Upload
dhon-calda
View
243
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
CREATING POSITIVE CHANGE:
The Ultimate Test of Leadership
Don Stepherson V. Calda, Ma.Ed. Leadership and Management of Change
Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Management
Department of Graduate Studies
Divine Word College of Calapan
Infantado St. Calapan City
(043) 288-8686 local 108 / (043) 441-0553
+63917-558-3645
March 2012
2
―Leadership means making a difference, creating a positive
change; providing the impetus that creates an atmosphere of
change that improves the world, or at least the small part of
the world around us; leadership is characterized by sustained
action over time. Leadership is the stretch of changing things
that can be changed, of providing new thinking, new energy, to
the current situation‖. These are the words uttered by Dr.
Marjorie Bowman (2010), a famous medical doctor and professor in
Pennsylvania when asked about her definition of leadership.
These words are also my main theme is exploring the idea of
leaders being change makers. Leaders acting as change makers
creating positive change in the society are best exemplified by
their subtle actions that lead to positive changes or
differences in the community where he or she belongs. But let us
first discover the value of leadership.
It is said that few things are more important to human
activity than leadership. Effective leadership helps a nation
through times of peril and confusion. In a larger sense, it
makes a business organization successful. It enables foundation
and different agencies to fulfill its mission. Parent’s
effective leadership enables children to grow strong and healthy
and at the same time productive and responsible members of the
society (Mills, 2005). The absence of leadership then is equally
dramatic in its effects. Without leadership, organizations move
3
too slowly, stagnate and lose their ways. Companies will move
without any sense of direction. Much of the literature available
about organizations stresses decision-making and implies that
decision-making is timely, complete, and correct, then things
will go well. Yet, a decision by itself changes nothing. After a
decision is made, an organization faces the problem of
implementation – how to get things done in a timely and
effective way. Problem of implementation are really issues about
how leaders influence the behavior of the people and workers
around him. Leaders’ task should change the course of events and
overcome resistance so that the organization will move forward
with a sense of direction. Leadership, in this sense, is crucial
in implementing decisions successfully.
Each of us, members of the society recognizes the
importance of leadership when we vote for our government and
political leaders. We realize that it matters who is in office
so there will be equal participation in government affairs. With
this, we participate in elections to choose the best candidate
that would definitely impart change in the society. In business,
investors recognize the importance of business leadership when
they say that a good leader can make a success of a weak
business plan, but that a poor leader can ruin even the best
plan (Mills, 2005).
4
Generally, we define leadership as a process by which one
person influences that thoughts, attitudes and behaviors of
others. Leaders set a direction for the rest of the members;
they help the members to see what lies ahead; they help the
members to visualize what the organization or the community
might achieve; leaders encourage and inspire the members. But
the definition does not stop there. After setting direction and
encouraging people to move and support the aim of the group,
then leaders will definitely create positive changes and will
make the group progressive. If these happen, then leaders are
then underwent the true test of leadership.
Without leadership, a group of human beings quickly
degenerates into argument and conflict, because they see things
in different ways and learn toward different solutions.
