“Leadership Is the Most Important Factor in Managing Change” Analytically Assess This Statement

Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group has been a household name in the United Kingdom for over twenty years. He is well respected in the business world. He is the founder of the Virgin Group, which is known for many different things such as cell phones, record labels, airlines and many more. “Branson is also known for his unique character and leadership styles, one who is not afraid to take risks, and believes that people are the foundation to his company's success. If I were to first characterize his leadership style I would say he is definitely a democratic leader. He truly feels that getting other peoples input and listening to what

Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.

According to Kotter (1990), “Leadership seeks to produce organizational change by: developing a vision of the future and strategies for making necessary changes; communicating and explaining the vision, and motivating and inspiring people to attain the vision.”

For centuries leaders have been analyzed in order to determine what the traits and characteristics of a successful leader are. Leadership, as defined by Koontz and Weihrich (2008) is “the art or a process of influencing people so that they will strive willingly and enthusiastically toward the achievement of group goals” (p. 311). Leadership plays an important role in employee’s participation, creativity, recruitment to an organization, their commitment to the organization, and productivity levels. Over the years, there have been a number of theories surrounding leadership such as the “Great Man” theory, which, according to Riaz and Haider (2010), “assumes that leaders are born and have innate qualities, therefore, leaders

Leaders change systems, structures and policies that have not yet been confronted. They hire, promote and develop employees who can implement the vision for change. In addition, they revitalise the process with a new round of projects or change agents.(Cengage Learning AUS, 2015)

My father once told me that, “everything we do— be it in academia, at work, social or family life—we are guided by principles, beliefs and values that collectively form our ideology of life.” I believe that every leader, to a certain extent, is shaped through her individual personal experience. Although in some cases, we may not realize to what extent our personal assumptions and beliefs shape our ability to lead or be led.

Leadership is critical when executing a strategic change initiative. By differentiating leadership and management, leadership styles and the key factors of change we can better understand what should be done to successfully lead change. Success is not obtained through leadership alone but by developing a group of individuals from all levels of the organization who work together as a team. . (Leban and Stone, 2007)

In this assignment, leadership will be defined and analysed, then explore different approaches and traits to leadership and its importance in the context of Social housing specifically referencing Cardiff community Housing Associations as case study and then summarise with conclusion.

1. Richard Branson's leadership style works for his particular role as visionary and figurehead of his diverse group of companies under the Virgin Group umbrella. However diversified the Virgin Group may be, Branson remains an essentially charismatic and transformative leader. His leadership philosophy is built on employee empowerment and stimulating employee satisfaction. In his own words, Branson states, ""Rather than focusing on mistakes, catch someone doing something right every day," (cited by Adonis, 2010). Likewise, Branson advises that managers "place greater emphasis on unearthing what their employees are thinking and feeling," (cited by Adonis, 2010).

In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.

There has been vast amounts of research done on the topic of leadership, and yet despite this it continues to be ‘‘riddled with paradoxes, inconsistencies, and contradictions’’

Sir Richard Branson's model is a personification model of Virginia brand and explains it using his life when he was young. He uses both his life and Virginia brand to elaborate his leadership skills which is not based on any professional skills. Over the years, he is seen to recruit the best managers. Leadership is one of the strategies and strategic management. It includes planning for informal, formal and strategic planning systems by the leader. It has planning for emergent strategies, which include; responsiveness to arising threats and opportunities, increasing of changes to predetermined intended strategies, and adaptive learning and responsiveness to intended strategies. The Branson's model includes visionary leadership, which is planning, for the future. Competitiveness and competitive advantage for business services and products are dependent on strategic plans.

Leadership is a very broad topic; I never knew just how many different traits and skills that it takes to become an effective leader. Some of which I was familiar with, and others that I was not aware of, but now from taking this course, they all seem to be necessary for the role of leadership. The attached paper, will explain of some of the important theories and concepts that I thought were most important to be able to become and effective leader.

As defined by Katzenbach (1995), change leadership is “the process whereby individuals who lead initiatives that influence dozens to hundreds of others to perform differently—and better—by applying multiple leadership and change approaches.” Leadership alone is defined as setting a direction and developing the strategies necessary to move in that direction – that is, creating and achieving a vision – leadership is thus a process to do with change (Kotter 1999). Change leadership is critically important to the continuing success of organizations everywhere. Tennant Company understands and invests in change leadership by employing a Sr. Organization Development Manager named Annelise Larson, M.B.A. whose efforts includes setting direction, developing strategies, and leading initiatives through organizational change efforts. An interview was conducted with Annelise Larson to discuss and learn about her change leadership abilities. For the purposes of this paper, the interview questions will be shared, a summary will be provided, and five recommendations are made for Annelise Larson as a change leader.

Over the years, a great deal of time, and research has been dedicate to the study of leadership. Even with extensive data on the topic, many still disagree on what leadership really means. Hence, leadership is a word that has many different meanings and different researched theories associated with it. On a basic level, leadership involves having and establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with followers, respecting followers, and leading an organization with excellence while ensuring that everyone is part of the team. Leadership is also a method by which a leader uses his or her influence towards getting a group of followers to take ownership or buy into a vision.