Introduction
In the today’s fast-paced world, strategic change in the organisation holds a valuable place to stand out in the marketplace. Strategic change refers to the procedure of transforming vision, mission, objectives, structure, culture or abilities to adapt the changing business environment. For building and sustaining competitive position over others now companies undertake frequent changes in the existing practices according to the needs & preferences of the customers. In this context, employee resistance is due to not having familiarity with the new aspects. Thus, in this situation manager plays a significant role in persuading personnel about the benefits of new practices and thereby contributes in managing as well as implementing change prominently.
Further, understanding about the resistance and change management model is highly required for managing employees in the best possible way. The company with its leaders and managers should take up actions and initiatives in handling resistance to change making sure productivity and efficiency at workplace. Organisations which suffer from resistance issues become inflexible and are not capable enough to meet the desired level of outcome or success. Therefore, understanding about the resistance to change is most important for the company. This essay will provide deeper insight about the concept of change management as well as related theories and model along with the applicability in real organizations.
Understanding Resistance To Change
Resistance to change is described as unwillingness or reluctance to adapt to changing or new circumstances, situations and ways of performing things. It is usual within the organization which places direct influence of the performance of business unit. Poor communication, fear of failure, lack of trust, poor confidence, fear of job loss, and lack of skills are the major causes that create issue related to resistance to change at the workplace (Errida and Lotfi, 2021). There are majorly three type of resistance to change such as; sociological, logical & rational and psychological & emotional resistance. Employees/workers may resist to utilise new system, follow new procedure adopt technology or report to new leader.
Resistance to change happens in the organisation when existing culture norms and regulations of the company are deeply rooted. It hinders the acceptance of new ways of performing tasks like new procedures, leadership, technology, and team structure. Fear of unknown task is also the substantial reason of resistance among the workers, particularly fears regarding job loss as well as lower compensation (Weber, Büttgen and Bartsch, 2022). Additionally, workers resist to transformation is because it makes employees sense like they are losing control or authority over their work. It produces the sensitive sense of uncertainty which further affect their performance and productivity. It is not easy for the company to make changes in the workplace and it is not process which can be performed in one day.
For example, Currently companies such as Hilton, Tesco etc are placing more emphasis on using AI for ensuring smooth functioning of the business operations and functions. For gaining success business units need to integrate new technology at the workplace to improve the effectiveness of operations. There is a high chance that the company will face resistance to change. Technology is quite complex in nature and employees do not want to use new ways to do things. This is example of overt resistance because in this case, employees are running away to do things in new ways and use of AI also creates job insecurity among the personnel (Naveed et al, 2022). When employees do not participate in change initiatives deliberately then it called covert resistance. For instance, when manager announce change in working ways and rules but workers do not use new methods and follow new rules because they do not want to leave their comfort zone then it is known as covert resistance.
Management And Leadership Styles In Change Management
Leadership and management are the crucial functions of the company and plays valuable role in change management process. There are several types of leadership approaches which are mentioned.
Transformational leadership approach motivates workers to strive beyond needed expectations to work in the direction announce change at the workplace (Bagga, Gera and Haque, 2023). Such leaders motivate their followers to adopt change strategy and perform to achieve the goals. Transformational leaders make strong bond with their followers. By this approach, leaders get support of employees and it reduces resistance towards the change. Transformational leaders realise that change is quite complex but they encourage staff members. They change their approach according to the issues faced by employees. Transformational leaders do not see resistance to change as obstacle instead they try to know emotional as well as psychological reactions of employees who resisting change. For example, when Tesco integrates new software at the workplace they utilise transformational leadership approach. It helps to ease resistance to change while initiating the new practices. However, leaders take lots of time to manage change which is the drawback of this leadership style.
Transactional leadership approach implies for the one in which leaders depend on rewards as well as punishments to obtain optimal work performance. In the time of change within the organisation, workers can face uncertainty and in this situation transactional leaders offer clarity regarding what is expected from employees. When a company wants to make incremental change means when an organisation wants to change in small phases, the transactional leadership helps to make this kind of change (Cai, 2023). Further, transactional leadership is opposite of the transformational style. They establish clear expectations and uses both rewards and punishments in order to manage behaviour. For instance, General Electric adopted the transactional leadership approach while making changes at the workplace like cost-cutting measures (Change Management Insight, 2023). This leader concentrates less on empathy and resistance usually happens because of fear of failure or insecurity.
