Business Report: Leadership Challenges and Change at TAKAHE Homes

This report analyzes the leadership challenges and change management issues at TAKAHE Homes, a New Zealand-based construction company. It examines the company's autocratic leadership style, particularly the impact of the Managing Director's decisions on employee morale and innovation. The report discusses barriers to innovation, growth, and change within the organization, focusing on the negative effects of the organizational culture. It then explores relevant leadership theories, including democratic and transformational leadership, and proposes the implementation of J. Kotter's eight-step change management model to address the identified issues. The report also emphasizes the importance of creating a positive workplace culture and enhancing team engagement to improve business performance and growth.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS 0
Business Report
Student Details
4/5/2019

Leadership in Business 1
Executive Summary
Leadership plays an important role in change management process. As due to
changing market condition, there is need of implementing some changes in the organizational
structure. Culture and business process of TAKAHE Homes. This report will discuss about
issues and challenges faced by the company, barriers to the innovation, and change. It is
known that implementation of any kind of change requires a proper change management
process and strong and effective leadership. Current leadership followed at TAKAHE Homes
is autocratic and Laissez-Faire leadership styles which are less favourable for the
organization’s growth. Discussion on the analysis of TAKAHE Homes’ current situation and
challenges which the organization is facing requires a strong and effective leadership that is
either transformational leadership or strategic leadership. Force Field Analysis method is
used in this report as a problem solving and decision-making technique for resolving
company’s issue which suggest implementation of changes in the organization by using an
effective change management model. Change management model suggested here is J.
Kotter’s eight step change management model.

Leadership in Business 2
Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Leadership Styles and Theories.................................................................................................3
Democratic Leadership..........................................................................................................4
Transformational Leadership.................................................................................................4
Autocratic Leadership............................................................................................................4
Leadership Style of TAKAHE Homes and its Impact...............................................................5
Barrier to Innovation, Growth, and Change at TAKAHE Homes.............................................6
Change Management Model......................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations......................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

Leadership in Business 3
Introduction
TAKAHE Homes is a New Zealand based organization which was established by
Jack Brown in 2011. Jack had a family background of construction in Canterbury building
industry. Jack completed his qualification I building from Southern Institute of Technology.
Earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011 damaged large number of houses and
properties in Canterbury (Drucker, 2014). This increased the demand of construction
companies which can repair damaged properties and build new houses and buildings. Jack
realised this business opportunity and decided to start his own construction company in
Canterbury and named his company as TAKAHE Homes. Initially he started with repairing
of damaged houses and then expanded his business to construction of new houses and
commercial properties. Company increased its employees from five to 53 substantially by
2017. Jack himself watches all the operations and makes business decisions of the company
as a Managing director of the organization. Accounting department of the company is
managed by one of good friends of Jack and there are five employees working in the
accounting and administration department (Collins, 2012).
Although company has appointed supervisors for each project but all the projects are
being monitored by Jack himself. Jack also suggested some changes in the organization’s
structure where he agreed upon implementing computer systems to manage customer surveys
and analysis of team management data. But this has issue of not following instructions or
opposed of this decision by supervisors (Froman, 2010). TAKAHE Homes has a very
talented employee naming David who during his visit to Japan learned new technology for
building earthquake resistance buildings but his idea was rejected by Jack without analysing
its pros and cons.
This report discusses about leadership issues at TAKAHE Homes which is or can be
big challenge for the company in near future. Addition to this other challenges like cultural
and change management is also discussed here, and efforts are made to resolve these issues
by applying various leadership theories and change management models in order to improve
the business growth of TAKAHE Homes.

