Running head: CHANGE MANAGEMENT 1

Change management

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Change management

Introduction

Leaders and change agents play an important role in development and in management of

an organization. A leader is a person who influences a group of people to work towards

achieving a particular goal. A change agent on the other hand is a person from within or from

without an organization that commits in helping the organization in transformation by focusing

on the important matter that affect the organization. This paper aims at analyzing the roles of

leaders and change agents in organizational and the significance of their roles towards the same

(Pathak, 2010, pg. 117).

Role of a leader

Leaders play the role of a sponsor in organizational change. They act as the advocates to

their level of leadership in the organization and are the ones who play the key role of keeping

that attainment of the change at the forefront of their peers. Given this role of being the sponsor,

leaders have the obligation to ensure that the change initiative does not die off as a result of lack

of initiative and attention. They champion for the change sometimes to the level of using their

own capital to make the change happen no matter the situation (Ajmal, Zuhair, Noman, and Sajid

A2011, pg. 115).

Leaders also have the role of acting as the decision makers whereby they control and

allocate the resources, budgets and the equipment in the company that may be important for

achieving change. This is boosted by the authority that they have and they may use it effectively

towards achieving change in the organization. With their authority, they are able to stop a change

incase it happens to be moving in the wrong direction and they might as well give the change
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program the nod if it happens to be headed in the right direction. They have the capacity to

choose the options that support the change (Stagl, 2011, par. 2)

In change, the leaders act as the role model for the group of the other people in moving

the organization towards change. This is through demonstrating the behaviors and attitudes that

are ideal for all the others to emulate. Employees tend to watch their leaders keenly and take note

of their words and actions and if the leaders demonstrate the right attitude towards achieving the

change, then they will motivate the other employees to emulate the same.

Leaders play the role of the motivator in achieving changes. They show the motivation

that is required for achieving change. They achieve this by creating a sense of urgency within the

organization and highlight the importance of the change for the employees through

demonstration of commitment and passion towards achieving the same. They also give

motivation and recognition to those employees who demonstrate exemplary commitment in the

process of achieving change. Motivation from the leaders comes from the realization that change

may be difficult to achieve and therefore motivate the employees to step out of their comfort

zone so as to be able to achieve change (Burke, 2010, pg. 270).

Leaders also have to paly the role of being the enforcers for change. They hold people in

the organization accountable for their various actions or inactions. They have the responsibility

of upholding agreement that are made and ensure that other people in the organizations also paly

their part in the same. They do not allow people to get away with actions that drag the process of

change behind or those that do not play their roles effectively in achieving the change.

In organizational change, leaders acts as the enablers in that they control every process

and procedure that is involved in moving towards the attainment of change. They ensure that
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every process involved works according to plan and that the desired outcomes are achieved and

therefore there are no unwanted outcome from the process. They dictate how the process is to be

conducted and ensure that the desired final outcome of the process is achieved due to the believe

that change is predictable (Abba, and Imran, 2010, pg. 24).

An effective change needs to have a clear vision of the desired outcome. For this to be

realistic, the leader should have a clear and focused vision of the change that the sets the

organization to achieve. Change that has no clear vision is very difficult to achieve. The leaders

then have to communicate the visions that they have focused about the change to the

organization and be critical to the employees in ensuring that they implement and work toward

the vision. It is only through communicating the vision that it can be realistic to work towards the

same (Lewis, 2011, pg. 33).

Leaders have to play the role of setting up the suitable environment within the

organization for the works to be able to work in in achieving the change. Leaders develop and

bring in new strategies s that are to be useful for creating the right environment in the

organization for creating the right environment and culture for developing and sustaining change.

Leaders have to create an interconnection between the organizational change and the employees.

The right culture that the leaders are mandated to create may include the beliefs and the values

that the organization value. He needs to create the right culture that is adaptive to change.

Change in some organizations may involve the use of new technology. Leaders in such

situations have the role of effectively managing the technologies that are involved in moving

towards change. Managing change involve to important dimensions which include transactional

and transformational. Transactional change mainly involves change in the technology and
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development of technical skills without giving much attention to the solving the problem that is

involved. Transformational leadership on the other hand focuses on changes in the technology

taking to considerations the aspects of the human needs in working towards change.

Transformational leadership is the best leadership skill that should be exercised by the leaders in

effectively achieving and managing change for the organization (Wanberf, & Banas, 2000, pg

138).

Leaders also have to play the role of setting up the important strategies that are important

for achieving change. For example, he might put in place such strategies as reward systems for

the employees which will act as the, motivation. It has been noted that employees in receiving

such motivations tend to work more effectively. For realizing change therefore, the leaders have

to ensure that they put in place the necessary important strategies that may motivate the

employees in working to their best towards the companys goal of achieving change (Bejestani,

2011, pg. 40)

Leaders have also had to be creative in the process of achieving conge in an organization.

They have to come up with new and easier ways that are more creative that the existing one. This

ensures efficient process of change for the organization. In an instance where the process of

change seems to lack ideas for moving ahead, he has to develop a creative way through which

they shall be able to move forward.

Roles of change agents

Change agents play a major role in an organizational change. To begin with, change

agents act as consultants in the organization. They generate relevant data and information from

outside the organization to help keep the employees in touch with important information for
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achieving change. They may also achieve this through helping the employees to gain access to

data from within the organization. Generally, they help the employees to generate and analyze

data in the organization to be able to use the same for achieving organizational change (Pathak,

2010, pg. 121).

