Purpose of Assignment The purpose of this assignment is to provide an opportunity for the student to integrate and apply the individual and organizational leadership concepts/tools learned during this course by developing an action plan for organizational change. Assignment Steps Resources: Reading Materials (Week’s 1-6) Assignments for Week’s 1-5) Mastering Leadership Self-Assessment Additional research Review course assignments for Weeks 1-5, including the results of the Mastering Leadership Self-Assessment taken in Week 1. Select an organizational change you would recommend for your workplace or a previous employer. Develop a 1,050 to 1,225-word action plan as a leader within this organization to address the recommended organizational change. Include the following: Identify the organizational change along with supporting rationale and process steps you would use to implement the change – prioritize the order in which they should be taken. outline steps using a formal change management process model – this is where research is helpful Include both individual and organizational leadership actions. Integrate and apply the individual and organizational leadership concepts/tools learned during this course and Mastering Leadership Self-Assessment Scholarly citations must be shown to support your rationale and proposed actions. Format your assignment consistent with APA guidelines. Attachments area

 

Change Management

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Introduction

Change is often triggered by natural circumstances or a well-planned and adopted change, which focuses on continuous development or growth. As such, organizational change constitutes the process whereby organizations change their structure, operational methods, strategies, and technologies or at times change their organizational culture. Change often happens in organization shaving been driven by natural mechanisms like market forces of competition, domination or expansion. Per se, it is important for both the organization and the specific leadership steering the change process to be critical in the handling of the matter. In mastering leadership self-assessment, leadership circle profile is critical in examining the creative competencies of a leader to manage change within an organization or to evaluate the reactive tendencies which can impede change (The Leadership Circle, (n.d)).  Thus, the paper seeks to critically evaluate a change process which can be implemented by an organization, the specific leadership competencies needed, the change models necessary and the role of the entire organization in such a process.

Organizational Change

As stated earlier, certain changes within the organization are triggered by market forces while others are generated by the firm itself to enhance productivity and increase profit margins against rivals (Carnall, 2018).   Within the firm, there is a growing concern within the employees which is a disgruntled voice regarding the limited office space hence crowding. Accordingly, the employees fell the tasks they are expected to accomplish at the office are desktop tasks which are done through the internet and computer. Major work is report writing and online data collection and analysis. Their halls are crowded and the corridors impassable. The employees want the office space increased or relocated to a bigger building. However, a change which can help from such a situation is to employ the use of telecommuting.

Telecommuting is the ability of employees to work for home or places of their comfort and deliver results to the organization. Allowing the workforce according to their priority to work away from the office space would reduce office congestion, and reduce office space used (Peck, 2017). The organization would save a lot of time, resources and increase efficiency and effectiveness within the organization should such a change process managed properly.

Lewin`s Model of Change Management

Burke 2017 assert that according to Kurt Lewin, there are three significant stages of change, the freeze, change and refreeze stages that if correctly utilized by organizations the change process can be a success.

1. Unfreeze

Lewin state that before change can occur, there must be a motivation for the change itself. The first stage for the management to take is to upset the current status quo. The change management team needs to enlighten the workforce for the need to change. It involves preparing the entire organization to admit that indeed change is necessary. This stage involves breaking values, traditions, practices, behaviors, and attitudes which are being used (Burke, 2017). It comprises of the most difficult task of the management. The key concept involves the ability to point specific compelling message of a reason as to why operations must be changed. As such, declining sales increased consumer complaints and poor financials.

 

1. Change

The transition of the organization from freezing to change doesn’t happen instantly but takes time. The people must reconcile that change is taking place and work towards making it a success. It is vital to mention that certain people thrive under the status quo as thus any change affects them significantly. However, the change process must be institutionalized. New values, attitude, modus operandi, and culture must be institutionalized to assist realize faster transition. Employees within the organization according to Lewin, must understand how the change will benefit them at an individual level and as a group in the course of their duties (Burke, 2017). Effective communication and time, are therefore the two key pillars of the stage.

1. Refreeze

At this level, people have embraced the change and are working towards making the change a success. The values, attitudes, and culture they adopted must thus be institutionalized to anchor the change. Only if the change has been effectively frozen back, will another change process be implementable. The leadership must also celebrate the change success with the employees hence help them in finding a closure.

Organizational and Individual leadership actions

Both individuals and organizational management are involved in the change process hence have various roles to place.

 

• Individual leadership actions

 

The individual leader, according to the Leadership Circle 2018, which is a masterpiece of the mastering leadership self-assessment, advances the creative competencies of a leader to be significant in the change process. Creative competency indicates how a leader is able to integrate vision with strategies which will involve all employees during the change process. The individual leader would need to determine exactly what is the problem and needs to change. Subsequently, the leader must create the need for change within the organization.  He/she would then be an effective communicator, team leader and be ready to learn and build his/her leadership competencies.

 

• Organizational Actions

 

According to Tams 2018, the organization would basically sponsor the change process which has been proposed by the leader. However, the organization through the stakeholders or higher management officials must incorporate an effective communication system, involved to discredit rumors, empower the action by creating employee involvement, and other stakeholders during the change process. As such, during the refreezing stage, the management must ensure that the change is anchored in the organizational culture. Additionally, ways of sustaining the telecommuters must be developed through the creation of a reward system, leadership support, and creating a system to get feedback from telecommuting employees. Hayes 2018 emphasizes that the management must hence adopt a system to provide support to telecommuting employees in terms of training which will keep everybody supported. Training helps to institutionalize the change and make it part of the organizational culture and daily routine activities of the organization. The capacity to be effective telecommuters can only be seen from such efforts.

Conclusion

In summary, the management of organizational leadership will be responsible for creating an enabling environment to unfreeze, change and refreeze in the change process. Creative competencies are vital in igniting a change process within the organization.  An individual leader would be creative enough to trigger the change that would enhance profitability and competitive advantage over rival organizations. The leader would have leadership competencies enough to detect the need for change and steer the change process for the organization. The leader would thus foster team spirit, courageous and authentic, have integrity, consultative, and decisive.

 

References

Burke, W. W. (2017). Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.

Carnall, C. (2018). Managing change. Routledge.

Hayes, J. (2018). The theory and practice of change management.

Peck E. (2017). Proof That Working From Home Is Here To Stay: Even Yahoo Still Does It. Huffington Post. Retrieved on 31st October 2018 from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/18/the-future-is-happening-now-ok_n_6887998.html

Tams C. (2018). Why We Need To Rethink Organizational Change Management. Forbes. Retrieved on 31st October 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/carstentams/2018/01/26/why-we-need-to-rethink-organizational-change-management/#322d3d42e93c

The Leadership Circle (2018). Leadership Circle Profile. Retrieved on 31st October 2018 from https://leadershipcircle.com/products/leadership-circle-profile/

The Leadership Circle (n.d). The Leadership Circle Profile. https://www.schoutenglobal.com/media/1231/the-leadership-circle-profile-brochure.pdf