Servant leadership approach majorly pays attention on development & well-being of individuals and societies that they belong. These leaders give priority to the requirements and welfare of those people who can affect by change. Workers may feel uncertain or anxious while change but servant leadership actively listen to their concerns and provide support which helps in reducing resistance to change. Servant leaders provide emotional support and show empathy and try to reduce causes of resistance. They adopt different approaches to manage individual issues and resistance. The leaders face problem in high pressure situation and could not handle resistance to change. For instance, when Microsoft is facing the problems in the business Satya Nadella utilised servant leadership to make changes like transform company culture, integration of advance technology.
Role Of Position, Power And Organisational Politics
Position and power depicts individual who hold specific control because of their job position in the company. People in high position such as; leaders and managers usually have authority to apply or stop change (Triguero-Sánchez, Peña-Vinces and Ferreira, 2022). They also have control over resources and can refuse to allocate resources to resist change. Particularly, when they see upcoming changes can reduce their power or control on things. The people in power in the company can use their power to stop change due to uncertainty regarding influence of change on their position (Olafsen et al, 2021). Personal power: People with personal power generally possess skills and competencies that make them influential. When they resist change, it impact their followers and they follow their managers due to their trust towards managers. Managers who own strong personal power utilise their unique skills to impact others and build networks with other people. Individual with personal usually resist change when they recognise that particular change will affect their principles and ethical values.
Organisational politics include actions by using a person or group of people to impact decisions of personal gain. Politics leads to struggle related to power in which lots of people fight to gain power (Avelino, 2021). Resistance to change occurs when people perceive change or transformation as threat to their authority or power. Workers can resist changing because of part of strategic behaviour and wanting to be with influential group in the organisation in order to achieve and advantage.
For example, a manager who highly focuses on organisation’s and employee’s growth provide their support to changes in the workplace. When Disney and Pixar took decision to combine business, there mangers use their power in positive way and contribute highly to this critical change in both companies. Disney managers applied a change management strategy which promoted collaboration among two corporations (KNOLSKAPE, 2024). Netflix is another example where managers use their power to benefit the business. The company switched rental business model to online streaming business model. The company initiated this technological successfully by using excellent skills and knowledge of their management team.
Evaluating Change Outcomes
Change management interventions or initiatives can yield short-term as well as long-term outcomes, each offer crucial insights into the efficiency of changes applied. Short-term changes which got success helps to improve the productivity, performance and morale of the staff members. These early wins further facilitates to set as milestones and build momentum for future changes. On the other hand, long-term outcomes include sustained advancements in performance, resilient company culture and boost innovation. Furthermore, when an organisation faces failure while making changes in the workplace, then outcomes are different which adversely influences the entire business (Gilson, 2024). Unsuccessful change can reduce the staff morale and productivity and it increased stress at the workplace. Failed change initiatives can reduce the quality of work as well as impact the capability of the organisation to interact with the clients. It can also increase the issue of resistance to change and the company can loss valuable workers.
When an organisation makes changes in the business procedure, working ways or technical change, they can measure the success of change by evaluating change adoption rates. For example: If the company is going to do technical change then they can conduct survey to collect employee feedbacks. If more employees give positive response it means the company successfully made the change (Li et al, 2021). Worker satisfaction survey also enables the organisation to evaluate the employee sentiment due to the change initiatives. By measuring overall productivity of the employees, the company can measure success rate of change. The company can track how many activities and tasks employees completed in set time limit during change management. This approach can help to know productivity of employees along with success of change.
