2013).
To conclude, it can be said that change management and the leadership developmental
programs actually have a woeful record at the most companies. In many cases they come up
against the trivial challenges that deviate from a dominant culture that is very difficult.

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