Organization leadership styles and how they relate to change

Running Head: Leadership Styles: Managing Organizational Change

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Leadership styles as they relate to change

Name

Class

Affiliation

Instructor


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Outline

I. Executive summary …………………………………………………………….3

II. Literature review ………………………………………………………………..5

a) Authoritarian leadership…………………………………………………………7

b) Democratic leadership …………………………………………………………..8

c) Laissez-faire leadership…………………………………………………………..8

III. Change management model……………………………………………………….9

IV. Discussion……………………………………..…………………………………14


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V. Conclusion……………………………………………..…………………………17

VI. References…………………………………………………………………….….19

VII. Appendix……………………………………………………………….…………20

Executive summary

Organizational change management process involves the

planning and implementation of change in an organization context.

This change can only be effected with the involvement for

instance through consultation with the people who will be

affected by these changes. For anyone in a management position in

an organization, it is important to understand that change should


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not be forced on people otherwise there will be problems and

conflicts within the organization. For the involvement of people

in change management and to ensure that change is accepted,

quality leadership is required. Therefore, the style of

leadership that is employed has its effects on how the change

management in the organization will be carried out. Whether

change in an organization is taking place in a specific

department or in the entire organization, its success depends on

the commitment of managers and other executives.

For any organization to be successful and to remain

competitive the responsibility of making organizational change

should not be optional for managers and other senior staff.

Change is one of the ways that managers and leaders can ensure

creation of sustainable organizations, and therefore they ought

to be leaders in the process of effecting changes for the

organization. Leadership is a fundamental concern of the change

process as change starts with the identification of what needs to


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be changed and which and then goes to the stage of executing and

implementing this change. In an organization, it is from the

people that a manager is able to identify the change areas. This

is the aspect of connecting the people in the process of change

and when it comes to the implementation of this change, it is

expected that the change will be more accepted by the people.

The major aim of change is for the standardization and

alignment of the organization with the continually emerging

realities in the business world. An organization has greater

opportunities of initiating the suitable strategic responses to

change initiatives if it realizes the available realities early.

The understanding of these initiatives is based on the

organizational leadership. Leaders who are effective are always

attentive to changes as well as trends in the environment. It is

by having a mindset of systems thinking that the leader is able


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to identify the new realities together with the systematic

corollaries they come with.

This paper covers leadership styles and the ways in which

they relate to change. The leadership that will be considered is

on the effective management of people and the realization of new

business realities. It is not a simple task for an organization

to stay put and adopt the new realities and the challenges of

managing people. For instance, some loss may be created and thus

people as well as systems in an organization may resist the

changes so that they defer from having to deal with the losses.

What a practicing manager needs to know is that realities of

change can neither be deferred nor go away and thus resistance to

this change has greater negative effects on the organization.

Therefore, leadership is required to hold the organization and to

realize, embrace and adapt effective change.


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Literature review

The capability and effectiveness of leadership in an

organization is measured on the extent to which leaders have

helped their organization in enhancing their capabilities to

adapt to change. Helping the organization implies that the

leaders are able to work with all the members of that

organization throughout the change process. Various organizations

observe failure in their efforts of change or the changes being

minimally effective. According to Beerel (2009), this is because

of failure of the organization to appropriately respond to the

available new realities or for the failure of the leaders in the

organization to offer a containing function that is sufficient to

address the distresses or anxiety that may be created by change.


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For effective change management, leadership is required so as to

address these aspects and thereby delve into how to avoid

organizational emotional life insensitivities and failure to read

and take new realities well.

When an organization is dealing with adapting to change,

there is always a question of what should be the source of

motivation for the leaders. There are always concerns on whether

the adoption to change should be done via a form of coercion,

charisma, command, influence or any other aspect. Leadership also

questions on whether the establishment of the direction or goals

should be the prerogative of the leader or whether the other

people in the organization should be allowed to take role in

making decisions on where the organization heads to. Leadership

is an activity; an activity that makes up a process but not a

one-off action. Therefore, in making organization decisions, it

is important that the leader involves all the people. In an

organization, a leader leads a group of people and thus


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leadership which is effective involves an understanding of those

psychodynamics which exist between the group and its leader.

