Premium Essay

Change and Leadership

In: Business and Management

Submitted By pinkshark
Words 6359
Pages 26
Discuss the role of leaders and leadership in serving as effective change agents.

Abstract

Change has an important place in the study of organizational life. Whether a corporate giant or a small start-up, every organization today faces the challenge to change and adapt, either as a response to the external environment or simply a deliberate internal procedure to re-look at business operations to maintain its viability.

Generally, people are usually inclined to defend the status-quo and resist change for a multitude of reasons ranging from a straightforward intellectual disagreement to deep-seated psychological factors. The degree of skepticism and resistance to change from employees make implementation difficult and their counter-productive behaviors tend to jeopardise the success of the change process and thus the intended objectives.

Successfully reducing resistance and motivating employees through the transition is vital in organizational change efforts. Salient factors from literature reviews in enabling organizational change are presented and the need of leadership and role of leaders as effective change agents is discussed in this essay.

Successful organisational change is about the interplay of all organizational elements such as human resources, systems and technologies. Good leaders and leadership skills have been identified as pivotal to garnering support of people in championing change initiatives that steer organisations to new frontiers. On the contrary, leaders with a perverse agenda may hamper the well intended change.

However, leaders are crucial to cast the vision and the leadership role of all is needed for reinforcing and directing sustainable change.

Keywords : organisational change, leadership, resistance, change agent, culture.

Introduction: Organisations and Change

From Mahatma Gandhi,

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