Leading Change: Organisational Strategy, Behaviour, and Leadership

This report, focusing on "Understanding and Leading Change," analyzes the impact of organisational change on strategy, leadership, and employee behaviour, particularly within the context of a fashion retail company, Topshop. The report explores different types of organisational change, including developmental, transitional, and transformational changes, and how they affect operational processes and strategies. It examines both internal and external drivers of change, such as technological advancements, competitor actions, and customer preferences, and their influence on leadership, team dynamics, and individual behaviour. Furthermore, the report evaluates measures to minimize the negative impact of change on organisational behaviour, utilizing the Burke-Litwin performance and change model. Finally, it discusses barriers to change and various leadership approaches for effective decision-making during organisational transitions.

UNDERSTANDING AND
LEADING CHANGE

Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................2
Task 1................................................................................................................................3
Part A.............................................................................................................................3
LO1....................................................................................................................................3
P1: Organisational change and its impact on the organisational strategy and
operation.....................................................................................................................3
Part B.............................................................................................................................5
LO2....................................................................................................................................5
P2: Evaluation of the effect of leadership, team and individual behaviour with the
change of internal and external driver of the organisation.........................................5
P3: Evaluation of proper measures to minimise the negative impact of change in
organisational behaviour............................................................................................7
Task 2................................................................................................................................9
LO3....................................................................................................................................9
P4: Different barrier for change and their influence on leadership and decision
making........................................................................................................................9
Task 3..............................................................................................................................12
LO4..................................................................................................................................12
P5: Application different leadership approaches to deal with different organisational
change......................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................14
Reference........................................................................................................................15

Introduction
Change is the step of starting something new which is why change is inevitable.
Whether it is in leading life or leading business, over time everyone has to stop the
previous process and need to adopt something new which we call change. In the
business world change in the organisation is the process of the start or adapt something
innovative or new according to the environment. Over time for technology development
and process, advancement business environment changes quite frequently. That is why
the organisation need to bring change in their working sector for adapting with the
situation.
I have been a part of the Topshop UK management team as a marketing manager.
Topshop is one of the famous fashion retailers in the UK with a variety of fashion
product including cloth, accessories and make-up products. As a marketing manager, I
have to handle the product marketing, branding, setting and adapting new trend even
need to help in hiring also. But this organisation is facing changes with new ownership
and management. Even with the current market, this company is facing some loses
which require this company to set some changes in their system. Focusing on this
change I am conducting a report on “Understanding and leading change” based on
different organisational change and how they are affecting organisational strategy,
human resource behaviour and leadership process in the organisation. The drivers for
changes will also be discussed here. Also, I will try to evaluate possible ways for
minimising the negative effect of employee’s behaviour regarding the change. The
barriers for changes and leadership approach for decision-making process regarding
the organisational change will critically evaluate in this report.

Task 1
Part A
LO1
P1: Organisational change and its impact on the organisational
strategy and operation.
The organisation faces different changes over time. New innovation or adaption makes
them bring change which affects the whole organisational operational process and
make them change their strategies sometimes. According Ackerman organisation face
three different types of changes which have been discussed below.
Developmental change: Development change is a short process of change for the
organisation. New product design, new shop design etc. can be a part of developmental
change (Graetz, 2006). Topshop seasonal new product design and renovation of the
shop design can be a part of this developmental change. Over the time organisation
need to bring this developmental change to offer new variation and create customer
satisfaction for their product.
Transitional change: Transitional change is a change that critically affects the
strategical part of the organisation. Based on this changing process organisation must
new to set new operational process and strategies as this change focus on that part,
merge acquisition, adopt the new product and service sector etc. is the part of this
change. Sometime ground-breaking innovation force organisation to go under
transitional change (Alas, 2007). In 2012 Topshop has to go under transitional change
when they sold their 25% ownership to Leonard Green and partners. With this new
ownership, they had to bring change in their overall operational and strategical process.
Transformational change: Transformational change refers to a radical changing
movement of the organisation. This is not a rapidly changing process rather one in a
lifetime sort of change. Transformational change means to adopt a whole new process
changing the previous one. This change happens when the organisation faces

continuous loss or the business environment changes with new advancement or
something (Sun and Alas, 2007). This change made the organisation to re-engineer and
redesign their working process. Over the technological advancement and globalisation
fact organisation like Topshop need to enter the global market for holding the market
position. They have brought technological change in their process, adapt digital
marketing which can be named a transformational change for the organisation.
Developmental change is a rapid action of change. This function updates the
operational function of the organisation. like Topshop new seasonal collection launch
makes them change their marketing strategies based on the season. The transitional
change brings a radical change in the system. When to shop faced the merging
situation in ownership in 2012, they have brought diverse change for adjusting with that
USA based organisation. And they have also adjusted their new strategy to fit with that
change. Transformational change redesigns the overall organisational structure.
Technological advancement and globalisation bring this transformational change. And
the redesigned system need new strategies and operational functions. This is the
impact of the different change on an organisation’s operational function and strategies.