There are different forms of theories that have been

developed on leadership, and they all hold different

perspectives. The organic leadership is one of the perspectives

and the basis of this is the process of mutual sense making.

There is also the transformational leadership which is based on

leading other people and thus being able to achieve higher levels

of performance. Transformational organization leaders focus on

challenging the people under them in the organization setting to

get more creative and innovative in solving of problems. This is

a very beneficial aspect of leadership as it helps in the

creation of an environment in which there is both support and

challenge.

According to Bass & Riggio (2006), the transformational kind

of leadership has four different components. These are;

individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, idealized


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influence and inspiration and motivation. Individualized

consideration implies that the leaders create attention to the

needs of their group members. These are the achievement needs and

thus leading to growth. Here, the leader treats each of their

group members individually and it is this care that works towards

change acceptance. This also helps the employees in innovation

since they feel as part of the organization. Employees always

gain treatment as ends but not as means to the ends of others or

other things.

Managers in an organization should understand that

appreciation of employees is very important as it acts as a form

of intellectual simulation, which encourages employees to get

more creative and innovative are simulated by their leaders. This

helps in addressing problems and finding the most effective in

creating solutions to organization problems. In order to be a

transformational leader, one should focus on becoming a role

model or a point of reference to the people under him or her.


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This is mainly because leaders are trusted, respected and

emulated by their group members. This is what is referred to as

idealized influence in that their actions and behaviors shape

those of the other employees in the organization. As leaders,

people are required to create a shared vision sense. This will be

demonstrated by their hard work, determination as well as

persistence. When such happens, other employees will follow them.

Further, leaders are required to show high ethical standards as

well as moral conduct.

For performance of employees to be improved and this

includes the ways in which they take change, they need to be

motivated. As a transformation leader, one is required to

motivate those people whom they lead. This also includes

inspiring them. Motivation of employees comes in various ways for

instance by the provision of meaning and challenge to the work of

the employees (Johnson & Klee, 2007). By so doing, the employee

is encouraged to put more effort in their work. Leadership is not


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always about criticizing what other people do but rather

appreciating them and challenging tem to work even better.

Leaders express a convincing future vision and through this they

are able to arouse optimism and enthusiasm among the employees.

Strategic change in an organization therefore takes a

transformational approach. By being the motivator of people and

having an idealized influence, a leader should not be like an

idol in the organization. There are different leadership styles

that are used by people to lead their organization and these

include; authoritarian or autocratic leadership, participative or

democratic leadership and laissez-faire leadership.

Authoritarian leadership – In this form of leadership, the

expectations of individuals in an organization are provided and

clearly defined. They are the determinants of how things are to

be done in an organization and might even stipulate the

limitations of the powers of individuals in an organization. The

authoritarian form of leadership is seen as management of the


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functions and activities of individuals in an organization,

without providing leadership. In this kind of leadership, the

leaders makes independent decisions, and take in very minimal or

even no input from their group members. Therefore, this kind of

leadership is said to be highly related to dictatorship and

control.

Democratic leadership – This is a very effective form of

leadership as individuals in an organization are given the

opportunity to participate in to the decision making process of

the organization. In this form of leadership, members of an

organization feel appreciated and it enhances their productivity.

Due to the feeling of being engaged in decision making,

individuals of an organization become more prod of working there

and tend to give more as they own the change implementation

process.

Laissez-faire leadership – This is the form of leadership

where the decision making process is entirely left in the hands


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of the team members. In this form of leadership, the management

and leaders in an organization do not act as role models and

offer very little guidelines on functions of individual or the

organization if any (Lussier & Achua, 2009). As a result, the

roles of individuals in an organization are not well defined and

in most instances, people are not motivated.

Change management model

Organization can be seen as a family, where everyone has a

different role to carry or as a mechanical system with different

components that enables performance. Therefore, for the machine

model or the family to be sustained, the right form of leadership


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is required. The change management model that addressed by this

paper is a systemic leadership style. This kind of model has

various components and these are structural component, human

resource component, and the political component. The structural

component implies that the organization is taken from the point

of view of being a machine or factory. When the model talks about

the human resource component, the implication is that the

organization is one family. As a family, people carry out

different things together and so does an organization. The

political component is that component that shows the jungle

nature of the organization. This means that the organization

strives to ensure its adaptation of new realities.

