Organisation Change Management and Its Impact on the Business Environment - Coursework Example

Name Class Unit PART 1 ACADEMIC TYPE PAPER Introduction Organisations operate in a complex environment which requires them to be ready to adapt to environmental changes. Through strategic leadership, an organisation is expected to align its mission, goals and strategies with the external environment. Achieving success in an organisation is not by chance only, but through strategic decisions that leadership takes (Donlevy & Walker, 2011). This essay analyses leadership and ethics and organisational change management in a contemporary organisation. The essay will start by looking at leadership and ethics in management and the impact it has on business environment. Lastly, the essay will analyse organisation change management and its impact on the business environment. BLOCK A: Leadership and ethics Ethics plays a major role in the globalised society. Organisations use ethics to ensure that they sustain competitiveness and longevity. Business ethics have been described as the cornerstone of the 21st century organisations (Griffin, 2002). Ethics and leadership depends on integrity, communication and proper decision making. Ethics is the heart of leadership in a business environment. To better understand ethics and leadership, it is vital to look at values in both the organisation and individual. Leaders are expected to be aware of their values, morals and ethics. Honesty has been a major factor that has been identified for effective leaders (Donlevy & Walker, 2011). Leaders create an ethical environment in the business. Once the leaders create an ethical working environment, employees are able to follow it. An ethical environment leads to high level of trust. It is important to know that trust can be developed in various ways and leading by example is the most effective way. Leaders are expected to do ethical things in a consistent way so that the followers can see and emulate. In a business environment, the level of transparency also affects the type of environment (Ciulla, 2014). In a business environment, ethical dilemma occurs. This leads to a situation where important values comes to conflict and a leader must make a choice between them. Since in most cases both values are important, the leaders must assign priorities in making a decision. When faced with a dilemma in a business environment, it is vital for leaders to make ethical choices. Failure to make the right choice as a leader may lead to unethical behaviour. It is important to note that ethical decision making involves different stakeholders. Making unethical decision in an organisation will only work for a short time. Honesty and integrity are required for the long term success of leaders in an organisation (Vaughan, 1992). Leaders in an organisation are required to have moral courage when making decisions. This implies that a leader must persevere and stick to the right decision. This involves ignoring any rationalisation and justifications that may lead to wrong decision. The decision making is the one which defines an ethical leader. When an organisation is undergoing change, whistle blowing is part of moral courage. This involves conveying the organisation information to the public. The information in most cases has to do with wrongdoings in an organisation (Donlevy & Walker, 2011). Leadership in an organisation involves winning trust and respect from the constituents. The constituent who includes the employees, shareholders and public evaluates the leader character before they put their trust. When there is a difference between the leaders’ action and words, credibility is lost. Stakeholder’s can impose cost to an organisation that has failed to uphold major ethical issues. For an organisation to succeed in ethical issues, a code of conduct is required. The code of conduct gives guide to users in their day to day activities. This is through clarifying the organisation mission, values and linking them with the expected professional conduct (Spangenberg & Theron, 2005). Code of ethics gives an organisation expected behaviour standards. This is as opposed to a list of rules. The code discloses way in which the organisation operates. Through the code acts as a vital communication vehicle which shows the covenant that an organisation commits to uphold. The discussion on how to improve the ethics in an organisation is also provided by the code. Through the code, it becomes easy to create a positive image in an organisation. The level of public confidence and trust is upheld in the business (Ciulla, 2013). Leadership offers ethical training in an organisation. This is a solution that has have been utilised by organisations extensively and effectively. The commitment must be there from the top leadership if ethical training program is to succeed. Ethical training is centred on the company mission, ethics and code of conduct (Grojean et al., 2004). As a leader, the method used in promoting ethical leadership should not be punitive. There must be a positive approach used by leaders. Ethical behaviour must be shown by the leaders and those they lead should model it. Ethics should be the way of lie in an organisation (Ciulla, 2014). Failure of leaders carries more weight than for non-leaders in an organisation. In leadership morality is magnified making ethics vital in understanding leadership and human relationship. Ethics is about what we do and what we should be like in the society. This involves looking leadership as a part of the human relationship. Issues central to ethics are central to leadership. In leadership, transformational leadership has become synonymous with ethical leadership. Transformational leaders have strong values (Griffin, 2002). These are leaders who cannot water down their values but elevate their followers and helps them in reassessing their values and needs. Transformational leaders are able to raise their followers in values, justice and liberty. They