MANAGING AND LEADING STRATEGIC CHANGE

Managing and Leading Strategic Change

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion3

The Tasks of Leadership6

Develop and Communicate Purpose7

Establish Demanding Performance Goals8

Enable Upward Communication9

Forge an Emotional Bond between Employees and the Organization11

Develop Future Leaders12

Beyond Individual Leadership13

Conclusion16

References18

Managing and Leading Strategic Change

Introduction

At every stage of organizational change, leaders intervene to oversee and orchestrate implementation. That reliance on the effective orchestration by leaders in a change process is true not just for top executives but also for leaders throughout the organization. Implementation depends not just on oversight and orchestration by individual leaders. Effective change demands the coordinated efforts of multiple leaders.

Although the role of leaders in implementation underlies much of what has appeared earlier, this paper will offer more focused attention on the enactment of that leadership role. In particular, the paper will:

Define effective leadership

Explore the difficulty of enacting effective leadership

Delineate the tasks associated with managing and leading strategic change

Analyze the requirements for developing future leaders in an organization

Discussion

The distinction between the formal job of leader and the act of exercising leadership is an important one to understand. To be a formal leader requires some legitimate grant of authority to an individual. In that role, the formal leader makes decisions vital to the future of the company. After a great deal of turmoil at the top of the organization, Ann Mulcahy led the company back from near bankruptcy and financial scandal. While reducing head count from 90,000 to 30,000, she maintained spending on research and development. By 2005, two-thirds of the company's revenues came from new products developed internally. (Conger 2009, 12-15)

Deciding how and where to allocate resources is only one of the key roles played by formal leaders. They also represent the organization to multiple internal and external constituencies, embody the culture and values of the company, mediate internal disputes and conflicts, even occasionally serve as marketing symbols (such as Dave Thomas of Wendy's or Frank Purdue of Purdue Farms). (De Gues 2007, 18-20)

Formal leaders have important roles to play as decision-makers, resource-allocators, and occasionally even company symbols. Leadership is something different from that formal role, as important as it is. Leadership involves specific interventions aimed at motivating behavioural change among employees. Formal leaders can exercise leadership, of course. Individuals who reside elsewhere in the organization can also undertake interventions to implement change. At whatever level, effective leadership can be understood as a set of activities or behaviours that mobilize adaptive behaviour on the part of members of the organization.

People think of leadership as an intervention into the organization designed to impact the behaviours of others. Thinking of change leadership as an intervention designed to mobilize adaptive behaviours focuses attention away from the particular individuals who reside at the head of an organizational hierarchy. Instead of examining the traits or personalities of individual leaders, change leadership involves actions and behaviours. The effectiveness of change leadership will be judged not by personalities and traits but by the impact those actions and behaviours exert on the change ...