Leadership and Change Management in a University Report

Background – Scenario

I am thinking back on a time in my working life when I was responsible for managing an academic department – the Economics Department- at a local management sciences university. As a part of my responsibilities, I had to make rather difficult choices about people management strategies while the university was undertaking a change process in its structure and organization.

I hade been newly appointed externally as the department head of the Economics Department. The department employed a total of 20 employees, including faculty members and administrative, who I was responsible for. One of the major problems was that the department was previously divided into two organizational sections; Macroeconomics and Microeconomics departments. There was unhealthy competition between the two departments with regards to the number of students that registered.

Therefore, these two sections had recently been amalgamated for the purpose of more efficiency, centralization, unity, better communication, healthy competition and an effective curriculum. The problem was that the process of amalgamation had been mostly handled by the top management- the board of directors and the dean- in a very non-communicative and directive manner. This is why most employees felt insecure in talking about their fears. Also, the entire process had taken significantly longer than what had been expected. This, in addition to very little information along the way was causing many of the problems related to change.

Furthermore, speculations about redundancies were rife for a long time since the amalgamation had first started. Eventually, the fears of the employees had become reality and many forced redundancies had taken place. In one particular sub-section in the newly formed department – the administrative section – many positions were made redundant. This is because there was now one department to manage and this required lesser administration. The employees that were not made redundant were more insecure in their jobs than ever. What was worse that they could not express their fears because of the lack of communication between themselves and the management throughout

Owing to this, the staff had to reapply for their own jobs and consequently there were many negative perceptions about the values advocated by the university from the very start. The staff felt that the organization was going against its culture of doing things ‘with’ them. Instead, the organization was thought of as doing thing ‘to’ them. There was an element of ‘force’ throughout the change process. The staff felt that they were not a part of anything that happened around the campus but were used as puppets for the university to reach its long-term goals.

Finally, after amalgamation of the two sections into one department, the two groups had much difficulty in getting along. This was because there were previous biases and negative perceptions about the other group. In addition to these, each group held the other partly responsible for the forced redundancies that had taken place. What is more is that my predecessor was also a victim of redundancy. Therefore, this left me with my own insecurities to deal with.

Analysis and discussion

Leadership Approaches

Good leadership is what makes effective management (Murugun, pp. 329). Leadership is the approach you take to manage a team of people. In business, this team mostly consists of subordinates and those people who are usually at a lower level than the leader itself. Leadership has many functions that bring the team closer to their goals. The significance of leadership is reflected in the following functions: providing inspiration to employees, securing cooperation in the team, creating confidence among individuals, providing a secure environment for employees, implementing changes, maintaining discipline among the members, representing them, and setting goals (Murugun, pp.328).

There are many different kinds of leadership styles. For example, Likert’s four main leadership styles: Exploitative authoritative, Benevolent authoritative, Consultative and Participative styles (Likert 1967). Or , for example, Goleman’s, Boyatzis’ and McKee’s (2004) six emotional leadership styles: The Visionary Leader, the Coaching Leader, the Affiliative Leader, the Democratic Leader, the Pace-setting Leader and the Commanding Leader. But the leadership approach adopted by me was the Transformational Leadership Style.

Transformational Style of Leadership is adopted by leaders who persistently inspire the team members and works with them by incorporating intense communication. These leaders are looking to satisfy the needs of the team rather than making deals with them, like transactional leaders. They sometimes lead by delegating tasks so they do not necessarily lead from the face. For example, tasks given to them along with targets can be used to achieve their needs of self-actualization and even security. Security needs are fulfilled because they are being given jobs right away and throughout the change process. This helps them to see that these employees are still critical to the organization to get it going.

A transformational approach was necessary because throughout the change process, the employees were not being told anything about how the change would benefit them. This approach allowed me to talk to them about how change would be good for the whole organization, including the workforce. This helped to inspire my team of 20 employees and motivate them continually.