Leadership helps to point out in the same direction and harness
our efforts jointly (Bass, 1985). Leadership is the ability to
get other people to do something significant that they might not
otherwise do. As creators of positive change, leaders energize
people toward a goal. But the ability of a leader to create
positive change is highly influenced by his followers. Daft
(2005) posits that without followers, leaders are not leaders
although followers may only come after a long wait. True
leadership is sometimes hard to distinguish from false
leadership, which is merely a form of pretending. Let us take
5
the example of Winston Churchill. During the 1930s, Sir Winston
Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965) was the foremost opponent
of appeasement of Germany. At the time, with fresh memories of
the First World War, the public did not wish to listen. However,
by September 1939 Britain was at war with Germany and in May
1940, Churchill became Prime Minister. His Premiership brought a
new energy to the organization of the war effort. His stirring
speeches and public visits helped galvanize public opinion to
continue the fight against Nazism. His leadership was
particularly vital in 1940-41, the period between the Nazi
conquest of much of Europe and the entry into the war of Russia
and America (United Kingdom Parliament, 2012). Churchill urged
his fellow Englishmen to face the coming threat from Hitler’s
Germany. Most of the Englishmen preferred to believe that Hitler
could be appeased – do that a war could be avoided. They were
engaged in wishful thinking about the future and denial that the
future would be dangerous. They resented Churchill for insisting
that they must face danger. They rejected his leadership. He had
very few followers. But finally, reality intruded – Germany went
too far and war began. At this point, Churchill was acclaimed
for his foresight, and became prime minister of the United
Kingdom during the Second World War. During this period, almost
all of Englishmen accepted his leadership willingly. Churchill
was a real and great leader. He established positive changes in
6
the life of the people during the time of peril. But there are
also people who wish to appear to be leaders, but are not
actually. Many people, even in our world today, say that they
are leading others; they posture as if they are setting
direction and inspiring others. Yet often they are merely
pretending. Mills (2005) cited the old saying that the way to
become a leader is to find a parade and run to the front of it.
We often refer to a person ―leading‖ a parade, but walking at
the front is not really leadership unless the person in front is
actually choosing the direction! If the person in this situation
is not choosing the direction, Mills (2005) said, and then being
at the front of the line is merely a way to pretend to be a
leader.
Leadership can be used for good or ill. In the Second World
War, Hitler seemed to be a leader of the German people, but he
set an evil direction. He had great leadership skill, but put
them to terrible uses. Sometimes people in business use
leadership skills to exploit others. Sometimes, people in
charitable organizations and foundations use leadership skills
to benefit themselves rather than the people who are needy,
helpless and are supposed to be helped. Leadership skills can be
perverted to pursue bad ends. Then if this is the case, what is
the ultimate test of leadership? We will now go back to the
definition of leadership by Dr. Bowman (2010):
7
―Leadership means making a difference,
creating a positive change; providing the
impetus that creates an atmosphere of
change that improves the world or at least
the small part of the world around us;
leadership is characterized by sustained
action over time. Leadership is the stretch
of changing things that can be changed, of
providing new thinking, new energy, to the
current situation‖
This definition will give us the idea that leadership does
not only rely on talents, skills, potentials or initiatives.
Leadership tends to create positive changes – tangible results
towards the betterment of the community. Leaders then, aside
from being the frontier, should be change-makers.
Heraclitus, a wise man from antiquity, once said that the
only thing remains constant is change (Alkahtani, 2011). In this
age of social confusion and conflict, the society’s needs keep
changing. This issue keeps arising at present. The world has
become faster-paced now more than before. Kotter and Cohen
(1996) mentioned that the rate of change is not going to slow
down anytime soon and he added that the competition in most
industries will probably speed up more in the next few decades.
In this situation, the requirements for being leaders have also
changed. Leaders should be able to adapt to changes, and at the
same time, implement change. Daft (2005) points out that the
management and leadership environment has changed from stability
to uncertainty. In this relation, Yukl (2002) stated the
definition of leadership nowadays is a process of interaction
8
between leaders and subordinates where a leader attempts to
influence the behavior, actions and attitudes of his or her
subordinates to accomplish the organizational goals positively.
Krause (2004) also mentioned the leadership is described as the
selection of bases of positive influence. With these novel
definitions of leadership, there is only one noticed variable –
leaders are creators of positive change.
