Leading Change Initiatives
The modern world of business and non-profit organizations is characterized by leadership and change programs, which are aimed at initiating an alteration within a company. For most organizations, it has been duly noted that leaders categorize success as the percentage of employees who underwent a specific course or program that encourages change within an organization. Furthermore, the idea of change has been more commercialized to appoint when returns on investments put into realizing changes are not actualized in time. Therefore, the idea of change is defined through a set of activities that initiate a beneficial alteration in a given working environment that is supported and implemented at each level of an organization.
Primarily, it would be appropriate to not that a leader in an organization has to acknowledge that a change is action driven. The reason is that one should implement changes as a strategy involving employee workshops and seminars to encourage subordinates to follow the idea. Ideologically, there are many aspects and drivers caused by a leader that affect a change project. Hence, it is paramount for the leader to express confidence and convince his or her employees in tremendous potential and high success possibility of an alteration. Therefore, a leader is responsible for ensuring a smooth implementation of a change a firm.
For change to take place, its prerequisites and necessity must be introduced to workers at the first terms. In turn, a working environment has to be dynamic for the success of an alteration. If at all the need for an alteration has been realized, then and only a leader can communicate the vision that culminates because of a needed change in the organization (Whipple n.p). Trust-based relationships are crucial in the working place. For instance, if a leader does not trust certain individuals in an organization, he or she cannot be able to assign any significant task that aid in initiating an alteration in a company. Therefore, this would be a major drawback of most initiative efforts related to a change.
Other important aspect that initiates a change includes the integration of new methods into a certain organizational culture. The flexibility of organizational culture is crucial to a firm’s success. Hence, it is paramount for the culture not to create the employee’s comfort zone by allowing them to sulk in their effort of bettering the organization’s operations. Moreover, the integration of an organizational culture with the specific psychology of a change chosen can enhance alteration initiatives to become successful in the near future. Therefore, creating a flexible and developing corporate culture contributes to the implementation of the change, thereby, improving the performance of an organization.
It would be wrong to mention that leading from below is a tactic for change. Leading from below does not enhance the authoritarian nature of leader. Instead, it creates a form of peer perception of employees to their employer or managers, and the leader-follower form of relationship cannot be realized. Leading from below also entails concentrating on tasks that are on the employee-level in which a leader would only be supposed to interact through issuing instructions and providing guidance on various activities that have a profound effect on organizational operations. Thus, it is crucial to define the relationship between employees and employers while leading from below to avoid any confrontations.
There has been proven to be specific ways for initiating an organizational change and factors affecting it. Furthermore, these ways are enhanced through the mutual cooperation and trust leaders and the employees. The only way a leader can manage a change is effective communication from the top. Especially in the modern age of business, this can be accomplished by illustrating different crucial aspects that employees ought to practice to achieve success. Only after ensuring that these activities are conducted a needed change can be implemented within a given organization.
Work Cited
Whipple, Bob. “Leadergrow: Articles by Robert Whipple, The Trust Ambassador – Leading Change Initiatives.” Leadergrow: Developing Leaders, Building Trust – Training, Consulting, Keynotes, leadergrow.com/articles/53-leading-change-initiatives. Accessed 5 Apr. 2017.