For the organization management to determine the importance

of leadership in developing organizational components, it is

important to understand that these components need thoughtfulness

as well as an imagination that is beyond seeing the problems that

the organization faces. Problems are simply a means of


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challenging an organization to improve on their services. The

organization is required to be ready to take hold on new

opportunities which are presented by change management. These

means that the people need to be ready to accept change and

further understand that the changes which are effected in the

organization are for the benefit of the entire organization and

these include the individual benefits as well.

By taking these components together, a manager who is at the same

time a leader gains a feeling for the organizational

architecture, the needs of the people, and the competitive

attributes of the organizational culture. This guides the

thinking of the leaders and it is this thinking that helps them

in seeing the existent multiple realities in the organization.

Additionally, the leaders get options and new insights that help,

when they are dealing with challenges that come with change and

also strategic solving of problems. To exercise leadership, this


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model gives the managers ability of reframing problems; something

which is a great asset to them. It is through framing of problems

that people are able to get the actual happenings. To solve

problems in an organization may require changes and this implies

that effective change management is required to ensure that

individual as well as overall organizational needs are met.

This model works by ensuring that leaders in an organization

are able to drive change and manage it effectively, through

ensuring that the needs of individual customers are met, as this

is what leads to customer satisfaction. In every organization,

customers are very important. The customer needs are some of the

new realities that present themselves in the market. It is

expected that customer needs continually change. These are the

new realities that a leader should lead their people into

realizing. The leader ensures that the changes needs of customers

are incorporated into the organizational process. By keeping up

with customer demands, organizations are able to earn the loyalty


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of their customers and the benefits associated with this are

enormous and they include a positive corporate image, increase in

sales, revenue and profits.

Change process of change management relates to the

continuous improvement in an organization. A leader is that

person who guides the people towards achieving this. They will

help in continuous organizational improvement which includes

having a quality management system in place. Where such a system

has been put in place, employees have a guiding factor. Further,

it e encourages their involvement and thus they are able to

freely express their innovative ideas. It is this innovation that

leads to exploring of the new business opportunities which means

effecting change in the organization. The culture in an

organization determines the way that change is managed. According

to Yunxia (2007) culture is what defines the behaviors that

people in the organization exhibit. In leadership, the

organizational culture should be such that it can be changed and


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aligned with the changes. This is something that the people need

to have an understanding of and that the culture in the

organization is not rigid. A leader guides people into being

flexible and change as change is adopted.

In the world today, technology is fast advancing.

Organizational change thus may involve the adoption of new and

advanced technology. Technology may necessitate continued

automation of machines and processes within the organization

(Hornstein, 2008). Because of this automation, organizations may

need less manpower services. As a leader, the management of

people comes in here. The leader has to ensure that the employees

do not have to suffer greatly because of these changes. This then

calls for effective human resources planning right from the

beginning.

Changes which are made in an organization are implemented by

the people. It is thus important that the leader involves people

in decision making. This would be by listening to the ideas and


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opinions of ones employees. By doing so, the people will feel

part of the organization and thereby there will be minimal

resistance to change. Furthermore, people will work hard in

implementing the decisions which they took part in making. People

are also encouraged since the organization appreciates them.

Effective decision making and involvement of people will be by

creation of organizational teams. In these teams, decisions are

made easier and conflicts easily managed.

The systemic model compares to the democratic or

participative style of leadership. This is because in this model,

the leader involves the people that they lead in making

decisions. These include decisions of the kind of change that the

organization needs and the order in which this changes will be

effected. In this model, the contributions of team members are

very important and all the people are given the chance to

participate and air their views and opinions irrespective of the

positions that they hold in the organization. This helps in


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bringing in equity in the organization. Just like in democratic

leadership, the levels of employee motivation here are high and

thus encouraging creativity and innovation.

