Manager’s Roles and Responsibilities in Implementing Change

Introduction

As Susan Birk (2010) claimed, “a leader is someone who others voluntarily follow, but not because he or she has the title of CEO. People follow you because they believe in you, they want to help you succeed, and they wish to see the organization succeed” (p. 32).

Drastic changes have occurred in the last few years in the position and duties of the leaders of the company or business establishments. Before these changes the role of a manager was quite explicit: the person in charge stood on top of the team and gave direct and precise orders. Nonetheless, nowadays the position of the head has shifted as more and more companies embed the strategy of dividing the employees into teams with almost equal areas within them to accomplish their goals. The post of the leading person in the organization of the present day is divergent from the standard direction function, as it lies in not directing and ordering the group members but in guiding and coordinating them.

One of the primary roles of the present leader is to assist the team members in receiving new information, to teach the best-known practice concerns, and to intervene in the work process at the right moment. Moreover, the manager needs to learn how to pass on the necessary knowledge, how to give comprehensive advice, and how to trust and be trusted.

To select the right strategy for approaching the employees for a leader, various techniques have been established. They include different ways and methods of describing and giving an explanation of the word ‘leadership’. According to Michael Hackman and Craig Johnson (2009), “over the past 100 years, the fundamental approaches for understanding and describing leadership have evolved” (p. 72).

The trait approach is believed to be the primary concept of management as it examines the sequence of moral, physical, or mental characteristics of a manager and an employee and their correspondence. Moreover, the trait approach implies that a person with a particular set of features that is a leader in one situation, might not be a leader under other circumstances.

The skills approach has lots of similarities with the traits approach; however, the focus shifts from the characteristics the individual is born with to techniques, which can be acquired and advanced. Without a doubt, personality plays a major role in leadership; still, according to a skills approach, abilities and intelligence are more vital for a persuasive command. Styles’ approach lies in the behavior of the manager, namely what he does and how he does it. This way of studying leadership includes the performance of the leader towards his subordinates in diverse situations.

According to the research, leadership consists of equally a directive and a supportive aspect. A manager has to appraise his workers and determine whether they are capable of performing and fulfilling the task to evaluate the effects of the leadership. So, to my opinion, the situational-specific factors elect the directedness or support of the leader to meet the shifting requirements of the employees. Moreover, the influence on leadership leads to the leader’s interest in productive and efficient work, thus altering the level of the development of the workers.

How should a manager successfully handle staff resistance to change?

The central point of situational attitude is focusing on the control and administration of different positions. The contingency theory implies that the efficiency of a leader is determined by his style and its corresponding to the case (Buble, Juras, & Matić, 2014). The theory “provides a framework for effectively matching the leader and the situation” (Mind Tools, 2015, para. 3).

The binary relations between the manager and the members of the team are the essence of the exchange theory, which impacts both sides. The capability of the leader is directly related to the constructive feedback from the workers. Some researchers say that followership reflects leadership; furthermore, these two processes cannot be isolated from each other. In the business environment, the difference between leadership and followership occurs to be rather insignificant. To achieve the highest efficiency, the managers would be forced to level down and collaborate with other members of the team; while the followers would need to enhance their work and assert leadership. These processes require certain alliance and harmonious work so the company would give the best performance.

The critical and the most noteworthy element of leadership is to relate yourself to the other members of the team. The manager should not be harsh and criticizing but help and pass down the knowledge. The follower, on the other hand, needs to distinct the leader from the worker and follows the orders, which can come in the form of advice (Landrum & Daily, 2012).

The contingency theory implies that the efficiency of a leader is determined by his style and how it corresponds to the situation. The theory “provides a framework for effectively matching the leader and the situation” (Mind Tools, 2015, para. 2). Three main contingency factors affect leadership performance: the leader-worker connection, task structure, and the position power of the affected. Each of the factors defines whether the style of the manager would be developed or negatively interacted. Moreover, the theory implies that people are divided into two groups: task-motivated and relationship-motivated.

Based on this, the manager can understand in which situations different employees will be more productive. For example, people of the first category are more likely to perform their best in both beneficial and non-beneficial environments. On the other hand, the representatives of the second group are more likely to perform in fairly favorable conditions. “Individuals with a high need for achievement were demonstrated to prefer instrumental leadership, whereas individuals with low need for achievement was preferred supportive leader behaviors” (Cross, 2014, para. 5).

Leveraging knowledge management, organizational learning, and transformational leadership to bring about cultural change in the department and the organization

Transformational leadership is a method of guidance where the manager works in partnership with employees to classify the demanded advances, producing a visualization to control the alteration through motivation, and implementing the change in cooperation with dedicated associates of the team. It attends to boost the inspiration, confidence, and work enactment of employees by the means of numerous tools as well; these involve relating the employee’s feeling of individuality and personality to the mission and the cooperative distinctiveness of the company; acting as a role model for employees to encourage them and increase their attention in the assignment; stimulating workers to take superior tenure for their performance, and acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of workers, consenting the manager to bring into line the employees with assignments that improve their presentation.

Furthermore, transformational change influences and adjusts the culture and brings cultural changes to the department or the organization, the strategy of the maintenance procedure, and the structures of administrative education as well as capacity and knowledge management. Team learning accrues distinct education to classify and provide different perilous education for the benefit of the management. Organizational learning and knowledge management substructure enable the formation, attainment, distribution, and application of information within the company.

References

Birk, S. (2010). The 10 most common myths about leadership. Healthcare Executive, 25(6), 30-38.

Buble, M., Juras, A., & Matić, I. (2014). The relationship between managers’ leadership styles and motivation. Journal Of Contemporary Management Issues, 9(1), 161-193.

Cross, V. (2014). The path-goal theory of leadership in companies. Web.

Hackman, M., & Johnson, C. (2009). Leadership: A communication perspective. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland.

Landrum, N., & Daily, C. (2012). Corporate accountability: A path-goal perspective. International Journal of Business Insights & Transformation, 4(3), 50-62.

Mind Tools. (2015). The Hersey-Blanchard situational leadership theory. Web.