Different types of interventions such as; training programmes, feedback methods and application of change management theories can be useful to decrease resistance to change and support long-term results. For example, when a company integrates any new software system in the workplace, they can offer training. It can help workers to improve their skills and get knowledge about new software and it can help to reduce resistance. By using three stages of Lewin’s change model such as; unfreeze, change and refreeze, the organisation can solve issue of resistance to change (Harrison et al, 2021). The model offer straightforward approach which can guide during change process, facilitating execute plan efficiently. By using feedback method, the company can be able to know employee’s concerns solve quickly to reduce resistance.
Conclusion
Above report has discussed that change in the organisation on constant basis is crucial to survive in the market but it is difficult process. It has identified that resistance to change is common problem that faced by the company because of many reasons such as; fear of failure, job loss, poor skills and knowledge, lack of trust etc. It has also discovered that transformational and servant leadership are suitable styles to manage change but transactional is only appropriate for short-term changes. In terms of future, it is most important for the organisations to understand and tackling change because of regular development of technologies. Future leaders have to adopt advance technologies which will complex in nature to make their business successful so that they can stand out in the market. If they will fail to manage resistance then it can be difficult for organisations to survive in the market. Future leaders also will need to focus more on employee’s morale while changing things as they can easily shift company if leaders will ignore their issues.
Adaptive leadership is necessary for successful change management in today’s fast-paced world, emphasising the significance of identifying change, improving experimentation as well as empowering others. The leadership approach helps the leaders to modify their strategies according to the situation. It is obvious employee will resist changes because it directly impacts their existing working ways. However, adaptive leadership approach will help to resolve the issues and execute change effectively and successfully.
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Referenecs
Books and Journals
Avelino, F., 2021. Theories of power and social change. Power contestations and their implications for research on social change and innovation. Journal of Political Power, 14(3), pp.425-448.
Bagga, S.K., Gera, S. and Haque, S.N., 2023. The mediating role of organizational culture: Transformational leadership and change management in virtual teams. Asia Pacific Management Review, 28(2), pp.120-131.
Cai, J., 2023. Effects of Leadership Styles and Organizational Strategy to Enhance Performance Efficiency. Journal of Enterprise and Business Intelligence, 3(1), pp.012-022.
Errida, A. and Lotfi, B., 2021. The determinants of organizational change management success: Literature review and case study. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 13, p.18479790211016273.
Gilson, L.L., 2024. Why be creative: A review of the practical outcomes associated with creativity at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Handbook of organizational creativity, pp.303-322.
Harrison, R., Fischer, S., Walpola, R.L., Chauhan, A., Babalola, T., Mears, S. and Le-Dao, H., 2021. Where do models for change management, improvement and implementation meet? A systematic review of the applications of change management models in healthcare. Journal of healthcare leadership, pp.85-108.
Li, J.Y., Sun, R., Tao, W. and Lee, Y., 2021. Employee coping with organizational change in the face of a pandemic: The role of transparent internal communication. Public relations review, 47(1), p.101984.
Naveed, R.T., Alhaidan, H., Al Halbusi, H. and Al-Swidi, A.K., 2022. Do organizations really evolve? The critical link between organizational culture and organizational innovation toward organizational effectiveness: Pivotal role of organizational resistance. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 7(2), p.100178.
Olafsen, A.H., Nilsen, E.R., Smedsrud, S. and Kamaric, D., 2021. Sustainable development through commitment to organizational change: the implications of organizational culture and individual readiness for change. Journal of Workplace Learning, 33(3), pp.180-196.
Triguero-Sánchez, R., Peña-Vinces, J. and Ferreira, J.J.M., 2022. The effect of collectivism-based organisational culture on employee commitment in public organisations. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 83, p.101335.
Weber, E., Büttgen, M. and Bartsch, S., 2022. How to take employees on the digital transformation journey: An experimental study on complementary leadership behaviors in managing organizational change. Journal of Business Research, 143, pp.225-238.
Online
Change Management Insight, 2023. General Electric Change Management Case Study. [Online] Available through < https://changemanagementinsight.com/general-electric-change-management-case-study/ >
KNOLSKAPE, 2024. Top 10 Change Management Examples and the Companies that Implemented them. [Online] Available through < https://knolskape.com/blog/top-10-change-management-examples-and-the-companies-that-implemented-them/ >