are able to turn their followers into leaders. Charisma is a necessary ingredient for a transformational leader. Charismatic leadership in an organisation have power emotional and moral impact on subordinates. When a charismatic leader is unethical, they turn into manipulators who are after their personal issues. Successful leaders in an organisation must act in a socialised but not personalised (Ciulla, 2013). Ethical leadership is able to implement ethical collaboration. The leadership is able to collaborate with an organisation to reduce risks. Ethical leadership ensures that there is best practices and solves all issues affecting organisation. This requires the leadership in a contemporary organisation to seek knowledge from ethical advisors within and outside the organisation. Leaders who are able to come together in ethical practice are able to make decisions which are good. Ethical leadership is able to attain smooth succession. This is through allowing other leaders within an organisation to develop their skills and utilise them. Once the leaders emerge, existing leaders are able to assist them and offer mentorship without fear of losing their territory. Ethical leaders are able to realise the importance of having a strong succession program for the benefit of the organisation (Grojean et al., 2004). Ethical leaders are hard to find and when an organisation finds one, they are supposed to invest in them (Newman, 2000). The ethical tenure is the time length of time a leader is able to conduct. This in most cases depends on the ethics of the said leader. In most cases, people rate the leader based on their trustworthiness rather than their skills. Leaders who are able to work in an ethical manner are likely to serve longer in the organisation. Ethical leadership is an integral part of organisation. Leadership failures that have occurred in organisations have been largely due to the character of the leaders (Ciulla, 2014). The more one explores ethics and leadership it becomes easy to see that they are intertwined. Due to ethical issues that have occurred in various organisations, the importance of ethical dimensions is obvious. Moral leadership makes ethics an integral part of the leadership agenda. Effective leadership is required for performance and change. Effective leadership have always been used in enabling change in an organisation. Ethical leadership is able to handle the problems that are experienced during the change process. This is due to fact that with ethical leadership, there is high level of competency. Competency makes it possible to manage knowledge and skills required for change (Spangenberg & Theron, 2005). Initiating and coordinating change requires leadership which is well developed. This is due to fact that change in most cases must meet a certain level of resistance. An effective leader should be able to handle the resistance and carry out the necessary changes. People will always resist change and it is the role of the leader to overcome the resistance. This is especially with radical changes that occur in a limited period of time. The high resistance to radical changes in an organisation requires more than leadership competencies (Flanigan, 2015). The leaders in this case are supposed to make the followers aware that they need change and they must accept the new methods of working. An ethical leader will have lower resistance when implementing change. This is due to the high level of trust that is put on them. Leaders have to empower the employees to work ethically in an organisation. They must support the staff when they do the correct thing. A positive ethical working environment ensures that employee commitment to ethical practice is supported. The organisation experiences less conflict and the level of efficiency and productivity is high in a contemporary organisation (Ciulla, 2005). BLOCK B: Organisational change management Change is an ever-present feature in the life of an organisation. While many organisations appreciates the need for change, very few are able to achieve the expected outcomes (Ivancevich, Matteson & Konopaske, 2002). There has been an increase in organisation change over the past years. Organisations carry out change for a specified benefit. Change in an organisation occurs through the individuals accepting to change the way in which they work and act. Change management refers to the manner in which the process of change is handled. Through change management, the success of organisation projects is attained. Organisations which are able to invest heavily in change management are able to obtain benefits. An organisation which fails to apply correctly change management attains lower returns (Todnem, 2005). In modern business, change is a matter of concern. Projects are the main ways in which organisations deals with change. Projects are established with set goals that are to be attained. To obtain a successful change in an organisation, the theoretical models of change management forms the starting point (Hayes, 2014). The models are supposed to be revised until one is able to get the appropriate model. Kurt Lewin has been viewed as the founder of the social psychology. Through his work in social psychology, he was able to point out the factors that trigger interests in human beings for change (Gill, 2002). Kurt Lewin theory still remains relevant despite the fact that it was presented in 1947. He viewed change as a journey rather than a single step. As a journey, change is not simple and several stages of conflict must be passed before an agreement is reached (Pettigrew, Woodman & Cameron, 2001). While implementing change, Kevin came up with a three step process which is referred to as Unfreeze, change and freeze. In the first stage, people are transformed from being unready for change to being ready. People are able to able to take the first step towards change in this stage. This is the most vital stage in understanding change in the modern organisations. At this