CHANGE MANAGEMENT TOOLKIT – Leadership

CHANGE MANAGEMENT TOOLKIT – Leadership

Version: / Version 1.0 Final
Date: / March 2004
Author: / Yaprak Temren, Manchester Business School

Purpose of Document:

To help councils to understand what kind of leadership they need for their CRM projects, and to help them critique the likely strengths and weaknesses of the leadership profile that they have. Different types of leadership have different advantages and disadvantages. This module will set these out showing how they relate to different local government scenarios. Particular reference will be made to the leadership necessary for radical projects. Cases from local government and elsewhere in the public sector will be given.

Copyright 2004Page 1 of 31Version 1.0 Final, March 2004

Change Management Toolkit - LeadershipCHANGE MANAGEMENT TOOLKIT – Leadership

Table of Contents

1Introduction

1.1Reader......

1.2Related Products & Additional Reading......

1.3Change and leadership......

2organisational culture

2.1concepts of visible and invisible culture......

2.2why OrgaNISATIONAL culture is important......

2.2.1Organisational Culture and Decision Making

2.2.2Organisational Culture and Values & Goals

2.3From bureuacratic culture to adaptive culture......

3leadership

3.1what is leadership?......

3.2is leadership born or made?......

3.3leadership vs. management......

3.4different approaches to leadership......

3.4.1Contingency Leadership

3.4.2Transactional Leadership

3.4.3Transformational Leadership

3.5Key Ingredients for Effective Change Leadership......

3.5.1Power

3.5.2Dialogue

3.5.3Risk Taking

3.5.4Visible Leadership

3.5.5Resistance Management

Resistance from Above

Resistance From Below

3.5.6Investment

3.5.7Limited Resources, High Expectations

4Interview corner

5Useful Links

Annexe 1.Glossary Of Terms

Annexe 2.References

1Introduction

1.1Reader

This product is intended to be used by:

the Chief Executive or Leader of a council

individuals who are aspiring to lead a major programme of change in the council

Individuals who have worked out that leadership is a subtle issue and that everyone can at times be a leader

This document is useful for:

people who are looking to try and develop a deeper understanding of the issue of leadership

people who are willing to start to give the issue time and want to gain insights and pointers that they can explore

1.2Related Products & Additional Reading

This document should be read in conjunction with the following documents:

S3.1 Change Management Core Document: This document is useful in putting leadership into context. It will provide a broader first level understanding of the change process that leaders will come across.

S3.1 Innovation: Innovation is key to entrepreneurial government. It is important for leaders to familiarise themselves with innovation management and to understand how to achieve sustainable creative public sector initiatives.

S3.1 Reputation: Leaders are expected to build and maintain a good reputation for their local authority. This document looks at different perspectives of reputation management and provides a useful reading for leaders.

1.3Change and leadership

The message is everywhere: the challenge of CRM and other e-government initiatives requires leaders who are creative, visionary and willing to take risks. However, this is exactly the opposite of what has hitherto been valued in the bureaucratic culture of public sector management.

Increasingly, as councils move beyond traditional bureaucratic models, leadership is seen as the key to unlocking and then reshaping the culture of the public service. People talk of a new culture of excellence, within which leaders are asked to deliver more modern, efficient and dynamic services. Leading such fundamental organisational renewal, setting the direction and ensuring staff involvement is not going to be an easy challenge.

There is no easy answer to change leadership. There is no one set way or a ‘how to’ guide to lead the CRM process, to lead e-government, or to lead any other reform programme: every organisation is different. No two organisations are the same, no matter how close they are in operational characteristics. This is due to the fact each organisation differs from each other in many subtle ways; people, personality, values, external factors, political factors, organisational history etc. Rather than a simple ‘how to’ guide or recipe document, this report sets out an initial but serious examination of the subject of leadership. This guide will provide an insight into some of the variables, and many of the issues that will form part of the equation of perfect, or at least better, leadership.

2organisational culture

2.1concepts of visible and invisible culture

It is important to understand the organisational culture at a council before getting involved with leadership issues. Organisational culture is a set of key values, assumptions, understandings and norms that is shared by members of an organisation and thought to new members as correct[1]. Ideally, organisational culture helps team members to work collectively and identify themselves with the organisation.

There are two levels of culture: One that is visible and one that is not. The visible culture can be captured looking at dress codes, office layout, slogans etc. The invisible culture is the layer below, where there are expressed values, assumptions and deep beliefs which are shared by the staff of the entire organisation. Although these things can be subtle and hard to define many people are able to appreciate them in a sophisticated way.

Advertising and marketing exploit the sensitivities of people by trying to convey messages without words (e.g. the look and feel of a product). Multi-national corporations try to convey an ‘image’ through their marble-clad entrance foyers, the sincere messages of their Chief Executive, their selection of images and logos.

Individuals find some settings and some social groups more attractive than others, because of deep-rooted appreciation that they, somehow, have more in common with one group of people than with another.

