Introduction
The research paper focuses on change and innovation in organisations. It shows the relevance of managing changes and promoting innovation in companies. Change management and subsequent survival for organisations are important in the 21st century where competition and globalisation have become the defining terms for success (Amagoh 2008).
Therefore, in such a dynamic business environment, change has become the most relevant factor in modern business practices to assist firms to achieve their strategic goals and objectives on a long-term basis (Appelbaum, St-Pierre, & Glavas 1998). Organisational leadership should manage change effectively.
Change management, however, is not simple and in fact, many change initiatives tend to fail because of poor management. A nexus can be drawn between innovation and change in organisations. Innovation may imply change, and firms that tend to be innovative are good at successfully managing their change processes.
Organisational change may emanate from various sources, but with regard to innovation, the major sources of change are further disruptive innovation. It can also be incremental innovation, which drives change in an organisation. Changes can only be realised once they are implemented and therefore organisational stakeholders will opt to adopt them.
This may apply to small, incremental innovation and changes. However, disruptive innovation and change have widespread impacts both within and outside an organisation. Thus, such changes and innovation could cause conflicts and may require careful planning and implementation.
Change can come gradually or rapidly. However, they often present critical challenges to organisations in terms of management. Change and innovative processes involve several stakeholders who may agree or not agree on certain issues and therefore effective communication is necessary to enhance implementation and adaptation to change processes.
On this note, organisational change management and innovative capabilities depend on the ability or quality of its leadership. Leaders must play crucial roles in promoting change and innovation in their organisations. Without effective leadership, change and innovation rarely succeed, and Appelbaum, St-Pierre, and Glavas (1998) assert that the “largest barrier to “change” is not changes to technologies and work processes but changes involving people” (p. 289).
Change and Innovation
Change and innovation are important in organisations because they can use such opportunities to create and maintain competitive edge over others. Innovation involves using creative processes in order to produce tangible outcomes with potential values and realise the outcome of innovation through a leadership framework that provides opportunities for people to be innovative.
Still, others view innovation as a process of creating, accepting, and implementing new ideas, services, products, and processes. All these definitions reflect the aim to introduce new ways of production in new products and services for different markets. Entrepreneurs all over the world have celebrated success stories of their organisations.
Entrepreneurship has transformed the 21st century. It has reduced technical processes and introduced creativity and innovation. Scholars believe that entrepreneurs are innovators. Therefore, innovation has become a fundamental tool for entrepreneurship. Several firms have focused on innovations, but their results are not impressive.
On the other hand, others have noted fundamental improvements. Therefore, innovation has been responsible for marvellous achievements of the century. From a broad point of view, organisations rely on their growing idea repository created through formal structures to create competitive advantage.
Various developments, including technologies, financial difficulties, demographic workforce shifts, growing market opportunities, laws and regulations, new management practices and philosophies, restructuring and acquisition and mergers are exerting pressure on companies to innovate, change and remain dynamic.
Yet change and innovation are not simple processes while leadership capabilities could be impaired and continue to face several complex situations (Chuang 2013). In short, successful implementation of the two aspects put significant demands on leaders and managers.
Innovation and change management have been linked to the quality of organisational leadership. Innovative firms such as Apple, Inc. have organisational cultures that support innovation and change management processes. Culture can be socially acquired among employees within the same organisation.
Organisational culture determines how employees adopt change processes, innovation and behave. In this regard, culture of an organisation is therefore based on the assumption that it will guide employees to engage in meaningful activities and know what not to do. It determines fundamental organisational belief systems, values, practices and assumptions concerning change and innovation.
Google and Apple have been successful in their innovative and change management processes because of their cultures and leadership. These companies allow employees to be innovative in product and design developments. Leaders have the responsibility to shape their organisational cultures. Leadership defines core values of firms. These values later develop into leadership styles of an organisation.
In turn, employees learn such values from their leaders and therefore their behaviours increasingly become similar or in line with leaders’ behaviours. Organisational culture can only emerge once there are strong, integrated values, belief systems and behaviours in an organisation. On this note, leaders must recognise their roles in shaping and maintain organisational culture.