Part B
LO2
P2: Evaluation of the effect of leadership, team and individual
behaviour with the change of internal and external driver of the
organisation.
Organisation change management is a big issue as the globalisation and digitalisation
factor making some rapid change in the business environment. The internal and
external factor of the business environment forcing the organisation to bring change
which affecting the organisational leadership process, team and individual behaviour
pattern also. There are some drivers change on which brought change in the
organisation which can be categories as internal and external drivers.
Internal drivers: internal drivers are the organisational internal component which can
change time to time and changing on those force organisations to bring change in their
system.
 Process: the organisation has some operational, production and marketing
process. New technological advancement brings technical change in this
process. And the process changes affect the organisational internal system. The
new process required new leadership approach. This also affects human
resource behaviour and working methods.
 Organisational political practise: the organisation has its own politics.
Previously organisational overall work was handled by power. The leader holds
their position and creates a favourable and biased environment in the
organisation. But nowadays the skilled based organisational system reduces that
biased politics and create employee right based politics. Political practice is now
more employee favourable which is why leadership process is more flexible and
employee favourable (Adams and McNicholas, 2007).
 Culture and behaviour: a new trend and process set new belief and thought in
the employee which change their behavioural aspects and the organisational
culture. Nowadays organisation culture is most focused on helping effective

production process in the organisation. That required strong leadership in order
to create high spirited and motivational behavioural factor in the organisation.
External drivers: External drivers are the factor outside of the organisation. Basically,
change in the outsider drivers change the insider process and system. That is why
focusing external drivers is important for understanding the market.
 Technology: technology is an important aspect of external drivers. New
technology is developing day by day. And the organisation also trying to capture
this change for their own wellbeing and comfort. Effective production required
modern technological help and the organisation has those advancements. Which
is why every organisation is fighting for their gasping their own technological
advancement (Yakimova and Beverland, 2005).
 Competitor: competitor is a big issue for business. there is a more similar
organisation that provide similar product in the market. Like Asos, lulus etc. are
the fashion retailer in the UK fighting for market position along with the Topshop.
They are adopting new process and strategies for their own benefit. For holding
to market position. Topshop needs to observe their change and focused on to
bring unique changes for gaining advantages.
 Customer: the customer is an important factor for the organisation on which
organisation has no control. This is the most changing drivers for the
organisation. For an organisation, customer change rapidly. The new product
brings a new customer similarly that a product can be the cause of losing an old
customer. With no control, proper power organisation handle this factor with
proper team management and leadership as the new market is full customer
driven (Aslesen and Freel, 2012). Globalisation has broadened the customer
range and create more competition which is why organisation are changing in
skilled based for handling the situation properly.
this is the factor that driven various change in the organisation along with leadership,
team building and management and employee behaviour.

P3: Evaluation of proper measures to minimise the negative impact of
change in organisational behaviour
Change is a process for adopting new which is a sudden development process.
Different people show different behaviour towards a change. If the employees are not
well prepared for change they mostly show negative behaviour to change. Knowledge
barrier is the main factor for this negative behaviour. but without proper support and
help from the employee organisation cannot bring a successful change. That’s why they
need to take the proper measures in order to minimise those negative impact. Burke-
Litwin performance and change model is one of the effective models for reducing the
negative impact of change on organisational behaviour (Vakola and others, 2007). this
model diagnoses the problem and sets different step to lead and change the
behavioural process in the organisation with the employee. This model has discussed
below.
 External environment: market situation, legislation, customer etc. external
environment is important to factor for the organisation. Before bringing a change
organisation need to focus on this external environment.
 Individual and organisational performance: this is the overall output of the
organisation. With customer satisfaction ratio, company turnover organisation
evaluates their individual performance and organisational performance.
After the first two-step this model focus on some transformational factors that are
affected by the external environment. Change on those factor effect the whole
organisational system (Gollan, 2005).
 Leadership: leadership in the process of lead and motivate individual and others.
Leader affects organisational performance as well as individual employees.
Which is why they need to aware and behave according to the benefit of the
organisation to help with the change.
 Mission and strategy: Mission is the objective of an organisation. More then
performance oriented mission employee driven one help organisation most to
handle the overall activity and performance.

