Leadership Impacts on Change Management Process

Introduction

There is always the need for corporate transformations to enhance the company’s effectiveness. To ensure the company remains proactive, managers use change management (CM) once they identify the need for such advancement. Considering the case of Undercover Boss, reducing the cleaning time below the current 18 minutes would be effective for the business performance in the industry (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). However, change management needs the application of leadership styles to facilitate the evolution and to attain desired results. This paper applies the ADKAR model to transformational and transactional leadership styles. By using the CM model, managers can focus on improving each team member’s change, making the CM process successful.

Therefore, based on the Undercover Boss scenario, the manager can use the transformational leadership approach to influence change management through the ADKAR model. Generally, ADKAR is an acronym for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement (Tang, 2019). According to the case, the manager wants to lower the time taken by the airline cleaners to below the current timeframe the team is used to (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). Even though the employees understand they should be able to clean each plane faster, some need more motivation to perform the duties within the shortest possible time.

The manager can motivate the staff members to accomplish more work by solving the problem as a transformational and transactional leader. These approaches emphasize the importance of idealizing influence, inspiration, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation to achieve the given goal. It is possible to assume that combining the ADKAR model and such change management types as transformational and transactional leaders improves corporate performance.

Facilitating CM as a Transformational Leader

Based on the ADKAR CM model, the manager has the potential to influence a significant change in the way people operate in the organization. The framework enables the leader to overcome a possible aspect of resistance that is vital in transition (Galli, 2018). Awareness and knowledge are essential in managing the change as a transformational leader. First, the manager should communicate the reasons for the change to the employees (Fyshchuk & Evsyukova, 2020). In this phase, the leader engages and joins the followers in performing the duties to show them that undertaking responsibility in a shorter time will positively impact them and the company.

This moment begins the discussed video case study when the leader joins the team of people who clean the airplanes. The manager needs to provide adequate explanations to justify the importance of cleaning one plane in approximately 12 minutes rather than the standard 18 minutes, as the video says (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). For instance, the leader may say that by increasing the work rate to minimize time, it will be possible to clean more planes leading to efficiency and an increase in wages. During this phase, the manager must be friendly and ready to answer questions from the members to clarify critical areas not well understood (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). For example, Undercover Boss asked the workers about the need to change, which allowed him to hear their expectations of making the process more technological and distributing the tasks among more employees.

The next phase of managing change is fostering the desire to evolve. Transformational leaders can influence people and impact their behaviors to adapt to the needed transition. For example, the Undercover Boss can inspire the workers to want change (Faupel & Süß, 2019). For instance, the manager may designate some workers to lead the team toward the transition. Based on the case, designating an individual who has worked in the company for a long duration will be appropriate because they understand the need to transform operations to promote efficiency. Naboo, the old man from the video, is the perfect person for this task, and his experience can be used in transformational leadership (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). Telling workers that completing a single plane in 12 minutes will be rewarded financially will make the team see value in the transformation. Since a transformational leader has a close relationship with followers, it will be easier for the manager to overcome possible resistance from the employees.

Through the intellectual stimulation trait of a transformational leader, the aspect of knowledge which is an essential facet of the ADKAR, can easily be achieved by the manager. The manager will be able to facilitate the change by encouraging the creativity necessary to perform the duties quickly and effectively. To ensure each member can reach a given milestone, the supervisor must promote knowledge-building that specifically applies to each person’s responsibilities (Faupel & Süß, 2019). For example, the people cleaning the toilets should have specific training that allows them to complete their tasks within the shortest time possible. The employees in the video report a lack of knowledge to perform this task more quickly (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). Through tools such as interactive learning, mentoring, and even videos, the manager can easily share unique skills that the staff can utilize to improve their work rate. When the procedures are adopted effectively, the team members will be more likely to embrace the change.

In most cases, to like the aspect of knowledge and ability is a challenge that CM leaders encounter when implementing a transition in the workplace. Through inspiration and motivation, transformational leaders, through a hands-on job, can easily influence the competency of workers in the organization. For instance, in the Undercover Boss case scenario, the leader gives a chance to employees to clean the plane within a specified timeframe to determine their capability before enrolling in the program (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). Once the team completes the process, the manager issues feedback to allow staff to adjust where necessary (Faupel & Süß, 2019). Lastly, once the organization has implemented a change, the momentum might decline, and thus it requires effective reinforcement. In other words, staff members may resume cleaning a plane for 18 minutes. However, using the transformational leadership approach, the manager can build strong enthusiasm and ultimately influence the behavior of the team members (Van der Voet, 2014). The aspect will ensure the people transform and adapt to a new way of working, promoting efficiency and effectiveness in the airport.