This model differs from other leadership styles in various

ways. For instance, the transformational approach to leadership

indicates that one of the components of a leader is the idealized

influence. This is like implying that the leader is idolized and

this is dangerous not only to the employees but the entire

organization. As a leader, one is not supposed to be a sole

source of motivation, inspiration and admiration. Organizational

vision should not be created on the leader’s shoulders. What this

model considers is the creation of organizational vision on the

basis of new realities and needs of the people in the

organization.

In the change management models that have been widely used

in organizations, the creation of vision is usually one that

arouses optimism and enthusiasm. However, organizations exist in


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an environment of change and thereby challenges are bound to be

experienced. This implies that vision of an organization can be

challenging and sobering as well. Therefore, this calls for

determination, personal resilience and sacrifice. This is what

the model seeks to encourage managers to lead their people into.

Leaders should be able to mobilize other people into embracing

visions which have an alignment with the reality in spite of the

personal appeal. Change is always based on the business and

organizational realities.

The change management model that is described here is one

which is more distributed. This implies that leadership will be

based on ensuring the enhancement of the adaptive capacity of

both the leader and the people they lead. Therefore, here the

potential in leadership is attributed to a group but not to

individual achievements. In an organization, team work is very

important and this is something that the model covers. Where

there is team work, problems are solved easily and there are also


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minimal conflicts. Team work is not only about correcting of

wrong doings but also it encourages creativity and innovation.

Ideas of change lie with the people and thus it is through these

teams that these ideas can be voiced out.

For successful management of change, a leader leads in the

establishment of a vision that is clear for the process of

managing change (Burnes & Jackson, 2011). This helps in creating

a picture of the outcomes which are anticipated and where this

leads the organization to. For new realities to be adopted

effectively and to ensure that the organization benefits from

these changes, monitoring and evaluation is needed. This helps in

the determination of how effectively the change has been managed

and the benefits that it has brought into the organization. It is

also through this way that the organization realizes areas that

need to be improved or even changed.


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Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is designed to express the levels of

needs that motivate individuals in an organization. These

people’s needs require to be satisfied in turn beginning with the

lowest to the highest. It is only after the lower needs in the

hierarch have been satisfied, that an individual is able to start

seeking for the satisfaction of the higher needs. These needs are

usually presented in form of a pyramid. The lowest part

represents the lowest human needs and it is these that need to be

satisfied first. It is important for the leader to understand the

needs, which are most active for the motivation of individual

employees. These needs are normally ranked from psychological

needs, safety, belonging needs, esteem needs, and self

actualization. Organization leaders have to understand that once

a need has been satisfied, it is no longer a motivating factor

and thus the need that is higher takes its place. By following

the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model, a leader is able to


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determine the level at which their followers are in this Maslow’s

hierarchy of needs.

Discussion

When implementing change in an organization, strong

leadership is very important and there is a necessity for

organizations to differentiate between leadership and management,

as they differ in the ways through which people are motivated.

This is what forms the basis of what leaders and managers do.

While managers have subordinates, leaders have followers. This

means that a manager has a lot of powers which are vested on him

over other people while a leader does not follow any

authoritarian control which is formal. Thus, a leader will in

most cases be there for the people, whom they lead while a

manager is like an idol who is not easily reachable.

Since managers have an authority position, all they do is to

issue orders and their subordinates have to follow them without

question. This is the transactional style of management in that


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the subordinate has to do what they have been told to since there

is a reward that awaits them and this is usually their salary. On

the other hand, a leader is transformational and charismatic

(Eisenbach, Watson & Pillai, 1999). The leader understands that

by simply telling people what to do, they are not inspired to

work. Therefore, people have to be appealed and this attracts

people to the leader. The people know that it is not only for the

extrinsic awards that they receive but that they are also helped

in becoming better persons.

Leadership focuses on people while management focuses on

work. A leader understands that people have to be motivated so as

to work well. There are various ways through which people are

motivated and these include offering them a good working

environment and having a reward system in place. In rewarding

people, rewards should be given on the basis of their

performance. This appreciation that people are given motivates

not only those who are rewarded but the other employees are also


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motivated to work hard so that they can be rewarded as well.