For true leaders, creating positive change can be
disorienting (Badaracco, 2002). Most people tend to dislike
change because it deviates from patterns of stability and can
breed uncertainty and fear. How leaders manage change in an
organization speaks volumes to how change is accepted by the
members, subordinated or stakeholders. Acknowledging the
characteristics of change are vital, however, and it must first
be noted that change is inevitable, non-linear, must come from
the top down and the bottom up as a shared responsibility and
change involves important personal dimensions that cannot be
overlooked (Goodwin, 2006). Adaptation to change has become a
common agenda for leaders today. The later decades of the
twentieth century will go down to history as an ―era of
perpetual change‖ (Noer, 1997). According to Bainbridge (1996),
change is no longer an irregular outing, an inconvenient
upheaval to be undertaken once every ten years. Change is
something we have to learn to live with, to structure and to
9
manage. Change is here to stay, and the winners will be the ones
who cope with it. This has been the challenge for modern
leaders: create effective change.
One of the most common and potentially divisive topics in
work organizations centers on change. There are people who think
their work organization is too changeable while others think
their organization is too complacent (Bruhn, 2004). Change is
considered good when it has beneficial effects. When change
threatens the position of security, then this change is
destructive and unnecessary. Because of this, many people tend
to become critics of change that leaders that manages change.
Leaders of change, who in one way or another imprinted positive
change become experts in growing their organization. Thus, they
create and lead change. Other leaders see change as an intrusion
and try to minimize its effects on their organization.
Nevertheless, leaders should be able to initiate positive change
in their respective line of work.
In our society, we consider leaders as role models who keep
their eye on their organizations’ mission while they adapt to
changing environment and maintain a forward momentum (Bennis,
1997). Leaders who lead positive change and those who manage it
have the same objective i.e. achieve organizational goals.
Leadership is accepting responsibility to create conditions that
enable others to achieve shared purpose in the face of
10
uncertainty. Leaders accept responsibility not only for their
individual ―part‖ of the work, but also for the collective
―whole.‖ Leaders can create conditions interpersonally,
structurally, and/or procedurally. The need for leadership (a
need often not met) is evident when encounters with the
uncertain demand adaptive, heuristic, or innovative response:
past practices are breached, new threats loom, a sudden
opportunity appears, social conditions change, and new
technology changes the rules, and so on (Heifetz, 1998). With
such work scenario, leaders’ primary goal is to lead change to
avoid such uncertainty.
We have already established the role of leaders in creating
positive change towards success. The next question is how do
leaders initiate positive change? The initiatives will be the
ultimate test of leadership and its result.
The key process in the success of initiating positive
change for organizational and group leaders is understanding and
insight about the process of change and the key drivers that
make for successful change in practice. The presence of change
knowledge and initiatives of leaders do not guarantee success,
but its absence ensures failures (Barber & Fullan, 2005). It is
not easy to rectify this deficit. Policy makers who are leaders
in their own rights do not want to be slowed down by knowledge
of change. It takes time to address this knowledge — even
11
though, ironically, they are eventually slowed down even more by
failed implementation. Leaders believe that change is
disruptive, messy and complicated (Wilson, 1992). Even with the
best laid plans, events rarely occur as they were predicted.
Nadler (1998) argued that real change in real organization is
intensely personal and enormously political. Change processes
entail not only structures and the way of doing tasks but also
the performance, expectations and perceptions of all involved
parties. Change has become widespread and unpredictable, but
still manageable. Leaders who really wanted to introduce change
to create positive result must be able to live in this
principle.
To effectively adapt change, leaders have a daunting task
ahead of them in a variety of operational ad procedural areas.
Processes involving change must be redesigned and redefined and
adapted to certain geographical and cultural settings. In this
way, leaders will be able to understand the structure being
changed. Leadership styles and management procedures must also
shift and adapt, and ways of customer and stakeholder relations
should be in parallel with the desired change. Technological
advances and capabilities must also be introduced, and
preparation of workforce to with the new systems is needed
(Bainbridge, 1996). The creation and design of change processes
within the organization is most often a role of leaders within
12
it. Change processes which encompass human resources,
information technology adoption and upgrades, tools and
techniques as well as basic rules and controls within the
organization are the mandate of leaders engaged in the
management change. Thus, a leader who proposed for change should
be able to look at the entirety of the processes before
initiating change. Leaders must be able to study, refine and
execute changes in such a way that it would be beneficial not
only to the organization but to all its members. It is up to the
leaders to make these changes initiatives tangible rather than
abstract and to awaken the enthusiasm and ownership of the
proposed changes within the structure and workforce of the
organization. To use the words of Bainbridge (1996), a myriad of
details and effects must be acknowledged and addressed for
successful adaption to change in all sectors of an organization.