stage, people understand that it is necessary to have change. The leader makes it known that the followers should be ready to move from the comfort zone. At this stage, the organisation leader prepares themselves and others to have an ideal position for change. The more people feels that change is necessary, they more their level of motivation rise (Sturdy & Grey, 2003). The second stage is transition. Once the people have been unfrozen, it is important to keep them going. Change is a process and not an event. Transition is defined as an inner movement that people make in reaction to change. This is a process where changes which are required are made. People start embracing new ways of doing things in an organisation (Bordia et al., 2004). At this stage, most people are unsure and fearful. People require time to understand the new way of doing things in an organisation. Leaders in contemporary organisation are expected to give support training and coaching to the followers. Mistakes should be accepted at this stage of change. The leadership is expected to act as the role models and give solutions during the process. This makes it possible for the followers not to lose their direction for change (Todnem, 2005). The last stage is refreezing. In this stage, people are moved to the stable state from the transition state. The change has already been made at this stage (Quattrone & Hopper, 2001). In this stage, changes made are accepted and becomes the new norm. The stage involves the people attaining comfort and being able to continue with the new routines. In the modern organisations, change can happen at a very fast rate (Hayes, 2014). This makes it hard to have the freezing step. The final stage in modern organisation involves being more flexible. The model shows that there are chains of transformations that organisations must undergo in order to teach the desired situation. Lewin model is simple and managers can simply apply it (Pettigrew, Woodman & Cameron, 2001). The process of change in an organisation requires the employees to change some of the behaviours. This has made it prudent to have performance appraisals, promotions and bonuses which are based on the outcome to be used (Paton & McCalman, 2008). Change process is also associated with an inherent loss. This is mostly felt by the employees. This can be explained using the Kubler Ross Grief model. The model looks at the emotional issues which are brought about by change (Sturdy & Grey, 2003). The first stage in the model is denial. The employees at this stage refuse to acknowledge that change is inevitable. At this stage, the management must be ready to address all unresolved fears that exist due to change (Quattrone & Hopper, 2001). The management have to ensure that fear and mistrust that is experienced at this stage is replaced by acceptance. The change agent must encourage acceptance to ensure that they initiate trust. The second state is resistance to change. It is very common for the workers to resist change process. The employees will carry out attempts to slow down the change process or derail it. As a change agent, it is vital to spot resistance to change when it occurs and come up with ways to overcome it (Todnem, 2005). Resistance is very common to change and can come up in many forms. The easiest way to recognise resistance to change is looking for those who indicate their dissatisfaction loudly. There is need to solicit feedback from those who openly resist change and know their stand. This helps in coming up with a strategy that will overcome their objectives (Hayes, 2014). Employees in an organisation can resist change through denial. These include employees who acknowledge the need for change but are not ready to accept it. Employees may not also the see the urgency for change. This implies that the need for change must be explained to them full for them to embrace it (Graetz et al., 2006). Another form of resistance occurs when employees who have previously accepted change starts to undermine the process. This may occur due to realisation that the process may take additional time and efforts. The change agent should slow down the change process and ensure that all involved are able to absorb and accept the need for change in a gradual manner. Employees may also use confusion with an aim of postponing change. The employees’ may claim they do not understand or may ask the same question repeatedly (Quattrone & Hopper, 2001). Malicious compliance is the most dangerous form of resistance. In this case, employees support the change process in an enthusiastic manner but undermine the efforts done in a malicious manner. The employees may accept the change process and do nothing about it in implementation (Sturdy & Grey, 2003). The response to change is very vital in an organisation. Forcing the workers to accept change may lead to high levels of resistance. The input from the employees is vital when implementing the change process. This is due to fact that their recommendations can lead to high level of compliance. In most cases, compromise leads to acceleration of the change process (Graetz et al., 2006). The third emotional state in the change process is exploration. This occurs when the employees are unable to stop the change process. Employees begin to explore the new process and determine their roles (Hayes, 2014). At this process, all issues which are unresolved are addressed. The change agent must determine the employees who are not satisfied with the changes and their issues addressed. At this stage, it is easy to encourage behaviour change if trust has been achieved. Lastly, workers become committed to the change. There is mutual commitment to the change process and all obstacles are eliminated (Pettigrew, Woodman & Cameron, 2001). Research on organisation change shows that third of the organisations that implements change fails. The process of change management costs organisations a lot of cash, resources and time. Organisation change in most cases