Leadership, complexity and change

Assignment examples

Example of an introduction:

 XX was a …… company I founded in 2013. After 3 years of operating we were outgrowing

our Bristol office and had identified the need to improve our service provision in Bath
and Cardiff (see Appendix). The management team (see Appendix for key personnel,
referred to hereafter by their initials) had decided the best course of action would be to
open a new office in Bath to better serve our clients with properties in Bath and to
concurrently provide a head office location from which the company’s administrative
operations could be based.
 The key staff involved were; me, transformational leader (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). LF, a
transactional leader as described by Bolden et al (2003) whose strengths lay in
administration and finance. SD whose leadership style fell somewhere between a
charismatic leader (Milosovic and Erin Bass, 2014) and a transactional leader, her
charismatic leadership style emerged (supporting the theory of Takala et al, 2013) during
difficult situations. The implementation of the change introduced a fourth leader, HS
who was also a transactional leader with over twenty years experience

Example 2:

 Change comes in different forms. Ackerman (1997) distinguishes between three types of
change, developmental change, which seeks to improve existing aspects of the
organisation rather than creating something new, it can be existing skills, processes and
methods. Transitional change which replaces that which exists into something
completely new examples are acquisitions and mergers, lastly radical change, which
involves a shift in assumptions made by the organisation and its members. Holbeche
(2006) also describes change in three forms which are not very different from that of
Ackerman (1977). Transactional or planned, which are the changes that have to do with
the day to day activities of the organisation and this matches with Ackerman’s (1977)
developmental change. Incremental change, which could be pivotal, are introduced
gradually and are adaptive in nature, this type of change is matched with Ackerman’s
(1977) transitional change and finally, radical or big bang change, which usually occurs in
moments of crises, like transformational change.
 On 21st April 2018, I get to work and there are groups of people scattered around the
compound with everyone chit chatting, I get closer to know what all the talk was about
only to find out that, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was replaced. As employees we
could not digest the fact that we had to undergo change and adapt to something new.
“There is nothing so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change”
(Shelley,1823, 23: pp.3). Nothing had changed, but the arrival of a new CEO was really
big change. Apparently, the company was going through crises and leadership had to
change. As a result, the organisation and its employees had to radically change their
views, strategy and assumptions affecting the organisation’s culture, ethos and systems,
which was a transformational change (Ackerman 1977) or a big bang like Holbeche
(2006) puts it.
Link between theory and application

 Conner (1995) identified the main reasons change fails. The list includes the loss of
status HS was experiencing as well as other factors that were relevant to her such as the
threat to her ideals. Whilst the list may be helpful to managers in situations where the
reason individual(s) may be resistant to change is unclear, in this situation it was clear
and as Schedlitzki and Edwards (2017) note the model falls short of suggesting how
leaders can deal with resistance.

Example: Criticality linked to experience:

 In addition a conflict arose between the leadership styles of HS and SD (Doucet et al,
2009). This was largely a result of my leadership, as a transformational leader who
advocates shared leadership, I assumed that since both managers wanted the same
thing (i.e. to grow the business of the Bristol office) they would work together, share the
leadership responsibilities and learn from one another. I failed to foresee that both felt
they were managing the other as they each saw themselves as the other’s superior (SD
due to her time with the company, and HS due to her experience in the industry) which
led, inevitably to conflict. Barnett et al (2001) identified some problems with the
transformational style of leadership but the literature more generally is biased toward
promoting this style of leadership. When done well, in the right setting, transformational
leadership works well, as it did in the opening of the Bath office (described above)
however there are times when a transformational leadership style is not optimal.
Similarly, literature on shared (and distributed) leadership typically promote this
approach. As with the opening of the Bath office and described above shared leadership
obviously has a place but it is not necessarily the right approach in every scenario.

Exploring Charisma linked to change

• Khurana (2002) says CEO’s of corporates are sought for their ‘charisma’, fame and force of
personality, in simple words they need to be people who can impress analysts and the
business media which is why the new CEO was brought in. Brower et al (2002) disagrees,
explaining that the era of CEO’s possessing personal power, dominance or influence has
passed. Hunt and Conger (1999) suggest that we now have a new era of leadership which
needs a CEO with character, integrity, courage, tenacity, learning ability and human resource
skills which was lacking in the new CEO. Working with him for a while, I found that, the new
CEO was domineering, had the desire to influence and was self-confident (House,1977)
which makes me believes he is a charismatic leader but not entirely. His focus was to make
sure that the needs of the organisation was met (Bass & Avolio,1999), ensure hierarchical
divisions and the centralisation of power (Covey,1992). He was very structured and focussed
on procedures and doing things correctly which are all traits of a transactional leader (Burns,
1978). Basically, he was a charismatic leader with transactional traits which had both
positive and negative impacts on how he led change.

