Organizational authority and its influence on change processes

¶ … Change Process

Authority and leadership have an enormous influence on an organization that is going through change.

The strong authority figures that embrace transformation leadership styles of management within an organization are very likely to be successful in bringing along the rest of the organization. By reviewing plans and goals carefully and fully with staff and other executives, the transformational leader can take the organization well past the old concept of status quo and infuse a "broad shared vision of the future" instead (McKnight, 2013, p. 103). In the peer-reviewed Journal of Leadership, Accountability & Ethics, the author asserts that the transformational leader can provide an enormous source of support through identifying the exact steps an organization will need in order to successfully transition through changes in the goals of the organization.

The transformational leader will be "…creative and inclusionary," McKnight explains (103), and will be totally open for "personal and organization continuous learning" as the change components are encountered. The leader -- and this paper suggests that the transformational kind of leader is most apt to enjoy success when guiding an organization through change -- must show his or her authority through: a) the building of consensus with staff; b) uniting the company behind achievable plans and goals that the employees believe in and are willing to work towards; c) maintaining sustainability and accountability; d) charismatic interactions with employees; e) strong "human value systems" that help to motive others; and f) connecting the organization with "the external community that it serves" (McKnight, 104).

The authority figure that hopes to move an organization through dramatic change must have the ability, as McKnight explains on page 104, to "…create a collective vision, act in a sense of oneness, be…authentic and engaged," and also that leader must "loosen authority and control" at the right moments to the point of getting down on the level that his or her community of workers are. The idea that change can take place in an organization when the company's strongest leaders adhere to a hierarchy (totem pole) mentality is wrong, McKnight insists.

A strong authority figure is absolutely imperative in a situation in which change is being implemented, and work activities are being assigned in the new configuration, McKnight explains. The transformational leader will set "high performance expectations" and that leader will be certain to "reward behaviors that are directed towards the vision…" that the leader has outlined (McKnight, 105). Once clear responsibilities and priorities have been set through "extensive communication" with staff and executives, McKnight asserts, the freedom to improvise must be granted to the workers (105).

Moreover, if the change is "punctuated," meaning there needs to be a rapid, urgent change, there are additional responsibilities that fall into the lap of the transformational leader. These responsibilities actually manifest themselves as "external pressures," McKnight puts forward on page 106. The first external pressure that must be successfully dealt with is the "reconfiguration" of the "value stream" which is being repositioned in the organization; secondly, the leader must assist in redefining the "driving force" of the organization, which is basically developing a new mission or goal or strategy (McKnight, 106). And the third external pressure in a punctuated change is to actually "redefine the value proposition to the existing or the new customer"; this means the leadership must guide activities within the organization to meet new market challenges and to identify and please a new customer base (McKnight, 106).

TWO: Why do people resist change? How can managers overcome that resistance?

Psychologists explain that "…human resistance to change is a perfectly natural process," according to a peer-reviewed piece in the Annals of the University of Oradea, Economic Science Series (Mariana, et al., 2013). However, just because there are uncertainties and anxieties that go along with change, there doesn't need to be horrific discomfort experienced by the organization. That having been said the authors of this article point to certain "forces" at work within the dynamics of serious organizational change.

Those internal forces include: a) forces that identify the "particularities" of the change to be accomplished; b) forces that are linked to employees' fears; c) forces that are related to the managers that must coordinate the change; and d) forces "…connected with the organization features and processes that take place within it" (Mariana, 1607).

Gary Powell and Barry Posner point to forces that resist change that are more specific to the issue of change than those provided by Mariana. Writing in the Human Resource Management journal, Powell and Posner break down the forces that resist change into bite-sized components, and they provide ideas as to how to overcome those resisting forces. There are "individual fears": a) fear of unknown; b) frustration and failure contribute to personal fears; c) threat of change to social relations at work; d) threat of change to one's status in the organization; e) threat of "…change to pride in proficiency at existing job"; and f) radical altering of one's work habits, including possible changes in value systems (Powell, et al., 1978).

How leaders can deal with employees' resistance to change: a) Leadership (managers, foremen, site leaders) must understand that employees have "good reasons for both accepting change and objecting to change" and hence, leaders must listen to concerns no matter how petty or naive; b) leaders should understand that in many cases, employees are "…an underutilized source of change"; they must buy into the change and be given authority to make their own adjustments; in this case, it is a matter of classifying and grouping activities and assignment work and delegating authority based on listening to employee concerns and fears; and c) employee factors that go beyond those in the previous paragraph must be taken into consideration; age and years of education; group cohesiveness and satisfaction; and the personal history of success or failure with past organizational changes key employees have gone through (Powell, 33).

THREE: One example of an organization that went through a significant change.