The assumptions for this kind of an approach to work is that people will usually follow the person who inspires them, this person with a vision can achieve great things and the he gets things done by putting in energy and enthusiasm (Changing Minds, 2009). Most of these assumptions were going for me and the biggest reason for this was that my predecessor had lost his job and I was thought to be facing the same insecurities as all the other employees. To see that I was trying to motivate them instead was inspiring for them to see.

I was also able to inject in a good amount of eagerness by delegating tasks to them and giving them targets. Teams, including, employees from both Macroeconomics and Microeconomic, were created and given tasks to complete within a cost and time budget. This generated healthy competition in the Economics Department because people from all subsections were working together to achieve targets. However, the problem was that they were working as individuals even though they working together in teams. They divided the tasks further and somehow assigned or tossed the tasks. Therefore, my policies were ineffective like that. What was needed was more communication between the two sets of employees at the same level rather than communication between management or the leader and the subordinates. This was employed by me during the conflict management stage as discussed in a later section.

Change Management Strategies

What makes an organization successful is its ability to keep evolving according to the needs of the organization. However, when this change is taking place, at the outset, it is important to identify the kind of change it is. Once the organization knows at what level the change is taking place, and what kind, it can develop strategies in the view of that. Why do you need to strategize? This is because most employees are resistant to change. Employing effective strategies decreases their resistance to change.

There are three major types of changes; developmental, transitional and transformational change. The change taking place in this scenario is the ‘transitional change’. This type of change is more difficult to implement than ‘developmental change’ and less challenging than ‘transformational change’ (Suite 101, 2007). It is when existing processes or procedures are improved by something that is entirely different (Anderson, 2001). For example, the university had never seen one Economic department before and hence, it was entirely new and different.

The transitional change does not imply that there will necessarily be a change in the culture or the behavior of the organization. However, the future of the organization is still unknown and this leaves the employees uncomfortable and insecure (Suite 101, 2007). Transitional change mostly involves mergers, acquisitions, implementing new technologies and the like. The merger of two departments onto one was almost like a merger of two companies also.

During the transitional phase, that is, when the new procedures are being implemented, employees must be communicated at all stages. Every time they experience something new, they must be talked to and explained the situation. This is important so that the employees feel that they are a part of the change and that they are not left behind while the department is being restructured and merged into one. Therefore, communication was one of the many things that were stressed by me.

The aim of the leader during a transitional change must be to increase employee involvement and make them a part of everything throughout the change process or the transitional phase. Increased employee involvement is important to decrease employee resistance. This, consequently, leads to decreased insecurity and instability. Therefore, throughout the change, I made sure to delegate tasks to the employees and increase their engagement.

Not much behavioral change or a change in the culture was required. The only change in behavior required from the employees was to learn how to work with people from the other department. Therefore, no strategy was used to deal with this. However, in my opinion, this could have been a mistake because the employees were feeling a change in the culture of the university. There actually was no change in culture. What could have been done was to communicate this to them and the fact that they were not required to change their behavior on the whole.

Finally, because transitional change implies that future is unknown, the university tried to make the future known instead. It held seminars on the outcome of the merger of two departments into one. Senior executives were invited to talk to the middle and lower level employees, especially, the administration employees, about the benefits to them and to the University of having a single department rather than two separate ones with separate policies and curricula.

Power and Political Issues

‘Power’ is the ability to get things done by influencing others so that they act in accordance to your wishes. ‘Politics’, on the other hand, refers to “getting things done your way”. Political behavior is said to be the “practical domain of power in action” (Buchanan & Badham, 1999, pp. 11).

Since I was more of a transformational leader, the power basis used mostly by me was referent power. This gave me the “capacity to influence others based on the identification and respect they had for the power-holder” (McShane & Travaglione, 2004, pp. 404). This is power based on the admiration of the power-holder and in my opinion; my subordinates admired me for motivating them when someone should have been giving me security about my job as well. My subordinates looked up to me and expected me to accept them on the completion of their tasks.

Referent power, in combination, with ‘legitimate power’ was used. This is power that is given based on the result of the power-holder’s position in the hierarchy (Reynolds & Cohort, 2002). For example, as I was appointed the Head of the Department, this gave me the power to influence the behavior of my twenty subordinates. I could give the tasks and expect them to be completed as I liked them to be completed.