2.2why OrgaNISATIONAL culture is important

2.2.1Organisational Culture and Decision Making

Organisational Culture is important because it can affect people's reasoning and therefore their decision-making processes. This can be illustrated through the idea of ‘an adaptive culture.’

In such a culture, leaders pay attention to customers and develop the changes around expressed values such as customer satisfaction and service quality. These values can be directly translated, for example, a slogan reading ‘citizens first’ communicated in various communication mediums. This in turn would trigger an initiative to deploy a CRM strategy at the planning level in order to comply with the projected visible culture. This is to show how a person's internal reasoning is affected by organisational values and deep beliefs all having their routes planted in the invisible culture.

2.2.2Organisational Culture and Values & Goals

Culture can increase employee cohesion and commitment to values and goals. A strong culture could establish a high level of agreement about the importance of specific values and ways of doing things. For this reason it is important that the culture meets the needs of the organisation. For example, if the environment requires flexibility and responsiveness, the culture should value adaptability.

The culture of an organisation can make or break any change initiative - leaders should always remember that human systems work on norms and values of the culture.

2.3From bureuacratic culture to adaptive culture

The table below illustrates and compares the characteristics of bureaucratic and adaptive culture. It can be used to assess what type of culture a council has:

Bureaucratic Culture / Adaptive Culture
Methodical / Organised But Not Rigid
Process Driven / Customer Driven
Rational / Intuitive
Stable / Risk Taking
Efficient / Responsive
Hierarchy Of Authority / Little Hierarchy
Rule Based Decisions / Experimentation
Precise Procedures / Flexible
Overload At Top Management / Open Communication, Flow of Information
Functional Units / Self Directed Teams
Task Structured / Role Structured
Command And Control Leadership / Distributed Decision Making
Obedience / Encouraged Employee Empowerment
Leader Selects Information For Distribution / Share Information To Share Power
Departmental Structure / Boundaries Are Minimised
Little Collaboration Across Departments / Increased Collaboration
Information Does Not Filter down the Hierarchy / Effective Communication Networks
Very Little Partnership / Collaboration With Other Organisations

Many local authorities would probably fall somewhere in between the bureaucratic culture and adaptive culture. The diagram below maps the three phases in reaching an advanced and innovative organisational culture. This diagram shows a new stage beyond the adaptive culture, the learning culture. It can be argued that, the distinction between an adaptive and a learning organization is subtle, yet profound. Both organizations operate in the present and yet, the adaptive organization is slightly behind; it is just arriving from the past. The learning organization is slightly ahead; it is just leaving for the future[2].

In this sense, the adaptive culture is a follower. Change occurs and then the organisation aims to adapt to the new change factors as soon as it can. Learning organisations, on the other hand, initiate the change by a continuous learning process, looking into ways to improve current knowledge and applications. The learning organisation still has the main characteristics of the adaptive culture, only it has greater emphasis on organisation-wide learning and problem solving as a means of capturing innovation. In order to create a learning organisation, it is obviously necessary to invest in the learning and development of the workforce.

Mike Pitt, Chief Executive Officer of Kent County Council says the following about Empowerment: A characteristic of Adaptive and Learning Organisations“It is very important to think about the nature, style and structure of the organisation. Empowering the front line, making staff feel stronger, making them feel supported by senior management is key to success.

I think it is the job of chief executive, directors, and leading people inside the organisation to empower staff, to think about those people at the front line and their supervisors. They are the people who know what the job is like. They can be creative and really transform the organisation from below”

Source: Northamptonshire County Council Presentation CD

3leadership

3.1what is leadership?

The concept of leadership has evolved significantly and there are many definitions of it. So many, that over the past 50 years, there have been as many as 65 different classification systems developed to define the dimensions of leadership[3]. One simple but effective description is 'a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal'.Leadership is a process that involves influence and occurs in groups with specific attention to goal attainment.

Leadership sits in the heart of technology, strategy, people and culture, and products and services. Ideally, there would be a constant two-way feedback between each of these components and the leader.

3.2is leadership born or made?

Many studies in the past have focused on leadership as a personal characteristic. They suggested that certain people have inborn qualities that make them leaders. In fact, an approach that argues that someone is born a leader (or not) is very limiting. As a potential leader, each person should not be concerned about whether they are born to be a leader, but rather seek to understand the change culture and their role in leading it. Increased understanding and practice can improve leadership. The hypothesis that leadership is a process that can be learned is analysed explored.

Winston Churchill: A Leader Born or Made? An alternative viewWinston Churchill won a BBC poll to gain the title of ‘Greatest Briton.’ His total of 456,498 votes put him ahead of other major historical figures such as Isambard Brunel, Elizabeth I, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and the 20th Century icon, John Lennon. And surely Churchill, as a charismatic leader and orator, suggests the theory that leaders are born. Such skills are difficult to be taught or learned.

Maybe, the Churchill story is interesting because it can actually be used to illustrate more than one model of leadership. It could be a story of born leadership, or it could be a story that rests on chance, timing and many contingent factors. Contingency plays an important role on the style and perception of leadership. Leaders that arise in difficult times often get associated with heroic characteristics, which may be a direct consequence of successful ‘crises leadership’. After all, before becoming Prime Minister Churchill was nearly deselected by his own constituency party! Immediately after World War II, he lost an election.

Seemingly, a world away from the cut and thrust of modern day local government and CRM, Churchill’s story captures something of the enigma of leadership. It seems that leadership style and context are intermingled in a way that, rather ironically, leaders themselves cannot always control.

Source:

3.3leadership vs. management

Management and leadership are two distinctive and complementary systems of action. Management is about coping with complexity. It is a response to the emergence of large and complex organisations. Leadership, on the other hand is about coping with change. So, more change always demands more leadership[4].

Management vs. Leadership
Management / Leadership
Objective / To decide what needs to be done, to create networks of people and relationships that can accomplish agenda, to ensure that those people do their jobs.
Complexity / Planning and budgeting / vs. / Setting a direction
Capacity / Organising and staffing / vs. / Aligning people
Accomplishment / Controlling and problem solving / vs. / Motivating and inspiring

The above table shows two ways of achieving an objective. In order to deal with complexity a manager would set targets and goals, plan how to achieve these goals and allocate resources. A leader would develop a vision along with strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve the vision. Consider two different aspects of everyday organisational life:

Capacity: In a managerial perspective this is often handled by creating organisational structures and procedures, by creating jobs and delegating tasks. Under a leadership perspective it is about communicating the new direction, creating networks and relationships.

Accomplishment in management terms is monitoring results against plans, spotting gaps, then planning and organising to meet the ends. A leadership approach to accomplishment focuses on people. A leader keeps people moving in the right direction by using various means such as empowerment, creating goal achievement culture, motivating and inspiring.

Even though there is a considerable amount of overlap between leadership and management, they are two different concepts. Management is more of a mechanical concept whereas leadership is not. This does not mean that leadership can substitute management. The best results in a change process would ultimately result from a successful integration between the two.

Another important point to stress is that good managers need not necessarily be good leaders and vice versa. There can be a separation of roles in this sense, as long as managers and leaders work together in order to achieve collective goals and objectives.

3.4different approaches to leadership

Leadership is an increasingly popular topic for both the private and public sector, and for politicians and academics. Published materials on leadership by the end of the 1980s were estimated to be upward of 10,000 books and articles[5]. This number has considerably grown since then. Following is a selection of a handful of the suggested theories reflecting the mainstream ideas.

3.4.1Contingency Leadership

Prior to the contingency view of leadership, leadership was seen as a psychological dimension. Leaders were said to have a set of stable attributes also called “traits” that made them stand out in the crowd as the leaders. Trait theories were too much person centred and somewhat neglected non-personal aspects of leadership.

Following the trait theories, the Contingency Model brings in the concept of context. It takes account of the additional variables (e.g. settings and people), to overcome the weaknesses of previously simpler models in understanding leadership. There are many approaches to leadership using the Contingency model, all of which are concerned with leadership styles and various situations.

Situational Approach

This approach assumes that different types of leadership are needed in different situations therefore the leader needs to adapt his or her style according to demands of different situations. Leaders would choose to either direct, coach, support, delegate or a combination of these according to the competence and commitment of staff and the difficulty of the task. The leaders would employ a directive or supportive style or a combination of both. For this model to be effective, it is crucial that the leader correctly establishes the level of the subordinate in the development cycle. As a model, it is proven to be very practical and easy to use. It also emphasises leadership flexibility. However, this model does not illustrate the move of subordinates between development levels and concentrates on one to one relationship rather than involving a group of people.

Path Goal Theory

This is concerned with the idea that leaders motivate employees to feel that they have the ability to do the work required of them. The leader seeks to make the employees feel that if they successfully do their work, they will be rewarded.

Source: Richard L. Daft, The Leadership Experience, Harcourt College Publishers, 2nd Ed, p94

The central idea in this model is motivation. The leader is responsible for increasing the motivation of a subordinate. To increase motivation, the leader can:

clarify the path by defining what needs to be done and followers role

increase rewards by learning followers’ needs and matching needs to rewards

The leader can choose to be supportive, directive, participative or achievement oriented depending on the situation. Directive leadership can work when the task is ambiguous and complex, although this type of leadership can be seen as authoritarian and requires caution.
The supportive leadership provides nurturance and a human touch. Participative leader behaviour gives clarity and provides involvement. The achievement-oriented leadership provides challenges. The group members would feel that there are high expectations and this can lead to feeling the need to excel. This type of leadership is most effective in ambiguous, challenging and complex settings.