Introduction
Organizational changes are inevitable because businesses constantly apply new technologies to their operation systems. Though it is necessary to adapt to a new technology, managing human capital is a key factor to consider while formulating a new company’s vision. Leaders can only strengthen a vision statement of an organization through an effective leadership style.
As such, effective leadership entails influencing people in an organization to carry out innovative tasks in order to accomplish the proposed vision of a firm (Mears, 2009).
A good vision development strategy can yield positive outcome on an organization’s performance as well as on the lives of its workers, making the company to sustain a competitive advantage. However, this can only be achieved by outlining the process of coming up with the new vision, as well as highlighting the leadership style that would motivate employees towards attaining the vision.
Discussion
A vision statement can only be sustained if the management engages multiple stakeholders in its implementation, since stakeholders help to build businesses around innovation, flexibility, and customer service (Mears, 2009), thus facilitating a competitive advantage.
Even though it is the responsibility of the executive managers to outline the vision statement, it is imperative to note that the stakeholders occupy a central place its implementation. Therefore, a company’s vision can be successfully achieved if the firm outlines the vision statement at the strategic level, the functional level, and the workplace level.
In the strategic level, the management should outline the proposition of the intended changes in the vision statement through a number of stakeholders, including the government, labor union managers, and top executives. This is imperative because a successful change in vision statement can only be enhanced by combining the internal knowledge with the external knowledge consulting teams, and then striking a balance between the external and the internal stakeholders (Mears, 2009).
The functional level calls for a close cooperation with the employees of the organization. At this level, it is the responsibility of the management to assess the needs of the employees in relation to the proposed vision. This should bring rise to a number of questions: what are the features of innovation that the workers consider as motivator? What do workers anticipate as some of the disadvantages that would result from the innovation? And most importantly, what do workers anticipate as some of the advantages that would result from the innovation?
The answers to these questions should be achieved through a brainstorming session that comprises of employees who have dissimilar theoretical backgrounds relative to innovation.
This emanates from the fact that a company’s vision is greatly enhanced through leaders who adapt a leadership style of sharing their personal knowledge and opinions with all their employees (Mears, 2009). Through sharing of views, the management should realize that one of the main challenges experienced by an organization while coming up with a new vision is inadequate training.
However, this challenge can be countered by adapting a talent development approach, which takes into account that organizations that deal with innovative technology should always assess the talents of its employees in order to outline the level of competence along the new line of operation. Therefore, the management should encourage the employees to develop their skills before the actual shift occurs, as this helps to eradicate fear and resistance to the proposed vision.
The workplace level, which is the final level, revolves around carrying out an assessment that determines the degree at which the employees are required to organize themselves in order to facilitate transformation of the company’s vision.
Adapting a proper transition is imperative since the rate at which change is achieved can produce positive or negative results. The negative results, however, can be eradicated by getting all employees involvement in the vision.
Therefore, each head of department should take the responsibility of communicating the transition plan of the innovation to the employees by using hard copies as well as the company’s website. The employees should report any discrepancies, which should then be handled by the management using rules and regulations that are in line with the organizational culture (Mears, 2009).
References
Mears, M. (2009). Leadership elements: A guide to building trust. New York: iUniverse.