Exploring Transactional linked to change

• Having a CEO who was transactional meant a lot to the change process. He didn’t consider
the needs of employees, and how the new changes would affect our work did not matter
because to him employees are ‘commodities’ and not people yet, he expected excellent
performance. The CEO subscribed to theory E of change (Beer & Nohria,2000) using a top-
down approach in the change process, with less involvement from the team and imposing
 change, but people resist change when it is imposed. You can’t impose your will on a system,
what you can do is to listen to what the system tells you and discover how its properties and
our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be
produced by our will alone. (Meadows, 2012).

Exploring distributed/shared

• Cope et al (2011) suggest that the concept of distributed leadership is a concept likely to be
alien to start-ups. This claim is not supported by any empirical evidence and certainly
doesn’t meet with my own experience. As Reich put it in reviewing entrepreneurial success
“economic success comes through the talent, energy, and commitment of a team” (Reich,
1987, p. 77) not through the efforts of an individual. Whilst I accept that to get a start-up off
the ground a degree of vertical leadership is required (Ensley et al, 2006), there is also a
requirement even in the very early stages, to have others commit to the vision (Gupta et al,
2004). Once employees accept the vision, the models of Kotter (2002) and Higgs and
Rowland (2000) advocate empowering those employees to carry out the vision. It then
follows naturally that a distributed or shared leadership model could start to develop almost
form the start (Epitropaki and Martin, 2005; Ensley et al, 2002).

Example of short summary

In summary, the applicability of much of the literature to SMEs is limited, which is a shame. As
Ensley et al put it, leadership “…is likely to have a greater and more direct impact on firm
performance in start-ups than in larger and more established organizations, making new
ventures a particularly important context in which to examine the effects of leadership
behaviour”. (Ensley et al, 2006, p. 219). Any attempt to provide a universally applicable model in
a field as complex as leadership provides anyone carrying out an analysis an easy target for
criticism – it can’t possibly apply to all situations. However, what struck me most about the
models described by Kotter (2002) and Higgs and Rowland (2000) was how applicable they are to
so many successful changes I’ve experienced

Example 2 Short summary

• In summary, change usually involves three aspects; people, processes and culture
(Jisc,2014). The emphasis has been on the process neglecting the importance of people and
culture, however, organisations should seek to create a balance of these three aspects.
Although change management tends to fail (Beer & Nohria,2000) I believe change leadership
is the solution. (Kotter, 2008). Despite varying theories on change management, people
issues are hard to get right (Kotter, 2008), change cannot be predicted or controlled, people
and situations are different, hence, organisations should find the best fit.

Part b

Example of introduction

• When I came to notice one of my first classes was on leadership, I thought how exciting,
maybe I will get to use my knowledge of history, utilise my political following of the news. I
may, have missed the point, instead I got to analyse my own understanding and more
importantly, analyse my misunderstandings. I read ‘Sophie’s world’ many years ago, still I
 remember Aristotle’s perfect man, at the time I spent a few nights dwelling upon, how close
am I to this ideal, what could I change to be closer, It held some value to me, how do I be the
best “man” I can be, I wanted to steer the ship & lead from the front be the hero (Grint,
2011). I have far more recently come to see it as an antiquated idea and no longer relevant
to be a leader not to mention the high likely hood of this leading me to failure (Grint, 2011).
Not to say it doesn’t hurt being compassionate, kind, brave and to an extent, strong but it
doesn’t line up so well with a good leader in the modern world. Authenticity, commitment,
ability to motivate, empathy & most importantly, the ability to learn and adapt feel far more
relevant to the ideal leader of my world, the leader I should like to see myself become.

Considering Charisma

• I have come to understand that as leader I will responsible for driving my family business to
its strategic objectives, and if I fail to achieve this objective various stakeholder may hold me
responsible for driving the company to a rock of catastrophe (Grint, 2011). However, to
achieve this objective, I will have a number of employees working for the organization which
I need to influence to understand the organisational goal and culture. One of the main
attributes which I currently do not have possess is being a charismatic leader. Banks et al,
(2017) identified that education was an essential predictor of charismatic trait of leadership,
as I believe update in my knowledge can help me improve, translating to the possibility of
learning the charismatic leadership traits. Being a charismatic leader is essential because it
separates me as a leader from an ordinary manager (Bass 1985). For me to be a charismatic
leader, some of the characteristics I need to possess includes having dominance, desires to
influence people and having self-confidence (House, 1977). I will have to force my opinions
on employees and may sometimes give them reasons to not disregard my opinion. For this
to be possible, I need to be animated and skilled at public speaking as this will help me to
convince employees including various stakeholders as to why they need to act certain ways
in order to achieve the strategic goals of the organization (Conger and Kanungo, 1987).
However, adopting this approach to the extreme, employees may perceive me as being too
dominant and arrogant (Rosenthal and Pittinsky, 2006).