 Organisational culture: the norm. belief and rules in the organisation are the
steps by step process that develops by management over time. This culture
guide individual behaviour and performance in the organisation. Employee
friendly culture will motivate them to perform better for organisational
development.
 Management practice: managers play a big role in managing employee and
resource for the organisation. They need a scope for proper management
practice to develop themselves and to manage the change in the organisation.
 Structure: change requires a change in the structure of the organisation. With the
system organisation break and create new organisational structure favourable
with the change.
 System: organisational policies and working procedure change with the new
development with the favour of employee comfort. Use of proper system that
helping the workforce more is beneficial for the organisation.
 Work climate: working environment, colleague etc., are the part of the working
climate. Managers need to observe this climate while bringing change as this is
emotionally related to the employees.
 Motivation: Motivation is the driven factor for the employee. A leader needs to
provide proper motivation the goes with employee and organisation benefit to
managing an effective workforce.
 Task and skill: it is necessary to assign a task to an individual based on their own
skill. The skill-based task set up will increase productivity and help with change
development.
 Individual need and values: the individual has their own need in the organisation.
Proper salary, responsibilities, power, and work time should provide according to
the need.
This process is beneficiary for calculating the organisational performance and
conduct change in the organisation. The proper model will help to minimise the
negative impact of change in organisational behaviour.

Task 2
LO3
P4: Different barrier for change and their influence on leadership and
decision making.
Change in an organisation is a difficult issue to manage. The organisation needs to set
strategies and need to guide the employees to the change with proper management.
Many barriers create this organisational change a difficult issue to handle. The fearful
barrier in this changing sector is the fear of the unknown. Change bring a new situation
for the organisation. Which situation the change might create is unknown as well as the
result that the change will bring. This fear of the unknown creates chaos among
employee behaviour.
Another barrier is broken communication. While bringing a change it is necessary to set
a communication bridge from top to bottom employee in order to inform them properly
about the change. But the organisation failed to maintain communication and make
worse result from the change. Leadership is a serious process for decision making
regarding the change (Lozano, 2012). Ineffectiveness in the leadership with the change
is a serious barrier or organisation.
When Topshop merge with the Leonard Green partners in 2012 they have faced those
barriers. Lack of knowledge regarding the change has created several negative
employee behaviours. basically broken communication from the leaders was the cause
of those negative impact. But they have overcome the situation with proper leadership
approach and effective change model. Leaders apply the change model properly to fix
the broken communication between them and reduced the knowledge barrier by
providing them with proper information regarding the change. This barrier has forced
their leader to make a different decision and make them adopt a proper approach to
overcome the whole situation and help them to apply a successful change with the help
of their employees.

In this discussion, I will show the Kotler’s 8 step change management model that helped
Topshop to set proper change and its effect on the decision making of the leader.
 Urgency creation: for bringing a change organisation need to involve their
employee properly. A leader needs to create urgency for the change so that
employee can acknowledge the necessity of the change.
 Team formation: a leader needs to make the decision for team formation with the
benefit of the change decision. With proper employee and with their skill leader
can effectively lead a team reducing ineffective and knowledge barriers.
 Get the vision: a leader needs to set the vision properly based on the change.
With market and environmental change, they need to set an organisational vision
to compete with the market.
 Established communication: it is necessary to established proper communication
to conduct effective and efficient production. for bringing a change leader need to
follow proper communication methods for leading the employee properly.
 Authorise action: leader need to set the roles and responsibility among the
employees properly so they know what they can do and what not.
 Overcome shot term goal: for bringing a big change it is wise to proceed step by
step. That is why the leader needs to set a short term goal for proper
management. And with this, they can overcome long term goal.
 Not to give up: whether the leader faces some failure or negative impact from the
change they should not give up. With new methods, they need to proceed with
the change until they succeed.
 Assimilate change: while bringing the change it is necessary for an organisation
to set the environment to adapt to the change for proper operation.

This is the change model that helps the organisation to conduct the change easily. But
bringing the change organisation need to adopt proper leadership approach in order to
make the proper decision. To support the change Topshop, follow the situational
leadership approach. Where the leader leads the team with proper direction, coaching,
support and delegation. Situational leadership is always helpful with organisation
change it helps a leader to lead their employee properly and effectively.
Figure 1: Situational leadership
Source: (Situational leadership, (McCleskey, 2014).)
Kotler’s change model is the force field model that has used in the Topshop and
discussed here. It is the easiest model to adapt and conduct. The leader plays a big
role in the organisational change as they need to overcome the barriers to provide
proper help to the employee for the change (Kapur and others, 2007). The situational
leadership help them the most in this sector for making the decision to manage and lead
the employee.