Facilitating CM as a Transactional Leader

There are specific differences between transformational and transactional leadership. Transactional leadership does not aim to inspire change and increase public awareness of the issue, but it proposes a clear plan for corporate change. Generally, the transactional leadership style is a type of management whereby the leaders focus mainly on supervision and achieving organizational performance. In other words, it confirms the existing practices, and in case of necessary change, employees are either rewarded or penalized. Using the ADKAR CM model to facilitate a transition, the transactional leadership approach emphasizes the goal and the ways to achieve it, but it does not motivate workers, which is different from transformational leadership (Prasad & Junni, 2016). For instance, in the case of CM, a transactional leader will stress the need to complete the task within 12 minutes but ignore why employees should complete it within the specified time. Based on this perspective, applying this type of management might not produce the needed change in the airport.

Following the five steps of implementing change, transactional leaders are less concerned about the awareness of the change than transformational leaders. In most cases, the manager might need to consider whether a team member comprehends the need for change in how the business operates (Kark et al., 2018). Based on the management style, once the supervisor has identified the reason to increase the work rate to lower the time to clean the plane, they are more likely to enforce actions to push staff towards the goal.

Similarly, based on desire, unlike in transformational leadership, where the manager instills the aspiration to change, a transactional leader focuses on rewards to inspire the employees. The frontrunner in the case study does not care whether the followers desire the transition (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). The essential matter is to ensure the work is completed within the stipulated time frame. The video represents the way transactional leadership works in the airport. Therefore, such managers opt for penalties or rewards to propel the workers to achieve the objectives.

Since transactional leaders are less concerned about the company’s future vision than transformational leaders, the facet of knowledge that is a vital part of the CM is insignificant for them. If the boss chooses to be such a leader, issues such as training and gathering new techniques to facilitate the capacity of staff to complete the work will not be considered. In other words, whether the team has the necessary skills for the CM or lacks the vital knowledge is not a factor because the focus is to ensure the job is done at the moment (Tang, 2019). In such cases, it might be difficult for the company to sustain the changes following inadequate knowledge by the workers.

Similarly, instead of building the ability of employees to adapt to change, a transactional leader formulates a system that will ensure employees can perform their duties and meet the target. Generally, for CM to be effective, the knowledge aspect must be aligned with the staff’s capabilities. For example, the employees from the case video say that they need technological solutions to make cleaning quicker, and the responsibility of the transaction leader is to provide them with these tools (“Harvard Business Review,” 2019). However, a transactional manager does not care about the facet. The leaders believe in self-interest, and thus they appeal to the needs of employees making the workers develop their abilities to obtain the promised incentives (Prasad & Junni, 2016). In other words, the approach does not guarantee employees the opportunity to develop practical proficiencies that can be used in the future.

In facilitating CM, reinforcement of transition is crucial, and the workers’ habits must be changed to enhance a successful implementation process. However, in the case of transactional managers, they believe in the value of rewards; thus, they can easily influence the workers to continue working. Based on the approach, the problem will be solved quickly (Galli, 2018). In the future, when the employees are not motivated by giving incentives, the likelihood of resuming the old work habits will be high hence affecting the organizational performance in the long-term perspective.

Conclusion

To initiate practical CM, a business manager should be a transformational leader. The headship approach allows the manager to facilitate the development of new habits of workers that can easily change their way of operations. Furthermore, it aggravates the gap between the employees and the staff, thus making workers perceive the transformation as necessary for their development. When peoples’ behaviors are changed accordingly, they are more likely to transform and adapt to new methods of operations which is essential for future visions. The transactional manager is more concerned with solving the problem, prompting them to use rewards to influence change.

Therefore, in the case of Undercover Boss, by using the transactional leadership style, the CM will be successful because the manager will impact the general behavior of the workers by inspiring them to transform. The tactic will ensure the change is long-lasting and the organization can benefit from it. On the other hand, by applying transactional procedures to overcome the issue, the problem will be managed in the short term, while in the long run, workers will resume their average work trends because their habits remain unchanged. This aspect is possible when the employees feel demotivated, and the rewards are less effective. Based on the analysis, the CM process should aim to transform the individual perspective on the change but not influence their actions through incentives.

References

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