Change agents also act as trainers whereby they help the members involved in the change

to be able to know hoe to use the information that they have generated effectively for

organizational change. They achieve this through helping the employees derive implications for

actions from the present data as well as providing the members with necessary new skills for

translating and using the information generated effectively (Grimsley, 2015, par. 3

Change agents in some cases may assume the role of a researcher. Here, they are able to

achieve this through provision of training for organizational members for the necessary skills

that are needed for effectively evaluating how effective the plans to action are and how they are

to be implemented for achieving the set objective of change. They additional develop

components of evaluation that they use for effectively analyzing the process of change not only

for the current but also for future purposes (Lunenburg, 2010, pg. 3).

Change agents also play an important role in diagnosing problem in the organization in

its development towards change. Through their clear understanding of the organization and it

driving force, they are able to analyze issues that are related to performance in the company and

the impacts that they may have for both long term and short term analysis and in developing the

necessary solutions (Pathak, 2010, pg. 121).

Change agents also acts as the link between the consultants and the organization. An

internal change agent is able to achieve this by the fact that he has the vast knowledge of the two
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different parties that are involved in the process of change. They bare the people that produce

familiarization and the learning time of the consultants (Langley & Bartunek, 2003, par. 306).

Change agent has also the role of communicating the necessary steps and actions that are

necessary for achieving the change in the organization. He communicates the objectives of the

change program to all the people that are involved in the same through either formal or informal

means or discussions. The communication is for either the internal organs of the organizations

that are related to the change process or to external stakeholders that have an interest in the same.

This is important for curbing the resistance that may arise from individuals concerning the

change (Czarniawska, 1996, pg 64).

Change agents play an important role in corporate management. The corporate

management involves the top authority and the leadership of the organization. Corporate

management that is inclusive of the change agents play important role in achieving change. One

of the role that they paly is legitimization of the change that is being planned, recommend on it

and ensure that the change is implemented according to plan. Corporate management is also key

for energizing the change process in the organization. Given that the case may tend to go down

in morale in some cases and low in enthusiasm, it the role of the change agents to ensure that

morale is boosted and the change process is back (Smith, 2005, pg. 410).

Through their experience in the related field concerning the change and the problem that

they will have gained through their involvement in the same issue with other various

organizations, they are fully aware of the problem that is involved and therefore have the

necessary skills and expertise for handling the same effectively. They can therefore be able to
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apply the same experience on how they were able to overcome a particular issue in their previous

encounters given the specific reasonings that they applied in those cases (Wan, 2015, pg. 17)

Change agents also play the role of providing different dimensions of viewing a

particular issue. Given their fresh viewing points of a particular problem, change agents are able

to come up with new ideas of handling the process of change. If the change agent is for example

an outsider, although they might not necessarily be more imaginative than the others in the

organization, the fact that they are outsides implies that they do not view the problem involved

from t eh same perspective as those in the organization. Their fresh view may also be as a result

of their exposure to the outside world for example through informa5tion from the libraries or

from their colleagues. This also implies that they are able to get access to various infrastructures

that may play a key role in achieving the desired organizational change (Manikandah, 2010, pg.

57)

Significance of role of leaders and change agents in managing change

Leaders in an organization are very important for managing change in the organization.

First of all, their significance is highlighted in case the organization and the employees have faith

in the plans of the leader or change agent. The leaders will act to put in place effective and

planning that is sensible and important decision making in the organization during periods of

drastic changes in the organization. The faith vested in the leaders by the employees implies that

they trust that he has their interests at heart and therefore and therefore they will be able to fully

implement the process of change to their full capability as a result (Kotter, 2007, pg. 95).

The importance of the leadership is also noted in the sense that an organization that is

characterized by poor leadership does not expect to achieve any positive result form any change
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process. This creates an environment of distrust between the leader and the employees. This

result in the absence of hope in the organization and will lead to the dis-functioning of the

organization

Leaders play an important role in implementing change. During the later stages of

implementing the change process, the organization is usually very unstable. The employees are

more likely to be grieving over the loss that may have been experienced in the company and this

may blur their vision towards the future. The leaders in such cases play a crucial role of building

a vision for the organization again and dealing effectively with the emotions that are involved so

as to stabilize the organization again and ensure that the process of change has been fully been

implemented (Michaelis, Stegmaier & Sonntag, 2009, pg. 403)

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References

Abba, W., and Imran, A. (2010). The role of leadership in organizational change. University Of

Gavle.

Ajmal, S., Zuhair, F., Noman, S., and Sajid A. (2011).Role of Leadership in Change

Management Process. Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences Vol. 5 No. 2. Pg. 111-124

Bejestani, H, S. (2011). Improving Project Change Management Using Leadership Spirit.

Burke, W. W. (2010). Organization change: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE

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Czarniawska, B. (1996). Translating organizational change. Berlin [u.a.: de Gruyter.

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Manikandah, P. (2010). Change Management-Make Difference? Advances in Management, 3(9),

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Pathak, H. (2010). Organisational change. S. I.: Pearson.

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Stagl, H. (2011). Six Roles of a Leader During Change | Enclaria: Influence Change at Work.

Enclaria.com. Retrieved 16 June 2015, from http://www.enclaria.com/2011/10/06/six-

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Wanberf, R, C & Banas, T, J. (2000). Predictors and outcomes of openness to changes in a

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