fails due to poor commitment from the top management. Lack of incentives and change overload also contributes to the failure. If the organisation change management is to succeed, the top management must be fully committed. Employees will only act based on the management behaviour (Todnem, 2005). Trying to carry out the change process in a short time may lead to confusion. There is need for well-defined steps for change management that will help create order and confidence in the process. In some cases, change process lacks incentives which can reinforce the new way of doing things (Graetz et al., 2006). The organisation must have a set process of rewarding the employees who accepts the change process. The rewards must be appropriately linked to the change process. All rewards that were used as a way of reinforcing old behaviours must be eliminated. In some cases, there is little attention on the required skills for the new way of doing things. The organisation must be ready to train their workers on the new processes and procedures. The change must also be accompanied by a change in the physical environment. These ensure that there is a successful change management and the new behaviours are adopted in an organisation (Gill, 2002). Conclusion Leadership and ethics are intertwined concepts in an organisation. An ethical leader is able to implement change successfully in a contemporary organisation. Ethics are critical component in leadership. Leaders thus have a responsibility to ensure that everyone sees ethics as a part of their working life. Leaders must show employees that unethical practice is not acceptable and ethical practice is rewarded. Change in modern organisations is inevitable. Change agents must be ethical leaders who are able to implement changes in well-defined steps. Lewin Kurtz model of changes gives three main stages of change which can be used to manage it. Change costs organisations a lot of revenue and time hence must be well managed. The change agent management of change will determine its success or failure. References Bordia, P., Hobman, E., Jones, E., Gallois, C., & Callan, V. J. 2004. “Uncertainty during organizational change: Types, consequences, and management strategies.” Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol.18, no.4, p.507-532. Ciulla, J. B. (Ed.). 2014. Ethics, the heart of leadership. ABC-CLIO. Ciulla, J. B. 2013. Leadership ethics. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Ciulla, J. B. 2005. Integrating leadership with ethics: Is good leadership contrary to human nature. Handbook on responsible leadership and governance in global business, p.159- 179. Donlevy, J. K., & Walker, K. D. 2011. Leadership and ethics. In Working through ethics in education and leadership (pp. 9-20). SensePublishers. Flanigan, J. 2015. The Ethics of Authentic Leadership. Leadership and Ethics, p.151. Grojean, M. W., Resick, C. J., Dickson, M. W., & Smith, D. B. 2004. “Leaders, values, and organizational climate: Examining leadership strategies for establishing an organizational climate regarding ethics.” Journal of business ethics, Vol.55, no.3, p.223-241. Gill, R. 2002.” Change management--or change leadership?.” Journal of change management, Vol.3, no.4, p.307-318. Graetz, F., Rimmer, M., Lawrence, A., & Smith, A. 2006. Managing organisational change. John Wiley & Sons. Griffin, D. 2002. The emergence of leadership: Linking self-organization and ethics. Psychology Press. Hayes, J. 2014. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan. Ivancevich, J. M., Matteson, M. T., & Konopaske, R. 2002. Organizational behavior and management (Vol. 9). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Newman, L. 2000. “Ethical leadership or leadership in ethics?.” Australian Journal of Early Childhood, Vol.25, no.1, p. 40. Paton, R. A., & McCalman, J. 2008. Change management: A guide to effective implementation. Sage. Pettigrew, A. M., Woodman, R. W., & Cameron, K. S. 2001. “Studying organizational change and development: Challenges for future research.” Academy of management journal, Vol.44, no.4, p.697-713. Quattrone, P., & Hopper, T. 2001. “What does organizational change mean? Speculations on a taken for granted category.” Management Accounting Research, Vol.12, no.4, p.403-435. Spangenberg, H., & Theron, C. C. 2005. “Promoting ethical follower behaviour through leadership of ethics: The development of the ethical leadership inventory (ELI).” S. Afr. J. Bus. Manage, Vol.36, no.2, p.1-18. Sturdy, A., & Grey, C. 2003. “Beneath and beyond organizational change management: Exploring alternatives.” Organization, Vol.10, no.4, p.651-662. Todnem By, R. 2005. “Organisational change management: A critical review.” Journal of Change Management, Vol.5, no.4, p.369-380. Vaughan, G. B. 1992. Dilemmas of Leadership: Decision Making and Ethics in the Community College. Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco CA 94104. PART 2: Reflection During my career, I have worked as an administrative manager in England based firm. My responsibility had been directing the activities of the junior staff and ensuring that there is coordination of various administrative activities in the organisation. The job involved use of personal judgement in most cases especially when choosing the right course of action. As an administrator one is expected to have knowledge in organisation policies, procedures and all regulations. This reflection essay looks at social network, social media and the contemporary work expectation based on my experience in the organisation. During my tenure as the administrative manager, I came to realise that the use of social network in the organisation was growing. Employees were using the social networks to share personal information which in some cases was related to their employment (Aula, 2010). The use of social networks in the organisation initially created some difficulties. There was cyberloafing and some of the employees used to share sensitive work information. This was