Leadership in Business 4
Leadership Styles and Theories
Leadership is one of the most important functions of management which enhances the
efficiency of an organization and helps in achieving the organizational goals. A leader is the
one who communicate business objectives and plans to the subordinates. He motivates
employees through various means to achieve their set target and provide necessary guidance
to them. He creates confidence and boost morale of employees and subordinates in order to
make them work with their full potential. And at last he develops a work environment which
helps in stable and sound growth of the company and makes employees feel safer,
comfortable, and secure at the workplace and enhance coordination among employees
through providing various communication platforms (Robertson, 2019). Below are the some
leadership styles and theories which ensure effective functioning of an organization:
Democratic Leadership
In democratic style of leadership, a leader makes decision based on the suggestions
and inputs from all the team members. Although a leader is responsible for making the final
decision but he/she gives equal opportunity to all employees to provide their point of view. It
is considered as one of the most effective leadership styles because it provides or allows
employees of lower-level to exercise authority. This also shows the decision making process
of the company and shows involvement of employees in the decision making processes of the
organization (Pettigrew, 2014). Employees feel more valued and appreciated when their
suggestions are heard and implemented.
Transformational Leadership
Transformational Leadership means “transforming” as suggested by the name. When
a leader follows this kind of leadership style, then he constantly pushing his employees to
come out of their comfort zone and perform tasks with more innovating and creative ideas.
This type of leadership is highly recommended in organizations which are growth oriented it
motivates its employees for innovation and realising their capabilities (Compare Hris, 2019).
Autocratic Leadership
This leadership style is opposite of democratic leadership. In this type of leadership,
all the decisions are made by leader even without considering inputs or suggestions from
them. Employees are not consulted before taking any decision whether they are linked or
directly affected by the decision. Employees are also expected to follow the decision at time
and pace decided by leader (MSG, Importance of Leadership, 2019).

Leadership in Business 5
Leadership Style of TAKAHE Homes and its Impact
From the analysis of case study of TAKAHE Homes it is observed that the current
leadership style of the organization is “autocratic leadership style” or it can be said that Jack
is an autocratic leader. This is because he himself makes all the business decisions and
monitor operations of the company alone without even consulting from the staff. It is
observed that when David returned from his visit to Japan, he wanted to meet Jack (MSG,
Organization Ethics - Meaning and its Importance, 2019). David got a chance of learning a
new innovative technology in building earthquake resistance buildings. According to David
this technology is helpful for TAKAHE Homes in gaining competitive advantage and put the
organization at better position in the market. David was very excited about sharing his ideas
that he learnt from Japanese company Air Danshin. But, as soon as he shared his idea with
Jack, Jack rejected it by saying that it is not possible to implement or consider this idea as it is
very risky and expensive (Brown & Osborne, 2012). He did not even considered discussion
over the idea and analysis of it to find the pros and cons of the idea. This made feel David
Disappointed.
Jack however manages all projects but has appointed individual supervisors for each
project. It is observed that intercommunication between these teams is very less and these
teams are following the traditional methods of construction. Management finds it very
difficult to convince each supervisor to update their knowledge and skills. Also, Jack agreed
to the decision of administration staff for implementing computer systems which manage
customer surveys and team management data analysis (Paton & McCalman, 2008). This new
system will help the organization in quality control and resolves the issues related to human
resource. But system needs data entry contribution from supervisors. It was identified that
supervisors did not support the idea and argued upon not having time for additional work. It
shows that Jack has very less control over his staff members and shows Laissez-Faire
leadership style of Jack as employees are following their own rules and performing tasks in
their own ways (Mulholland, 2017).
These leadership styles are affecting the organization’s performance in a negative
way. Autocratic leadership style of TAKAHE Homes is creating issue of employee
dissatisfaction or team engagement. This is shown from disappointment faced by David.
While Laissez-Faire leadership style of Jack that is letting employees do in their own ways
causing several organizational behavior or organizational ethics issues (Jones, 2013).