This implies that leaders should shape and offer their absolute support to aspects of change and innovation. As a result, organisations develop consistency in patterns of behaviours, handling conflicts effectively and developing a working environment that supports change and innovation. A leader should develop a strategic innovation plan.
This is necessary to give innovation strategic importance. This process nurtures a culture of innovation in an organisation. A leader must spend time building both strategic plan for business and a culture of the organisation. In cases of resistance, it is critical for a leader to identify most prominent people in an organisation who are most likely to oppose change initiatives and seek their supports.
This requires for a wide association with members of an organisation who are willing to support change initiatives. This is where leadership requires people with various skills in persuasion, implementing change, negotiation and empowering others to help in planning and implementing change efforts. A leader must ensure that processes of implementing change initiatives remain properly coordinated for success and future survival of the organisation.
Organisational Leadership in Change and Innovation
Within an organisation, it is the responsibility of the leader to decide what initiatives to be undertaken. Leaders should provide direction, reinforce organisational vision and create a drive that focuses on success. That is, leaders must ensure that they develop and manage an environment, cultures and strategic approaches that promote and sustain innovation, enhance efficiency and result in massive success.
Change and innovation can constitute critical aspects of organisational strategy and work. Leaders must set and lead change implementation processes to bring about the desired changes. The right technology, innovation, culture and strategic objectives are fundamental aspects of management that contribute to overall success.
Nevertheless, for any organisation to succeed and realised tangible benefits from these aspects of success, their leaders have to “support, promote, encourage, inspire and sustain change initiative processes”. Thus, for any innovative processes to start in any company, an organisation must first have the right leadership and supporting structures.
In addition, leaders must also demonstrate their interests in innovation. For instance, this was the case at Apple, Inc with the late Steve Jobs when he led creative thinking and innovative strategies for the company. Otherwise, failure to take such initiatives could stifle innovation and creativity in a firm.
Senior executives in a company normally possess the power and command to initiate strategies that would result in creativity and innovation. That is, leaders should perceive chances for enhancing creativity and promoting change. A challenge for an organisation may only exist if leaders are not able to initiate changes and inspire creative ideas.
On the other hand, if organisations have senior executives who are ambitious, dynamic, change oriented and support innovation complemented with strong proactive behaviours and abilities to react to perceived changes, then an organisation may realise innovative processes and sustainable change management (Agbor 2008).
Generally, it is difficult for organisations to attain their goals always, and this could even be more difficult in the absence of supportive leadership. In fact, most organisations lack the right leadership to spearhead change and innovation and therefore realising success is difficult. Researchers have demonstrated that many organisational challenges occur because of failure of leadership and lack of creativity.
As a result, leadership is the primary and most important aspect of change management, innovation and competitive advantage for organisational success. This implies that even with the right strategies, technologies and innovation, organisations cannot succeed in the absence of supportive leaders and managers. Therefore, it is imperative for organisations to have effective and creative leaders to drive their change agendas and innovations.
Such leaders ensure that change processes are well implemented and supported across the board. At the same time, they also encourage employees to provide their creative ideas for positive criticism and further development.
Organisations must also review their structures and adapt them to support their change initiatives and innovation. It is imperative to consider the role of various business units in promoting such changes. These business units must be responsible for implementation of the strategies. The structure of an organisation should be simple and effective because complex ones may inhibit employees’ participation in decision-making processes.
Likewise, leaders should reward successful change management and innovation. In addition, they should also “encourage risk taking among employees”. There are some fundamental leadership styles, which have always been linked to successful change management and innovation in companies (Paulsen, Maldonado, & Callan 2009). According to Paulsen et al. (2009), managers should adopt a charismatic leadership style to promote innovation.
This style of leadership supports innovation by encouraging a team approach and identity alongside commitment. In addition, charismatic leaders also encourage team members to work together, express their ideas and take part in decision-making processes (Paulsen et al. 2009). From a practical perspective, charismatic leaders are more successful in encouraging team participation and collaboration among members.
A study established that transformational leadership also had significant influences over innovation and change management (Sarros, Cooper, & Santora 2008). First, transformation leadership has positive effects on performance of firms because it promotes innovation and learning. Second, innovation has positive impacts on learning and performance of organisations.