among the first tasks that I tackled as an administrator. I had realised that social media helped in social networking in the organisation. It was also an important part in enhancing contemporary work expectations. Through use of social technologies, the employees were able to voice their concerns. It was a means in which the employees could communicate and share their grievances. I wanted to embrace social media as a voice channel for the employees while at the same time ensuring that it did not have negative impact on the organisation. The first step I carried out on the issue was arranging for a seminar on social media and social networking. During the seminar, I explained to the employees the need for having social network in the organisation. I also made it clear that social network must only be used in a manner that does not compromise the image of the organisation. During this seminar, it was agreed that the organisation was to draft a code of conduct on social media. The main aim was to govern the use of social media in the organisation to ensure that there was no misuse. I was sure that by regulating social media, I would be able to reduce misuse of social media in the organisation. The code of conduct was also a means of warning the employees on the possible areas that the organisation controlled in social media. I made it clear that the organisation was considering monitoring their usage of internet to prevent cyberloafing and misuse of company properties. Despite this, I assured all workers that their right to privacy was to be upheld. Through responsible use of social media in my organisation, we were able to move into an open model of public relations. The organisation contents became available for online public consumption. This led to high level of openness due to the unique environment where sharing was made easy. The organisation created a page on the social network where public could post reviews on products and also participate in debates. There was an evolutionary development of products as the organisations could look at what the consumers prefers through opinions. The benefits that were accrued through electronic word of mouth were immense. Through responsible use of social media, it became possible to build the organisation reputation and build good relationship with the stakeholders (Sophia van Zyl, 2009). I utilised social media in the organisation to build relationships. This is through creation of social networks that led to positive image and reputation. The relationship between the firm and stakeholders was able to blossom. Social media led to dialogic relationship where the organisation created a relationship with the public over the internet. This is through exchange of ideas and opinions (DiMicco et al., 2008). There was an emotional connection between the consumers, organisation and workers. As an administrator, I was expected to ensure that social media did not have an adverse impact on the organisation perfoamcne. I knew that social media if not well managed can lead to legal and financial risks (Jones, Temperley & Lima, 2009). I realised that social media impacted all aspects of an organisation. I had to come up with a clear strategy in which the social media was to be utilised. This made it possible to have social media as an advantage to organisation and employee through social networking. Social media provided an avenue which could also be used for socialisation and on boarding. This helped a lot in reducing turnover, enhancing employment compatibility and increasing job satisfaction. I worked with other stakeholders to ensure that social sites were not used to spread damaging or inappropriate information. This is through ensuring that employees do not post information that can lead to defamation. The social media guidelines that were drafted prohibited creation of subcultures. This was aimed at enhancing inclusion rather than division (Bennett et al., 2010). I worked hard to ensure that cyberloafing was eliminated. This is through alerting the workers that the organisation was monitoring the time spent online. I also encouraged the employees to be more careful when utilising the organisation properties. One of the major advantages that I was able to see on social networks was enhanced branding and marketing. The organisation was able to reach new customers, enhance their loyalty and save time and cost. Conclusion As an administrator, I always consider my role in adoption of social network in the organisation as one of the greatest achievement. I was able to make sure that social media was utilised responsibly in the organisation. The organisation was able to have strong social network and good relations with the stakeholders. There was also an increase in organisation perfoamcne through increased sales, enhanced marketing and branding. I was able to meet my work expectations during this time and ensure that organisation assets were not misused. Social media helps a lot in social networking and expected organisation perfoamcne. Despite this, it is important to ensure that it does not lead to legal and financial risks. This is through setting a guideline on social media use and encourage responsible use. References Aula, P. 2010. “Social media, reputation risk and ambient publicity management.” Strategy & Leadership, Vol.38, no.6, p.43-49. Bennett, J., Owers, M., Pitt, M., & Tucker, M. 2010. Workplace impact of social networking. Property Management, Vol.28, no.3, p.138-148. DiMicco, J., Millen, D. R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., & Muller, M. 2008. Motivations for social networking at work. In Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 711-720). ACM. Jones, B., Temperley, J., & Lima, A. 2009. “Corporate reputation in the era of Web 2.0: the case of Primark.” Journal of Marketing Management, Vol.25, no.9-10, p.927-939. Sophia van Zyl, A. 2009. “The impact of Social Networking 2.0 on organisations.” The Electronic Library, Vol.27, no.6, p.906-918. Read More