This, together with referent power, enabled my employees to perform their duties better throughout the transitional phase. They understood who they were to report to and they reported better because of their respect for their leader. The merger of the two departments into work was tough for some administrative employees and for obvious reasons, they were resistant to it. To decrease their resistance, it was important to use legitimate power. However, it was more important to use referent power. Although, this power is not something I could have opted to use. It is supposed to come as a result of employee perception of my transformational leadership qualities such as confidence, trustworthiness, etc (Dorgan, W., 1994)

As the head of the department, I did not face any such managerial issues because the teams created by me, and the tasks delegated to them were being performed smartly and competitively. They were motivated because of the information that they had about my job, they could relate to me and so they could communicate with me. Therefore, tasks were being performed and that also productively. However, the only issue I faced in the form of political behavior was how some of the members of different departments that were also assigned to different teams were ‘attacking and blaming’ each other. This included giving the rival teams a bad image in the eyes of the decision maker and the department head, that is, me (McShane & Travaglione, 2004, pp. 413).

However, I quickly realized that the reason for this was past biases and animosities. To overcome this, I used the referent power I was blessed with and again made my subordinates communicate in a series of sessions and talk out their previous biases. Therefore, I did use my managerial or legitimate power as referent power to influence my subordinates.

Conflict Issues

The dynamics of conflict in this scenario mostly revolved around people from separate departments not being able to get along. They attacked and blamed others as soon as the opportunity arose. I believe that the source of this conflict was ‘communication problems’. There was resentment between the two departments because they believed that the other was responsible for the forced redundancies. In exception to that, they had previously competed in an unhealthy way as two separate departments. They were more interested in registering the highest number of students into their respective departments than in working together as a team. Therefore, they were using “stereotypes to explain past behaviors and anticipate future actions” (McShane & Travaglione, 2004, pp. 442).

Also, they were communicating amongst themselves ineffectively. This was heightening their negative perceptions about each other and was causing an escalation in the conflict cycle. This also lead to the problem of less motivation for communication in the future. This was especially difficult for me to handle because if people did not wish to talk, I had to find a way for them to hear each other out.

What the employees in these departments did not understand was that after amalgamation of the departments, both were on the same boat. Both sets of employees were resistant to change, both were insecure, and both were confused because of the lack of communication. Had they understood this much, workplace conflicts would have decreased by a fraction.

Therefore, my mission in such a situation was to generate communication between the both sets of employees. I had already created teams that included subordinates from both the subsections. These teams were delegated tasks and targets. They performed these tasks rather diligently in order to compete with other teams who also had employees from the other department. There was not much communication between the teams but most of them divided the task into subtasks and each was responsible for his own set of tasks. They worked in teams but as individuals. Therefore, my earlier policies were not effective in that although the employees were civilized, they were far from being cordial.

Therefore, the resources at stake in this scenario were flexible rather than fixed. There was room for a win-win orientation. I believed from the very beginning that the parties would find a mutually beneficial solution to their disagreements. This was because they were both working in the same organization and ultimately had the same goal of making the Economics department large by providing a better service. I had to make them understand that this was only possible if there was effective communication and teamwork. Therefore, the conflict management style that I applied in this scenario was ‘collaboration’. It is the only style that implies a win-win situation. A common ground was being found through problem solving.

We first identified what the problem was over a series of two sessions. These sessions were then adjourned so that people could understand the problems of the others and hence, develop psychological empathy for each other. Then, three sessions were held where possible solutions were examined (Gever & O’ Malley, 2009). Information was shared so common ground could be found between the two parties. Finally, these solutions were tested, evaluated, and accepted by both parties (Gever & O’ Malley, 2009).