2nd Example considering Charisma

• I have long been judgmental towards the idea of a politician as a leader, as I never thought
of them as “my leader”. My leader is honest to their objectives, open to positive change and
critical of unethical behaviour, my countries’ “leaders” wear masks to hide their objectives
(Badham and Fuda, 2011). I now understand there are archetypes: Charismatic,
transactional & transformational. The politicians are a wonderful example, while not
charismatic to me they are to the majority and as time goes on they show their transactional
and in a few cases transformational sides.

Considering Transformational

• Another style which I can adopt in managing employees in my family business is the
transformational approach of leadership. Unknown to me, my father has been adopting this
style of leadership in our family business. He listens to various employees’ problem,
whenever they have personal issues, he tries to help them solve it. If the issues are finance
related, he goes to the extent of giving the employees his personal money to solve these
issues. As a result of this employee’s morale is built, and my father also achieves increased
loyalty and commitment (Cavazotte et al, 2013). Giving employees his personal time and
 money has earned him trust of many workers and they admire him as a result (Bass and
Riggio, 2006). I noticed that few staff often complained my father was manipulative as I tried
adopting a similar approach on them. An employee once said, “you are trying to manipulate
us like your dad right”. I have been able to understand that adopting this style of leadership
may be seen as manipulative (Tourish, 2013). This style of management often causes
managers to be an important part of business structures which lead to over-dependence on
leaders, as it was difficult for my dad to travel for a long time leaving the business (Zhu et al,
2013). In some cases, the transformational approach may not work, especially if employees
have to change how they have been doing things, it may be necessary to adopt the
transactional approach characterized by contingent reward upon completion of certain task
or punishment in the case of incompletion, this only prevents employees from job
dissatisfaction, but does not necessarily motivate them (Odumeru & Ifeanyi, 2013).

Critical reflection on transactional and charismatic leaders

• I have thought a lot in the last few months of the leader I want to be and the change I want
to see. With time spent considering leaders in my life, I realised something somewhat
obvious, the best employers I have had were sharing the power (Harris, 2009), they wanted
me to act with autonomy, gave me the room I needed to try and sometimes fail, quick to
explain where I went wrong but seldom annoyed or aggravated. I learnt most people, do
want solutions not problems. I was my best leader when I knew I had the support of my
leaders and I suspect vice versa (O’toole et al, 2003). They were transactional for the most
part, their charisma was often subject to criticism by other staff and guests, they did not
possess silver tongues (Judge et al, 2004) yet I now suspect they did have many charismatic
qualities: desire to influence and had confidence (House, 1997), they possessed strong moral
values (Freidman et al, 1980), this made them exemplary when it came to organisational
success as they were people to listen to. I suspect one of their greatest advantages were
they were both transactional and charismatic, they didn’t exude the darker sides of either
archetype, no overwhelming hubris, narcissism, sense of uncalled for entitlement (Judge et
al, 2014 and Hogan & Hogan, 2001). A side of transactional leadership that came from them
that meant the world to me was their appreciation for honesty (Yukl, 2008), I knew I could
tell them when I had failed, I didn’t hide mistakes, merely told them, said what I was going
to do to rectify it and in exchange they would advise me on what they would do and let me
get on with it.

Example of reflections

• When I join the family business, I will adopt a combination of the nurturer and the navigator.
The nurturer will encourage employee involvement in the change process, and I will adopt
this when our company is faced with competing external pressure requiring constant
learning (Palmer et al., 2009). However, I will adopt the navigator approach when there is
immediate need to react to the market, as the nurturer approach may be slight slow (Palmer
and Dunford, 2008). In leading my employees, I will adopt a combination to the
transformational and charismatic style of leadership. The transformational approach will
make my employees feel valued as I have paid attention to their personal problems (Bass
and Riggio, 2006). I am sensitive to the needs of others, so it would be relatively easy to
adopt this approach. However, to improve on the charismatic side, I will make sure I make
one friend every week, as this will help me improve my confidence around people. I will also
use my financial and technical knowledge as a source of power which I can use to influence
 people such as employees, potential investors, customers and other stakeholders (Pfeffer,
1992).

Example of concluding remarks

• Largely thanks to reflecting weekly on my own ideas of leadership, I find myself with a
direction of whom I wish to be: A leader, my leader, not the perfect man or some
Machiavellian millionaire. A leader of people, not by example or dictation but my
motivation, I want to help people be the best they can be, maybe that way I can see the
change I want. No blatant necessity of hierarchy, no animosity between executive and front-
line staff (or realistically a minimal amount), No change implemented without good reason
and more importantly without commitment to see it through. Some requirements are clear
as day, I would be better to show confidence in the face of conflict, I would be wise to stop
holding all people to the same expectations. I need to lose my own mask to allow for
authenticity, albeit which mask is real, which is fake is not so clear. I need to remember to
continue learning and to avoid increasing my hubris, memento mori.