Leadership in Change Management

Discuss about the Marketing Concept for Manager.

The leaders are the one who have the power and authority to control the individuals and pose any kind of change in the organization. For any effective organizational change there is a need that there should be a charismatic leader as well as there should be present a sense of trust and reliability for the organization (Ajmal, et al., n.d.). Effective change is interrelated with the qualities of a leader and with the marketing practices. For every business to grow and achieve success change management is necessary, with the change in marketing concepts, policies, taste of consumers, environmental aspect etc. There is a requirement that the organization should also incorporate respective change in its policies and operations so that it can achieve higher sustainability from future perspectives. There are several changes in the marketing practices in present scenario such as the major segment of the commerce industry is now involved in the e-commerce and e-marketing activities rather than focusing on investing much in the physical trade and marketing practices. The involvement of marketing practices which emphasize on developing the e-commerce relatively give rise to e-marketing and e-purchasing and thus with this change there is a need to change the overall methods, processes and approaches of an organization and this results into an overall organizational change (Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths, 2014).

The leaders have a significant role in the organizational change and in change management. Change management is regarded as the core proficiency and competency of the 21^st Century business leaders. The major responsibility of the leader in any change management is to help the workforce in developing their skills and abilities so that they can cope up and adjust with these organizational changes. The leaders who are responsible for the successful change are required to pay watchful attention over the efforts of sustainability towards any change, the implementation of change in the organization and over the initiation or launch of change (Herold and Fedop, n.d).

There are various abilities and skills of the leaders which are associated with the change management such as leadership development which signifies that there the top management must possess the skill and ability to catch the trust and faith of the internal customers in the organization and in the leaders. Secondly competence is related to sales and marketing which depicts that there the leaders must aware the workforces regarding the positive as well as negative consequences of the organizational change and another skill is the related to the communication of a leader which emphasize that fir any kind of change the leaders must influence the employees to support that change and must strive hard to gather the maximum support possible so that there can be increased chances of the success of the change management (Singh, 2011).

Incorporating Marketing Practices in Change Management

(Source: Abbas and Asghar, 2010)

There is a strong co-relation between the innovative and visionary approach of a leader with the successful change management. The change and innovation in an organization is required for attaining sustainability with change in technology, time and consumer market. Thus to bring innovativeness in the organization it is essential that the leaders possess innovativeness in their skills and attributes (Vaccaro, et al., 2012). The visionary approach of the leaders will help the organization in achieving its aims and objectives of organizational change effectively. Hence the analysts and scholars believe that there is a direct link and relation between the visionary approach and pioneering competencies’ of the leaders with the effective change management and application of innovative marketing practices (SEO, et al., 2012).

For any organizational change to implement effectively there is the primary need that the organization, the workers, the leaders and other things which are associated with that chare are ready for that change to get incorporated in the organization. The readiness for change means that all the individuals, organizational elements, environment, the society are ready for that change to accept it thoroughly and does not get negatively impacted with those changes. For this it is required to assess the readiness of the individuals and the organizations (Carter, et al., 2013). There are various techniques and strategies to assess the readiness such as a survey can be used for evaluating and identifying that whether the employees are both mentally and as per their job role are comfortable to accept and work in the new change management. Other techniques for evaluating the organizational readiness is the one-to-one approach with the employees, through this there can be a direct approach towards understanding the barriers in the organizational readiness for any kind of change in the organization or the business operations. Thus it is essential that overall readiness must be analyzed before implementing any sort of change in the organization so that the company can be saved from negative impacts of the change management (Vakola, 2013).

The organizational readiness highly impacts the leader as the controller and person liable for the organizational change. The involvement of the digital media has highly emphasized the business organizations to implement change in the business operations, selection of workforce and the organization. The digital and social media has impacted in number of ways such as in present scenario and also from last few years the e-commerce and e-marketing industry had attained high focus and customer response. The involvement of digital media has changed the entire picture of marketing and commerce industry. Now the people use various online marketing strategies advertise their products and services, the entire organizational system has also got influenced with high-tech know-how and the need for the expertise have been increased and the people who are deprived of such updated and technical competence are getting fired or does not get the similar kind of benefits compared to the one who are digitally involved and possess technical competence (Santhidran, Chandran and Borromeo, 2013).  The leaders are also get very much impacted as it’s their major responsibility to make people understand and adjust for their respective work role after the implementation of the change in the organization. If any leader is unsuccessful or incompetent enough to manage the individuals affectively and in its leadership there are negative outcomes of the change management then it directly poses a very drowning impact over the status of the leader and his capabilities. The leader has several responsibilities such as to implement the change plan effectively, make the employees understand for accepting change in the organization, formation of marketing strategies and practices to get sustained and positive impact of the change as well to retain the employees and the customers from future perspectives. And if the results of the change program are unsatisfactory and opposite to the planned outcomes than the major impact which takes place is on the leader and its competence (Rafferty, Jimmieson and Armenakis, 2013).

Assessing Readiness for Change

There are various examples in the history of organizations and marketing where any changes management has taken place and the major role which has been highlighted is of the leader or the higher authority responsible for that change. The one of the much known example is of Yahoo where the new CEO Marissa Mayer was recognized for improving each and every angle of the company. The employees who left the organization were coming back; the prices of the stock up surged as well as the workforces were embracing their new leader very much. All this took place because of the correct leadership style and traits if Marissa as she put her entire focus over the talent management of the organization which encouraged and influenced the employees to work with determination and full enthusiasm and this resulted in organizational development (Troyani, 2014). Another professional example for the evaluation is the change management which had taken place at Walmart, which is the leading retail corporation  but because of the very much squat prices and unethical practices drowned kits image completely but after implementing the change management which focused on the improvements in the working conditions and wages of the employees as well as adoption of various eco-friendly practices, once again the company recognized its brand name as well the attrition rate suddenly decreases from a significant percentage (Santhidran, Chandran and Borromeo, 2013). All these happen because of the effective implementation of the change management and the leadership traits of the higher authorities of the company. There are various other professional examples also where the organization implemented change management and the leaders defectively managed and executed it and provide the organization higher sustainability and growth (Hon, Bloom and Crant, 2014). 

References

Abbas, W. and Asghar, I., 2010. The role of leadership in organizational change, Faculty of Engineering and Sustainable Development, University of Gavle, Pp.53, Accessed on: 25^th September, 2016, Accessed from: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:326289/fulltext01

Ajmal, S., Farooq, M.Z., Sajid, N. and Awan, S., Role of Leadership in Change Management Process, Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences, 5(2), Pp.111-124. Accessed on: 25^th September, 2016, Accessed from: https://aupc.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/V5I2-8.pdf

Benn, S., Dunphy, D. and Griffiths, A., 2014. Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge.

Carter, M.Z., Armenakis, A.A., Feild, H.S. and Mossholder, K.W., 2013. Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(7), pp.942-958.

Herold, ., M and Fedor, D. B. (n.d). Leading change management, leadership strategies that really work, Standford Business Books.

Hon, A.H., Bloom, M. and Crant, J.M., 2014. Overcoming resistance to change and enhancing creative performance. Journal of Management, 40(3), pp.919-941.

Rafferty, A.E., Jimmieson, N.L. and Armenakis, A.A., 2013. Change readiness a multilevel review. Journal of Management, 39(1), pp.110-135.

Santhidran, S., Chandran, V.G.R. and Borromeo, J., 2013. Enabling organizational change–leadership, commitment to change and the mediating role of change readiness. Journal of business economics and management,14(2), pp.348-363.

SEO, M.G., Taylor, M.S., Hill, N.S., Zhang, X., Tesluk, P.E. and Lorinkova, N.M., 2012. The role of affect and leadership during organizational change.Personnel Psychology, 65(1), pp.121-165.

Singh, K. S. (2011). Leadership & Organizational Learning in Knowledge Management Practices in Global Organizations, The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 47(2), Pp.353-365.

Troyani, L., 2014. 3 examples of organizational change and why they got it right, Tiny Pulse, Accessed on: 25^th September, 2016, Accessed from: https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/3-examples-of-organizational-change-and-why-they-got-it-right

Vaccaro, I.G., Jansen, J.J., Van Den Bosch, F.A. and Volberda, H.W., 2012. Management innovation and leadership: The moderating role of organizational size. Journal of Management Studies, 49(1), pp.28-51.

Vakola, M., 2013. Multilevel readiness to organizational change: A conceptual approach. Journal of change management, 13(1), pp.96-109.