Leader's Most Critical Competency: The Growth Of A Company

Step 2 is forming a powerful guiding coalition. Leadership will have to be on board and on the same page in regards to the change. Kotter and Cohen reveal the core problems people face when leading change. Their main findings are that the central issue concerns not structure or systems but behavior and how to alter it (Farris, 2008). The success of the changes will depend on the ability of the managers to show their commitment to change and motivate the employees to do the same. Without any process to track the implementation, the change can also fail.

Businesses have to adapt to the ever-changing economy. It is not much of a choice for business leaders to change elements of their organization to stay in competition with their peers. The hardest part, most of the time, is changing the people in the organization to develop the necessary outcome or goal. As a business leader getting rid of people or changing their job specifics is one of the many responsibilities they have to be comfortable performing. Organizations have to take into consideration their competitors, customers, shareholders, employees, and the community to make decisions. Change is an aspect that many people are afraid of. In the new millennium, organizational leaders have to embrace

The purpose of this book is to make us see that nearly all-operating prescriptions for creating large-scale corporate change are nothing but myths and that changes do not happen from one day to another by a miracle, the change from good to great is the result of a successful plan who

This book presents an array of practical procedures which can assist the prudent practitioner in preparing for change and how to handle all of the up’s and downs which accompany change. The two strengths in this book revolves around asking the right diagnostic questions which pave the way for change and the many characteristic of leaders who lead.

Editor’s Note: Guiding change may be the ultimate test of a leader – no business survives over the long term if it can’t reinvent itself. But, human nature being what it is, fundamental change is often resisted mightily by the people it most affects: those in the trenches of the business. Thus, leading change is both absolutely essential and incredibly difficult. Perhaps nobody understands the anatomy of organizational change better than retired Harvard Business School professor John P Kotter. This article, . originally published in the spring of 1995, previewed Kotter’s 1996 book Leading Change. It outlines eight critical success factors – from establishing a sense of extraordinary

Kotter, J.P. (1996) asserts, a high level of complacency and low sense of urgency are the two most significant obstacles to change. He explains most companies face some level of complacency even when highly intelligent and competent individuals are leading the organization. Implementation of the Eight-Stage process begins with (1) embracing the importance of urgency dealing with a known or unknown crisis is essential for managers and employees to see that status quo holds greater danger to their existence than any fear a minor or a major change represents; (2) the leader needs to identify a guiding coalition others respect to share in the leadership role of organizational change; (3) the leader needs to communicate an ambitious but attainable vision the group finds convincing —with clarity and simplicity; (4) repeated communication of the vision is necessary. The leader’s message needs consistency and delivered in various ways reaching all interested parties. Persistence is vital since

Businesses are facing a dichotomy between wanting to chalk out an all-time structure and strategy for their organization, and recognizing that their world is in a constant state of flux [3]. For most of the 20th century they were largely focused on the static elements of this dichotomy. However, in the last decade changes have become more frequent and more dramatic, so much so that a whole branch of management is now devoted to the subject of change itself.

However, people will not get out of their “comfort zone” without being motivated. This leads to the second error by leaders, which is not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition. Regardless of the size of the organization, the change effort should continually grow to include more and more people who believe that the changes are necessary (Kotter).

Sustaining success depends on an organization’s ability to adapt to a changing environment – whether it’s an external change, such as a transformative technology or a changing economy, or an internal one, such as a restructuring or key process overhaul. Unfortunately, 60-70% of organizational transformations fail – a dismal statistic validated by study after study. Failure rates this high demand a new mindset and new actions:

For any business in the rapidly evolving world of business, planning and implementing successful organizational change is indispensable. Essentially, organizational change refers to a process whereby an organization strives to optimize performance in order to achieve its ideal state characterized by high performance and profitability (Côté & Mayhew, 2014). Any business would be more likely to lose its competitive edge, as well as fail to meet the demands of its loyal consumers if it doesn’t plan and implement change. Weiss (2012) emphasizes that all organizations ought to embrace change, and it’s imperative to note that successful organizational change doesn’t involve simple process of adjustments; instead it requires appropriate change management capabilities.

There are many reasons that change can or must occur within and organization. The key will be in understanding the organization and the prospective change. According to Mangundjaya (2015) "there are many variables that can influence the success of organizational change, such as the content of the change, the process of the change, individual characteristics, leadership, external environment and organizational context" (p. 67). Organizational change has the potential to successfully align an organization with its goals or completely derail any future success and progress. It is important that the organization takes the proper steps to prepare for, implement, and evaluate change.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss organizational change and the management of that change. I will talk about the different drivers of change, the factors a leader needs to weigh to implement change effectively, the various resistances a leader may encounter while trying to implement change, and how various leadership styles will effect the realization of change. I will also discuss the knowledge I have gained through the completion of this assignment and how I think it might affect the way I manage change in my workplace.

In this stage Kotter shares business stories of successful companies that increased urgency to spark a change. He explains that there are four behaviors which could prevent change. Behaviors like “complacency, immobilization, self-protection, you-can’t-make-me-move deviance, and pessimistic attitude that leads to constant hesitation.” (Kotter and Cohen, p17) These four negative elements have to be approached carefully because if they are not the employees wouldn’t not have any sense of urgency to perform any changes. To have a successful introduction to change and for it to be received with urgency, it has to be presented in a way that the leaders of an organization will back it up, because they are “part of a larger activity aimed at helping to lower feelings undermining urgency.” (Kotter

Week 3, the lecture on Managing Change describes organizational changes that occur when a company makes a shift from its current state to some preferred future state. Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations in such a way as to decrease employee resistance and cost to the organization while concurrently expanding the effectiveness of the change effort. Today's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. Students of organizational change identify areas of change in order to analyze them. A manager trying to implement a change, no matter how small, should expect to encounter some resistance from within the organization.

Saying change is inevitable is passive, like we have no control over it. We must embrace change. Change brings a new opportunity for rejuvenation, rebirth, or to even redefine and refocus an organization. Change in an organization can come in the form of procedures, systems, structures, or policies. Once a change has been made, management must focus on the behaviors and the production of its employees. The change must be carried out from CEOs to district managers, to store managers, and even supervisors. A united front will help championing change while stopping any kind of resistance.