Nadler (1998) emphasized the importance of leaders in
organizing and maintaining a climate of change within the
organization. Although participation of all the members of the
organization is needed, the role of leaders in the change
process and creating positive result out of it is crucial.
Dubbed as the ―champions of change‖ (Nadler, 1998), it is the
leaders, - the top management players who keep the change
process moving while maintaining the operational integrity of
the organization anchored towards tangible results. Leaders
13
promoting change provide direction, protection, orientation,
conflict control, and the shaping of norms while overseeing the
change process within the corporate structure (Conger, et al.,
1999). Furthermore, Conger et al. (1999) identified steps in
creating change and transforming an organization namely: a)
establishing a sense of urgency; b) forming a powerful guiding
coalition; c) creating a vision; d) communicating the vision; e)
empowering others to act on the vision; f) planning for and
creating short-term wins; and h) institutionalizing new
approaches. These approaches should be learned by leaders who
wanted to adapt change.
Bainbridge (1996) outlined a five-step process of redesign
for leaders undergoing and initiating planned change. The five
steps included: a) the design stage to determine overall
requirements; b) the definition stage where the design is
specified and documentation of the design stage requirements
occurs; c) the development stage, where new capabilities are
cultivated through training, education and restricting; d) the
dismantling stage, where redundant parts of the organization are
removed or converted into new capabilities; and e) the
deployment stage, where new capabilities are introduced into the
new organizational movement, both internally and externally.
This design process should be accomplished by leaders within
carefully arranged process architecture. Bainbridge (1996) added
14
that this design process includes the link to strategic
objectives, the definition of measures and the production of the
high-level design itself. The vision of change must be expressed
as clearly as possible and used consistently to spearhead every
step of the change design process, including the specification
of design principles. Pettigrew (1988) pointed out the wisdom of
considering the content, the context and the process of change
within the organization. For leaders, Pettigrew (1988) added
that the need to explore the content, context and the processes
of change must be done in due time.
Amid all the advances and advantages for leaders to create
change, Noer (1997) still cautioned leaders not to rely too
heavily on external tools for change. The leader, as a person,
is the most important tool for change. The leader’s spirit,
insight, wisdom, compassion, values and learning skills are all
important facets in the capabilities to lead others to embrace
change. To be lasting, deep change must only be made amidst
organizational layers, but within each of the players themselves
(Noer, 1997). Deep personal change can be uncomfortable, yet the
need of each member of the organization, not only the leader, to
become empowered and internally driven is essential for the
success in this era of change and involvement.
The leader who instigates change within an organization
desire positive result, though, often subject to speculative
15
suspicion. Nadler (1998) agreed that implementing change faces
resistance and crossroads. The transition stage introduced by a
leader, where the change process is instigated must be handled
expertly and with enthusiasm. Leaders must own and align the
proposed changes, setting expectations, and modeling and
communicating the rationale to all members of the organization
who, in one way or the other, will affect by the proposed
changes.
Quinn (1996) enthused that we are all leaders – thus, all
potential change agents. Leaders discipline their talents;
deepen their perceptions about what is possible. Having
experienced deep change in them – metanioa – leaders are able to
bring deep change to the systems around them, thus, creating
positive change towards the accomplishment of the goals set.
Leaders who have embraced deep change personally are able to
design change processes that reflect a heroic yet enlightened
leader stance, one that imparts enthusiasm and vitality into the
other members and creates a new perspective of the logic and
wisdom of moving with the flow of change.