Leadership in Business 6
Barrier to Innovation, Growth, and Change at TAKAHE Homes
From analyzing the case study of TAKAHE Homes, it is identified that that the major
barrier to the innovation, growth, and change is culture of the organization. Organizational
culture includes philosophy, experiences, expectations, and values that guide behavior and
way of working of employees (Mind Tools, 2019). Organizational culture at TAKAHE
Homes is less innovative and creativity of employees is not supported there. This is causing
employee dissatisfaction as they are feeling less valued there. It is causing hindrance for the
success of company as traditional methods are used for the construction. Market demands and
competitors are increasing in the market which looks for innovative ideas (Becker, 2019). But
resistance of company towards making changes in its work culture is causing worst effects
for the organization in coming years as company will not be able to compete with advanced
technology of other organizations if it does not make room for innovation now. Also, not
having control over supervisors is creating issues of organizational ethics such as ignorance
of safety requirements by staff, bullying of junior members by supervisors, and non-
cooperative behavior of supervisors with clients (Edquist, 2013). This will impact
organization’s image in negative way in future.
Change Management Model
An organization need evolution to survive its business, changes are needed for
evolution, and an efficient change model is required for assure the success of changes.
Without a proper change management model the success of changes is most probably not
assured. J. Kotter, professor of leadership and change management at Harvard Business
School described an eight step change management model (Accipio, 2019). Below is the
description of his model:
Step 1: Create Urgency
A change is successfully implemented when entire organization wants it. Hence, first
develop a sense of urgency among employees for the need of change by telling benefits of
change for them and for organization (Lunenburg, 2011).
Step 2: Form a Powerful Coalition
Second step is convincing people for the changes. This needs appointing leaders who
have the capabilities of bringing people together to form team or coalition.

Leadership in Business 7
Step 3: Create a Vision for Change
Before implementing a change, a proper vision or strategy is required for its
implementation (Hayes, 2018). Having a clear vision about what are the changes, how these
will be implemented, what are results of these changes, and what are impacts of these
changes help everyone to understand why they are asked to make changes (Teece, 2009).
Step 4: Communicate the Vision
After creating a vision for the change, the success of it will depend on how it is
communicated to employees. Conducting meetings is not enough for communicating visions,
instead it needs daily discussion over it as people remember it and respond to it if efforts are
made to keep vision fresh in their minds (Damanpour & Aravind, 2012).
Step 5: Remove Obstacles
Reaching to this step ensures that your vision has accepted and staff is ready for the
changes and wants to get busy and derive benefits from changes promoted by leader. But, it
might be possible that there can be some people or things that can resist these changes.
Therefore, continuously check and identify these barriers (Weiner, 2009).
Step 6: Create Short-Term Wins
Success is the best motivation for any organization. To make the employees feel
motivated and to boost their enthusiasm, create short term targets instead of long-term goals.
Change team work harder to reach these targets and each “win” motivates the entire team to
work even harder for the next target (Besner, 2015).
Step 7: Build on the Change
Each win provides an opportunity of analyzing what went right and what can be
improved to achieve the next success (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 2017).
Therefore, there should be always room for improvements in the change process.
Step 8: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture
To make a change stick, it is required to make it part of the core organization.
Continuous efforts should be made to show the changes in every aspect of the organization
(Gothem Culture, 2019).

Leadership in Business 8
This change management model is applied at TAKAHE Homes to remove the barrier of
culture from the company.
Step 1: Jack should take initiative and talk to employees for the changes which are
required for enhancing performance of the organization.
Step 2: Secondly, he should make strong teams and individual leaders are assigned to
each team who are capable of managing these teams and able to develop inter-
communication between these teams.
Step 3: Next, he should create a vision plan along with different supervisors of each
team in order to decide what changes and how they will be implemented.
Step 4: Now, each supervisor should communicate the vision plan to his team
members on daily basis.
Step 5: Now any barriers like resistance from some supervisors should be removed by
convincing them and managing their additional work load.
Step 6: Short-term targets should be set. Like to change the organizational culture
completely, it should start with changing one factor at a time in set time period.
Step 7: After completion of one target, analyze the process and make improvements if
required.
Step 8: Discuss achieved changes with employees by appreciating them. This will
motivate them to achieve the next target.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion it can be concluded that leadership style at
TAKAHE Homes is very poor. Poor leadership is the main reason behind all the cultural
issues which organization is facing today. Cultural issues at TAKAHE Homes include
employee dissatisfaction, poor organizational ethics, and resistance to change. These issues
are affecting the performance of TAKAHE Homes. As company is afraid of implementing
changes in its technology and the supervisors are still using traditional methods of
construction. Because of this company is lacking behind in technology advancement and
hence in competitive advantage. From the discussion of leadership styles it is identified that