Today, leaders have understood that though money is a great

motivator of people, it is not the only thing that they can use

for employee motivation. Other ways of rewarding employees

include gifts, holidays and public recognition for example during

the organization’s annual general meeting.

On the other hand, managers are not focused much on the

people but on ensuring that work is completed and completed in

good time. Where management lacks leadership, work is always done

within constraints of money and time. What seems to be forgotten

here is that people usually get to a pint where they can not work

effectively because they lack a motivating factor. The result of

this is high employee turnover. Following this, the organization

incurs a lot of costs because they continually loose those people

who are most productive. Thereby, where there is no leadership,

performance improvement is not possible.


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The essence of leadership is change. While a manager strives to

minimize risks, a leader takes the risks. With these differences

between management and leadership, it is important that all

organizations adopt a leadership style. This shows that it is

leadership which will enable organizations in adopting changes.

To better manage change, a manager needs to have an

understanding of the importance of change and change management

(Stoltzfus, Stohl & Seibold, 2011). This helps in business

reframing. Business reframing is done with consideration of the

economy. Through this, the leader finds new as well as different

possibilities that help them in dealing with the new business and

change realities. The leader makes use of their skills and

business networks. These networks and skills are used in ways

that are new and at the same time in markets which are new. It is

evident that business reframing helps in the provision of new

windows in the business world.


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In managing change, various problems need to be solved, the

strengths maximized, weaknesses transformed into strengths, new

opportunities exploited and the impacts of business threats

minimized. The ways in which these problems are solved and

analysis done depends on their framing. According to Beerel

(2009) it is this framing which determines solution options and

further provides opportunities for the exploration of problem

landscapes from varied perspectives. The leader also gets to

understand the fact that leadership is not only necessary in the

solving of problems. Though from time to time problems will come

up in an organization, leadership is required at all times. The

leader will be able to become someone whom the people feel free

to interact with. Therefore, they will not feel belittled and

thus will realize their importance in the organization.

Leadership necessitates being an example to the rest of the

employees in the organization. For instance, the leader does not


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sit as a superior being in the organization but takes part in

carrying out the operations that other employees carry out. They

are always interacting freely with the people and assuring people

of their work. Therefore, the employees will develop a positive

attitude towards work. For example, one may ask ‘If the senior

manager is doing this why not me?’ this then creates an

environment of hard work. As the employees benefit because of

having a good work environment and rewarded, the organization

gets to benefit even more through improved productivity.

Conclusion

Managers need to be leaders if they will be able to

effectively manage change in an organization. Being a leader

implies that they involve the people who are under them in all

the operations of the organization. It is by doing so that

resistance to change as well as conflicts is minimized in the

organization. Opportunities and realities for change often rest

with the people. Since it is these people who are involved in


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carrying out most of the activities in the organization, it is

them who will be able to realize the need for change first. By

involving people in managing change, certain fears are also

minimized. For instance, when an organization is effecting some

changes, people will have the fears of loosing their jobs or even

added responsibilities. However, if they are made to feel their

worth and importance in the organization, such fears will most

likely do away.

The systemic model of leadership places a leader as a membr

of an organization team but not a superior being in the

organization. They freely interact with people and can also learn

through the non-verbal communication of their people. People will

often exhibit different body languages and facial expressions

thus enabling the leader to know how they take the changes in the

organizations even without having to communicate verbally. It is

thus evident that the style of leadership which is employed in an

organization determines how change is managed. For effective


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change management, the style of leadership should be involving

and the leader should also be able to realize new realities since

these are the changes that the organization needs.


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References

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Eisenbach, R., Watson, K. & Pillai, R. (1999). Transformational

leadership in the context of organizational change. Journal

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80-89.

Hornstein, H. (2008). Using a change management approach to

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Johnson, N.J. & Klee, T. (2007). Passive-aggressive behavior and

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Yunxia, Z. (2007). Do cultural values shape employee receptivity

to leadership styles? Academy of management perspectives.

Volume 21 (2), p. 89-90.


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Appendix


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Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Organization leadership styles and how they relate to change

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