The Role of Culture

Whenever organizational change takes place, a company must ensure that it is in line with the organizational culture; that both change and culture connect (Galpin, 1996). What is organizational culture? It is said to be “the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and beliefs governing the way employees within an organization think about and act on problems and opportunities” (McShane & Travaglione, 2004, pp. 534). No one thing makes up the organizational culture; instead, the culture is a montage of interrelated elements. These elements include physical structures, rituals and ceremonies, stories and legends, language, and most importantly, beliefs, values, and assumptions.

These elements have not been supportive of the change in this scenario, especially physical structures, values, beliefs and assumptions. What the employees valued previously all had a negative undertone during and after change. The amalgamation of the two departments of the university into one was a transitional change. This kind of a change has no implications of change in the organizational culture. The university had always had an employee-friendly culture. They believed in working with the employees rather than forcing the employees to work. These were also its espoused values; that is values that are socially desirable and that the organization wants to display as a public image. These were also enacted values, that is, the company truly valued this. For this reason, there were many goals of change – efficiency, competition, decentralization, unity, and many more- but a change in organizational culture was definitely not one of the goals.

However, as a result of change, employees began to have negative perceptions about the espoused and enacted values of the organization. They felt that the company was doing things to them instead of with them. This was not what the organization had desired as an outcome; therefore, handling something as unexpected as negativity towards the organizational culture was difficult. The organizations primary motive to manage the culture was that change could be implemented effectively. Management wanted the employees to feel that the change that was being undertaken was beneficial for them in the long-term. An organizational culture that encouraged communication at all levels could have been more conducive to this change.

In exception to the organizational culture, organizational design also plays a major role in implementing change or limiting it. In this scenario, the formal structure was being changed; the goal was to have a wider span of control, little formalization and decentralized decision making. Therefore, the culture had changed from a mechanistic structure to an organic one. The goal was to enable communication to flow in all directions and share information from all areas. A mechanistic culture, in my opinion, is more difficult to follow because it is rigid. For these reasons, a shift to organic structure was implemented. However, instead of making the employees happy, this shift in structure was limiting change because of employee insecurity and resistance to it.

An alternate structure that could have been more effective in this scenario was a ‘simple structure’. This is because the conditions were fairly simple, there were only twenty employees to coordinate, and each of them had could have broadly defined roles. It would have also allowed for flexibility.

Conclusion

Change is critical and inevitable for every organization. It is important to carry out if an organization wishes to stay in competition and respond to its evolving organizational needs. Just like any organization, this local management sciences university also undertook change. It undertook transitional change and so changed its organizational structure by combining two separate departments into one and appointed a department head. This was more like a merger. Since less administration was required for this one department, many forced redundancies in the administrative section took place. The employees at this level were affected the most and felt vulnerable, and insecure. They had negative perceptions about the university’s espoused values and thought that there had been a change in culture.

The structure that the company was aiming for was an organic structure with a wider span of network, decentralized decision making, and little bureaucracy and formalization. At the same time, it did not wish to change its organizational culture. It had enacted and espoused values where management did things with employees rather to them. They were assumed to be a part of everything. This simply means that the university empowered its employee. What it failed to do was to communicate with them at all levels.

This is where I came in with my transformational leadership approach. The fact that my predecessor had lost his job seemed to be working for me because the workforce thought that they could relate to me. I used this and other qualities to inspire them. I injected enthusiasm by creating teams that included people from both the departments, and delegated tasks to them with objectives. They performed these diligently but as individuals in teams. What was lacking throughout was effective communication. Ineffective communication was causing conflicts and, a lack of motivation to further communicate. As a transformational leader, I was able to use a combination of referent and legitimate power to resolve these managerial issues and workplace conflicts.

Throughout the transitional, the problem that was most inherent was the lack of communication. There was a lack of communication between the top management and the administrative employees as well as between the administrative employees of both the departments. So there was a lack of vertical as well as horizontal communication. The source of workplace conflict was also communication problems. Throughout, my major focus was to increase effective communication within the organization. This would create psychological empathy for each other and it would enable both sides as well as the management to understand all other parties.

To wrap up, change has to take place. More important is how to implement this change effectively. The primary focus must be to manage organizational culture, encourage effective communication, resolve any conflicts, and use power to influence rather than to coerce.

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