These positive attributes of transformational leadership reflect innovation and creativity within organisations. They can happen at individual levels and across the organisation. Employees develop “psychological empowerment because of transformational leadership, which enhances their creativity”. From market-oriented perspective, transformational leadership has resulted in innovative products (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev 2009).
Therefore, understanding impacts of leadership on innovation and change management is vital for any organisation and its employees. Leaders have significant influences over their followers. Gumusluoglu and Ilsev (2009) noted that transformational leaders had influences over employees by positively affecting their sense of identity. The sense of identity, in turn, affected how a team operated, adopted and followed collaborative processes to tackle their challenges and make informed decisions.
The fundamental concept is the impact of leadership on innovation and change management. For change and innovation to evolve in organisations, the role of leadership in enhancing these attributes must be well defined. Leaders have abilities to promote organisational change and innovation by creating strategies that foster innovation.
They can achieve such outcomes by developing a supportive environment for their followers. Through supportive organisational social structures, employees become more secure and develop a sense of belonging, which in turn enhance their innovative abilities. As such, leaders must strive to create environments that support individual creativity and innovation, promote individual contribution, support rich ideas and allow employees to use their unique attributes for overall contribution to organisational goals.
In addition, senior executives must also demonstrate their interests in innovation and change. Therefore, they must encourage new ideas and developments. This would offer opportunities for employees to be innovative and support change. From organisational strategic objectives and goals, one can determine if the leadership is keen on promoting change and innovation.
Thus, a clear vision would assist in creating a working environment that promotes individual participation to attain both personal and organisational goals. Managers must therefore motivate their subordinates to enhance their innovative capabilities by focusing on shared vision to promote change and innovation for improving organisational outcomes and future success.
The role of the leader is to inspire followers by showing them that they have a greater mission to accomplish. This promotes innovation while the style of leadership promotes change in employees who eventually adopt a culture of innovation. In addition, leaders should focus on tapping innovative dynamics and opportunities that exist among employees. Through abilities to innovate, leaders and employees can work together to solve many challenges facing their organisations.
When leaders understand that employees can be creative and responsive to change, they will be able to nurture a culture that purposefully promotes change and innovation. However, senior executives can only harness innovative opportunities by encouraging all employees to take part in formulating solutions for organisational challenges. Therefore, a participatory approach to innovation and change can assist leaders to achieve their desired goals.
It assists in collecting diverse views on issues. Furthermore, leaders can stimulate change and innovation in their organisations. They can achieve these aspects through interactive processes in which employees are challenged to generate new ideas and solutions. They encourage freethinking to demonstrate concepts with massive impacts. The leadership style allows employees to focus their attention on innovation and change and solve organisational critical challenges using new approaches or ways.
Researchers have demonstrated that that the most difficult challenge to innovation and change is organisational culture obstacle that limits innovation and adoption of change. A good organisational culture should promote a search for new solutions, risk taking and not fear of failure.
Leaders who demonstrate creative abilities are also able to embrace change and ensure that their followers are keen to question certain aspects of organisational operations. As a result, they look for alternatives. Rather than focus on mistakes, they consider them as learning opportunities and encourage employees to try new solutions and identify possible challenges (Jamali, Khoury, & Sahyoun 2006).
This is the future of leadership, and it seeks to transform organisational practices and encourage learning (Bass 2000). As a result, such leaders develop new cultures in which employees are encouraged to try new ideas and take even more risks.
Conclusion
Change and innovation cannot be separated easily. Organisations can achieve innovation and change through strong leadership. Therefore, managers and leaders should strongly encourage innovation and change by ensuring that leadership is a component of management.
Leadership helps organisations to harness various opportunities presented to serve different customers. In this sense, organisations require leaders to create working social structures and culture so that employees can feel that they belong to the company. Such leaders create a sense of worth, provide a sense of security and allow employees to provide knowledge to thrive.
Leaders must comprehend values and encourage the use of individual differences to achieve competitive advantage. It has been shown that several organisations experience barriers, which inhibit creativity, innovation and generation of new ideas because of poor leadership and organisational culture. Thus, reviewing leadership capabilities and culture should be the initial stage for achieving change and innovation in an organisation.
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