Leadership in Business 9
currently Jack is following autocratic and Laissez-Faire leadership style which are least
acceptable leadership styles. Hence, company needs to make changes in its leadership style
which can be democratic or transformational leadership. TAKAHE Homes should use J.
Kotter’s change management model to implement changes in the organization. This change
management model effectively brings changes in the organization’s culture and establishes
positive workplace conditions.
Recommendations
The above discussion shows the need of implementing changes at TAKAHE Homes. The
challenges and issues which are faced by the company can be resolved by using various
problem solving and decision making techniques. These techniques will promote positive
workplace culture and enhance team engagement. Below are some recommendations which
are made on the basis of above discussion in order to remove the barriers of innovation,
growth, and change at TAKAHE Homes. Also, there are some recommendations related to
theories and models which can be used to develop positive workplace culture and enhance
team engagement in organization:
1. Barriers to the innovation, growth, and change can be removed by using the Force
Field Analysis model of problem solving and decision making at TAKAHE Homes.
2. Self-determination theory and The X Model will help the TAKAHE Homes in
developing positive workplace culture and enhancing team engagement.

Leadership in Business 10
References
Accipio. (2019). John Kotter's 8-Step Change Model. Retrieved from
https://www.accipio.com/eleadership/mod/wiki/view.php?id=1874
Becker, B. (2019). The 7 Most Common Leadership Styles & How to Find Your Own.
Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/leadership-styles
Besner, G. (2015). Here Are 4 Ways to Develop a Culture of Respect and Trust. Retrieved
from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247932
Brown, K., & Osborne, S. P. (2012). Managing Change and Innovation in Public Service
Organizations. UK: Routledge.
Collins, D. (2012). Business Ethics: How to Design and Manage Ethical Organizations. NJ:
Wiley.
Compare Hris. (2019). The Anatomy of Employee Engagement: How Your HCMS Keeps
Workers Happy and Productive. Retrieved from
https://www.comparehris.com/employee-engagement-hcms/
Damanpour, F., & Aravind, D. (2012). Managerial Innovation: Conceptions, Processes and
Antecedents. Management and Organization Review, 8(2), 423-454.
Drucker, P. (2014). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. UK: Routledge.
Edquist, C. (2013). Systems of Innovation: Technologies, Institutions and Organizations. UK:
Routledge.
Froman, L. (2010). Positive Psychology in the Workplace. Journal of Adult Development,
17(2), 59-69.

Leadership in Business 11
Gothem Culture. (2019). What is Organizational Culture. Retrieved from
https://gothamculture.com/what-is-organizational-culture-definition/
Hayes, J. (2018). The Theory and Practice of Change Management. UK: Palgrave.
Jones, G. R. (2013). Organizational Theory, Design, and Change. NJ: Pearson.
Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Decision Making in Organizations. International Journal of
Management Business and Administration, 15(1), 1-9.
Mind Tools. (2019). Kotter's 8-Step Change Model. Retrieved from
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_82.htm
MSG. (2019). Importance of Leadership. Retrieved from
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/importance_of_leadership.htm
MSG. (2019). Organization Ethics - Meaning and its Importance. Retrieved from
https://www.managementstudyguide.com/organization-ethics.htm
Mulholland, B. (2017). 8 Critical Change Management Models to Evolve and Survive.
Retrieved from https://www.process.st/change-management-models/
Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2017). Human Resource
Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. New York: McGraw-Hil Education.
Paton, R. A., & McCalman, J. (2008). Change Management: A Guide to Effective
Implementation. US: Sage.
Pettigrew, A. M. (2014). The Politics of Organizational Decision-Making. UK: Routledge.
Robertson, T. (2019). Leadership Theory vs. Leadership Style. Retrieved from
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/leadership-theory-vs-leadership-style-32967.html

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Teece, D. J. (2009). Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management: Organizing for
Innovation and Growth. UK: Oxford University Press.
Weiner, B. J. (2009). A Theory of Organizational Readiness for Change. Implementation
Science, 4(1), 67.