To survive the effects of continuous change, leaders need
to accomplish three major tasks namely: a) to shape the
political dynamics of the change process; b) to motivate change;
and c) to manage the transition period (Nadler, 1998).
16
In conclusion, leaders are responsible for setting the
context of change within the organization. A culture and vision
must be cultivated to support the planned change and at the same
time, deal with unplanned change. Leaders must be able to
counsel, teach and coach all the people to be affected by change
so they may be able to properly adapt to the flow of change. For
lasting change to occur, the general identity of the
organization must be congruent with the vision and goals
inherent in the change process proposed. To use the words of
Conger et al. (1999), leaders should share fundamental
characteristics that allow them to enable organizational members
in the change process.
In the end, leaders who create positive change are adjudged
not only with the result but also overcoming the limits brought
about by the introduced change. Leaders should have the vision
for the greater potential of the organization. The litmus and
ultimate test then of a true leader is his ability to create
positive changes in an organization and the lives of the people
relying in it.
17
References:
Alkahtani, A., Abu-jarad, D., Sulaiman, M. and Nikbin, D.
(2011). The Impact of Personality and Leadership Styles on
Leading Change Capability of Malaysian Managers. Australian
Journal of Business and Management Research, 1, 70-99.
Badaracco, J. (2002). Leading quietly: An unorthodox guide to
doing the right thing. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press.
Bainbridge, C. (1996). Designing for change: A practical guide
for business transformation. New York: John Wiley.
Bass, B. (1985). Leadership and Performance beyond Expectations.
New York: Free Press.
Barber, M. & Fullan, M. (2005). Tri-level development: Putting
systems thinking into action. Education Week, 24(25), 32-
35.
Bennis, W. & Nanus B. (1997). Leaders: Strategies for Taking
Change. New York: Harper Business.
Bruhn, Dr. J. (2004). Leaders who create change and those who
manage it [Electronic Version]. The Health Care Manager,23,
132-140.
Conger, J., Sprietzer, G. & Lawler E. (eds.) (1999). The
leader’s change handbook: An essential guide to setting
direction and taking action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Daft, L.(2005). The Leadership Experience, 3rd Edition.
Goodwin, K. (2006). Team of rivals: The political genius of
Abraham Lincoln. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Heifetz, R. (1998). Leadership without Easy Answers. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Kaminski, J. (2000). Leadership and Change Management:
Navigating the Turbulent Frontier. Retrieved March 27,
2012, from http://www.nursing-
informatics.com/N4111/changemant.pdf.
18
Kinsey, S. (2010). Quiet leadership: how to create positive
change without the noise and negativity. Journal of
Extension, 48, 1-4.
Kotter, J. & Cohen, D. (1996). The heart of Change: Real Life
Stories of How People Change Their Organizations
Krause, D. (2004). Influence-based leadership as a determinant
of the inclination to innovate and of innovation-related
behaviors. An empirical investigation. The Leadership
Quarterly, 15,79-102.
Mills, Q. (2005). The Importance of Leadership. Retrieved March
20, 2012, from
http://www.mindedgepress.com/PDFs/htlhtl.pdf.
Nadler, D. (1998). Champions of change: How CEOs and their
companies are mastering the skills of radical change. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Noer, D. (1997). Creating strategic change: designing flexible,
high-performing organization. New York: John Wiley.
Pettigrew, A. (ed.) (1988). The management of strategic change.
New York: B. Blackwell.
Quinn, R. (1996). Deep Change: Discovering the leader within.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
United Kingdom Parliament. (2012). Winston Churchill: The
Greatest Briton. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/churchill.pdf.
Wilson. D. (1992). A strategy of change: Concepts and
controversies in the management of change. New York: Rout
ledge.
Yukl. G. (2002). Leadership in Organizations 5th Edn. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall.