With full responsibility and accountability, lead the organization to the overall performance and successful change of the organization. However, change is a process that requires cooperation and a level of understanding between people in the organization. The success of change management in an organization then depends on the ability to place the right leader in the right position.
With these differentiations, the organization itself requires different characteristics and actions from its leadership to lead and overcome the change process even at each stage of change management.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Organization Change and Change Process
- Planned Change Model
- Leadership
- Transactional Leadership
- Transformational Leadership
- Leadership impact to organization change process
The idea of episodic change refers to “when an organization is affected by a dramatic and abnormal trend in the external environment that results in an inability to adapt to the environment. In contrast to episodic change, the idea of continuous change is how the organization copes with the increasing turbulence of the external environment. This phase should last long until a future change occurs that has a critical impact on the organization.
Golm, 2009) explained that further theories were developed and the idea of change was refined, which is still relevant to Lewin's framework. Another example that could describe Lewin's model of planned change in relation to managerial competencies is given in (Higgs & Rowland, 2000), which was also cited in (Golm, 2009). Compared to the research cited in (Higgs & Rowland, 2005), there are two main reasons for the failure of change in an organization: one cannot gain commitment to the change and the other cannot effectively implement the change.
Supporting the change and encouraging the creativity in the organization are increasingly becoming key objectives for recent organizational leaders. Transactional leadership is also similar to the concept of preservative that maintains corporate culture and improves the existing structure of the organization. Inspirational motivation refers to the extent to which the leader articulates a vision that appeals to the followers and inspires with optimism about future goals and provides meaning for the current tasks in the organization.
Thus, a strong level of understanding of the differences between the types of leadership that influence the different stages of Lewin's planned change model is necessary because Kotter's estimate of over 70% of change initiatives fail, which which resulted from the ineffectiveness of their responsible leaders. for change management. Although, recent research revealed the strong relationship and significant impact of transformational leadership on organizational change initiative and overall organizational performance.
METHODOLOGY
Primary data collection method
Interview method
- Sample selection
- Develop open-ended question
- Probing technique
- Conduct the interview
- Research framework
Further, the organization is now experiencing the major change moving forward towards new technology and requires proper adaptation at every level of the organization like skill set, management practice etc. In order to find out the leadership style in real life that the organization is using, the experience of the leaders who managed the change and to be able to draw a conclusion of the leadership challenge and recommendation for the change process, it is proposed to use open questions. To ensure that the data collection is valid and to ensure a clear understanding of the root cause from the interview questions, the test technique was adopted.
On the other hand, if the interview goes deeper but deviates from the direction of the interview topic, examine technique. Nevertheless, probes will be created when the follow-up questions are used during the give and take of the interview session. The place of interview session is the coffee shop or the interviewee's workplace of the interviewees as they consider comfortable.
The interview session will take approximately 30-45 minutes including introduction, open-ended and probing questions. Finally, the study's analyzes and conclusions must be given based on the interview results, associated theory and other research results. The research result is obtained by identifying the management challenge of the planned change phase and recommendation to the organization.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Change Processes and objectives
- Managers’ perspective – “adapt to change in technology”
- Staff’s perspective – “unclear”
- Current change stage – “unfreeze”
The support statement from C is that “we are the support team who contribute most of the time to customer service. If the top management does not announce the company's direction, we can only stay in the middle, the technology that our core customers followed. Furthermore, the four remaining staff admitted that they knew that the organization was changing, but in the deeper conversation we found out that they could not explain what it was.
She said that "I do not feel any change through my work at this time. This change allowed me to reveal skill and capacity in the way that the company has never given us before. I saw the unique work behavior of this team that even they work in the support function, which lacks innovation and creativity, but the way they work together, adopt and follow trend and approach quickly, which is seen and recognized well spread in the organization.
This evidence from both the majority and minority of interview participants supported the fact: failure could happen in the event that the company could not properly communicate the vision nor have a strong guiding coalition to drive change with related to the direct leader of the organization. the employees. According to the inferred answers from the interview session, all participants responded in the same direction, which can be summarized that the transformation of the selected organization is in the thawing stage. F explained a recent internal workshop about what we want to see in the future and how the way of working differs from the current one.
Leadership style to support the change
- Middle-Level Leader – “manage on day-to-day basis” versus
- Top-Level Leader – “cultivate the change”
In summary of the change stage, the organization developed the change plan as concluded as "unfreeze". During this phase, organization must communicate to improve employee engagement and promote the change. C said that “For entry-level employees, power of authority is the source of job improvement.
As a result of these skills, morale and individual satisfaction are relatively high and the employee has enjoyed the change journey because he has understood the objective. It is the finding that F mentioned about how her direct supervisor influences her change that “The way my boss used is to share the situation with me and help me understand what's going on. I think if the word had been communicated by someone else, the result might have been different." Relatedly, G also said similarly that “She held a coffee chat session and invited the employees.
I believe that the organization's change environment strongly supports the change of employee." Based on this evidence, the leadership style of top level managers can be classified as transformational leadership in a sense of inspirational motivation. She stated that "It happened every time my boss wants to ask me, tells me what to do, who to contact, and at the same time she asks if I'm ok with this action, and gives me the opportunity to ask back and act that way. I prefer." Another supporting evidence is found from B, answered how her boss helps and influences the change, that "my boss took many things and supported with one hundred percent to change. She realized that people are different and to to make the change succeed, she therefore recruited several new generation, expatriate people to allow them to blend into the culture and use their practices to help us change faster."
Leadership and change management effectiveness
- Change successful, fair engagement but doubts remain
- Change successful, positive engagement and moving ahead In contrast to the aforementioned experiences, two of interviewees of staff-
- The result is yes and no, depends on what are you looking for From staffs’ perspectives, they noticed the change accomplishment whilst
The path of change is greater continuity and I have seen many leaders contribute their efforts to change. With this first step, the change is successful.” The interviews show that only respondents who saw that the change affected their daily work said that the change was successful. In response to this question, A mentioned the change agent: “I knew we had a problem with middle management capability.
Without strong middle management levels, we cannot implement the change effectively because this time they are a key person to manage the change. We couldn't agree at this point that we overcame it and that we succeeded.' The same question was asked to B about what she thinks would help the change succeed in the future. How well and quickly the employee can respond to the change depends on individual interests and adjustment rate according to the adopter type theory mentioned in (Steele & Murray, 2004), i.e.
Therefore, communication does not influence the success of the change, depending on the response to the effectiveness of the change. The broader the responsibility for the change process, the less likely it is to say that the change is successful. At a staff level, even if they are questionable, there is no impact of the change on their job, no change in behavior from their manager to support them.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
During the thawing period, the means of communication is an important success factor that will influence people making their decision to be involved in the change, which is also the most important characteristic of transformational leadership, but the interview shows that the question of what and how of this process of change is not clearly answered. People are quite interested in the change because the market and industry had already changed and as a worker in the fast paced technology industry. Staff supervised by their leaders' transformational leadership responded positively to the change initiative and were more committed to the change than those supervised by their leaders' transactional leadership style.
Recommendations to the organization
Because many of the mid-level leaders who interact with staff are still managing on a day-to-day basis. Both types of leadership style have an impact on moving employees into different change phases. The organization plans for targeted results of the change and places the right leadership to manage the right change process.
It is clear from the interview result of the middle level leader who has transformational leadership style that engages and enjoys change more than transactional leadership style during the fusion stage of change. As mentioned by senior management, the organization will focus more on embracing individual skills and encouraging them to be creative and innovative in the new normal. However, the process of change has just begun, it took time for the development process of people, and the result is difficult to measure whether this result is derived from the transformation.
For example, find the right person with the skills and behavior and support them to create, lead and grow within the organization.
Limitations and future researches
