Leadership's Role in Organizational Change Readiness: A Report

This report delves into the critical role of leadership in navigating and implementing organizational change. It begins by highlighting the importance of leadership in facilitating positive change and preparing organizations for shifts in the business environment. The report then explores key areas for change assessment, including human resources, organizational culture, finance, operations, and research and development, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive approach. Various assessment methods are discussed, such as the Change Management Maturity Model and change readiness assessments, along with techniques for determining an organization's readiness for change, like Force Field Analysis. Furthermore, the report identifies and elaborates on two key strategies to enhance organizational readiness: strategic planning and change management planning sessions utilizing models like Lewin's and Kotter's. Ultimately, the report concludes that a proactive approach to assessing organizational and employee readiness, combined with effective change management strategies, is essential for successful adaptation and growth.

Running head: ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
Role of Leadership in Organizational Change Readiness
Name of the Student:
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1ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Role of leadership in facilitating positive change and prepare for change............................2
Five areas of organization for change assessment.................................................................3
Methods of assessment...........................................................................................................4
Determining change readiness of the organization................................................................5
Two strategies to facilitate organizational readiness for change............................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

2ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
Introduction
Business environments today are fast moving and constantly changing. From
technology to economy, from politics to popular trends, all are going through rapid change
and businesses must cope up with the changes and adapt to the new environment (Diab,
Safan & Bakeer, 2018). In organizations, change is necessary for many reasons. The first
reason is the changing technology in the market. The importance of internet is increasing and
communication technology is changing which influences the businesses to change their
methods and approaches in order to maintain their competitive edge. Organizations also
initiate change in the organization in order to incorporate the changing needs and desires of
the consumers. Change brings new growth opportunities for the organization as employees
learn new skills and becomes more efficient. In this regard, the roles and responsibilities of
the managers or leaders are key to organization’s success to change. In this report, leader’s
role in change, the areas for assessment, methods and change readiness determination has
been evaluated. Finally, two strategies have been identified that facilitate organizational
change readiness.
Discussion
Leaders play significant role in preparing the organization for any eminent change.
Most of the time, good leadership creates better employee skills and the people working the
organization are easily adaptable. These kind of organizations integrate change easily. While
preparing for change, leaders assess the areas that needs change following several assessment
methods and devise strategies to facilitate change in the organization.

3ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
Role of leadership in facilitating positive change and prepare for change
Leaders have an important role to play in organizational change. Effective leaders
have influence on the employees and can motivate people to go out of their comfort zone
(Norris, 2018). Leaders generate trust among the employees, which enables the leader to
communicate effectively about the changes that the organization will make and assure the
employees about the roles that they have there. The leaders must possess skills like
trustworthiness, empathy, flexibility and charisma in order to facilitate positive change in the
organization. Leaders might follow several strategies like establishing a clear vision, creating
a detailed timeline, employee support, two-way communication and developing skills so that
employees have a positive change experience and the organization too goes through positive
change and is prepared for the change.
Five areas of organization for change assessment
The process of change in an organization may include many of the departments. If the
change is meant to bring a larger impact, several departments needs to go through the change
in order to make it effective and lasting. The most important area that needs frequent change
is the human resource department. Human resource management is experiencing constant
shift in approaches and methods (Storkholm et al., 2018). At the same time, HRM is being
largely affected by technological and financial changes in the organization. Human resource
management plays a vital role in managing the employees acquiring and retaining talent, and
thus needs change as the organizational change takes place.
Another department that needs change is the organizational culture. In order to
address that, the leaders need to assess the present culture and determine the issues that
creates barrier for change (Napier, Amborski & Pesek, 2017). Organizational culture is the
essence of any organization and determines how employees would receive the idea of change.

4ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
The financial department also needs to change as technology driven organizations perform
better. Change in organization brings along with it new technology which is meant to
improve the organizational functions. The operation department also needs to be assessed
during change readiness analysis, as it is the core of any organization (McKnight & Glennie,
2019).
The research and development area is one of the most important department for an
organization of modern times as research has shown that development of new ideas and
innovating new ways of doing things are the key aspect for organizational development.
Assessing the customer service department is also necessary as satisfying customers is the
motto of organizations and assessing the effectiveness and bringing necessary changes would
ensure that the customers are also able to feel the changes that the organization has gone
through.
Methods of assessment
In order to assess the organizational readiness of change the first assessment that I
would conduct is the Change Management Maturity Model (Akdil, Ustundag & Cevikcan,
2018). This model assess the organizational readiness in five levels. The first stage is the
absent model and denotes that the organization is not ready for change. The next level is the
isolated projects level, which indicates that the need of change management is not understood
by most of the employees. The third level is multiple projects and people are more equipped
and understanding about the need for change. In level four, the people of the organization
understands that change is essential for success of the projects and the fifth level is when
organization and its people consider change as their core competency and adopts it as their
second nature.

5ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
The second assessment method is change readiness assessment. In change readiness
assessment the individual readiness and the organizational readiness is assessed. The
individual assessment determines the mentality and openness about the changes while the
organizational change readiness assessment determines the commitment of the organization
for change the resources available for change and responsiveness of the organization (Shah,
Irani & Sharif, 2017). For data collection, I would use company documents and employee
survey that would give me firsthand information.
Determining change readiness of the organization
In order to determine the readiness of the organization for change I would use the
survey data and categorize them according to the model of Force Field Analysis. Force field
analysis differentiates the collected data into forces for change and forces against changes.
For example, lack of resources, employees’ lack of readiness and lack of projects in the
organization might work as force against the change while positive and adaptive
organizational culture, management support and technological improvement are factors that
works in support of the organization (Samaranayake & Takemura, 2017). The force field
analysis will enable me to understand and analyze the factors that needs more improvement.
For example, if the force field analysis shows that employee readiness is at second or third
level according to the change maturity model, the employees can be further trained or
inspired by the managers and leaders so that their openness increases.
Two strategies to facilitate organizational readiness for change
The first strategy that is needed for organizational readiness for change is planning.
This enables the leaders and change agents to plan the projects so that it will incorporate
elements of the changes scenario (Hussain et al., 2018). This introduces the employees with
the new way of working and trains them on the job to adapt to the changes. The second

6ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
method is change management planning session, which includes the incorporation of a
change management model. Lewin’s change management model or Kotter’s eight step model
are among the most effective change model (Boff & Cardwell, 2019). The application of
change management model also depends on organizational readiness and resources available.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that the readiness of the organization
and assessing the organization for change is necessary as it enables the change agents to
determine the level of organization and the chances of the organization to adapt to changes.
Using models like Force Field analysis and readiness assessment, agents can determine the
organization’s change readiness. Finally, assessing the organizations readiness and the
employees’ readiness, both are equally important. Change management models like Lewin’s
change management and Kotter’s eight-step model are effective change management models
which can only be applied after detailed planning and assessment has been done.

7ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
References
Akdil, K. Y., Ustundag, A., & Cevikcan, E. (2018). Maturity and readiness model for
industry 4.0 strategy. In Industry 4.0: Managing the digital transformation (pp. 61-
94). Springer, Cham.
Boff, C. T., & Cardwell, C. (2019). Anchoring Change: Using the Kotter Change
Management Framework to Analyze & Facilitate Change in Academic Libraries.
Diab, G. M., Safan, S. M., & Bakeer, H. M. (2018). Organizational change readiness and
manager’behavior in managing change. Journal of Nursing Education and
Practice, 8(7), 68-77.
Hussain, S. T., Lei, S., Akram, T., Haider, M. J., Hussain, S. H., & Ali, M. (2018). Kurt
Lewin's change model: A critical review of the role of leadership and employee
involvement in organizational change. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 3(3), 123-
127.
McKnight, K., & Glennie, E. (2019). Are You Ready for This? Preparing for School Change
by Assessing Readiness. RTI Press, 8852.
Napier, G. S., Amborski, D. J., & Pesek, V. (2017). Preparing for transformational change: a
framework for assessing organisational change readiness. International Journal of
Human Resources Development and Management, 17(1-2), 129-142.
Norris, M. (2018). The Impact of Varying Leader Culture Types on Organizational Change
Initiatives.

8ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE READINESS
Samaranayake, S. U., & Takemura, T. (2017). Employee readiness for organizational change:
a case study in an export oriented manufacturing firm in Sri Lanka. Eurasian Journal
of Business and Economics, 10(20), 1-16.
Shah, N., Irani, Z., & Sharif, A. M. (2017). Big data in an HR context: Exploring
organizational change readiness, employee attitudes and behaviors. Journal of
Business Research, 70, 366-378.
Storkholm, M. H., Mazzocato, P., Tessma, M. K., & Savage, C. (2018). Assessing the
reliability and validity of the Danish version of Organizational Readiness for
Implementing Change (ORIC). Implementation Science, 13(1), 78.