Unit Number-17
Understanding and Leading Change
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Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2
Task 01 ........................................................................................................................... 3
Evaluating How External and Internal Drivers of Change Affect the Leadership, Team and
Individual Behaviors within an Organisation .................................................................... 3
Internal Drivers of Blake Logitech ................................................................................ 4
Strength of Internal Drivers .......................................................................................... 4
The weakness of Internal Drivers ................................................................................ 5
External Drivers of Blake Logitech ............................................................................... 5
Strength of External Drivers ......................................................................................... 5
The weakness of Internal Drivers ................................................................................ 6
Measures that Can Be Taken to Minimize the Negative Effect of Change in Organizational
Behaviour ........................................................................................................................ 6
Evaluating the Measures ............................................................................................. 7
Critically evaluates the long-term implications of internal and external drivers of change
within an organisation...................................................................................................... 9
Task 02 ......................................................................................................................... 10
Barriers of Change and Their Influence on Leadership Decision-Making...................... 10
Force Field Analysis of Coca-Cola ................................................................................ 12
Task 03 ......................................................................................................................... 14
Applying Different Leadership Approaches to Dealing with Change to a Leadership
Change in a Range of Organisational Context .............................................................. 14
Evaluating the Extent to Which Leadership Approaches Can Deliver Organisational
Change Effectively ........................................................................................................ 22
Lewin’s Change Management Model......................................................................... 22
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 24
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References .................................................................................................................... 25
Introduction
Change is a part of human life which cannot be detached from humans. In every step,
humans faced changes and tried to cooperate with the changes. Business is a source of
living for humans and this sector also faced changes. In the modern era, it is important to
understand the business changes to operate the business effectively. To clarify these
topics, this report will discuss changes, drivers of changes and positive-negative impacts
of changes in the context of Blake Logitech.
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Task 01
Evaluating How External and Internal Drivers of Change Affect the
Leadership, Team and Individual Behaviors within an Organisation
When a business goes through changes, different drivers influence the leadership, team
and employees. These drivers have some positive aspects and negative aspects. By
analyzing the strength and weakness of these drivers an organisation can get fruitful
output by the process of change (Steers and Black, 2015). In this section, the internal
driver of changes and external driver of changes will be discussed in the context of Blake
Logitech.
Strengths
Weakness
● Knowledge and skills of the
employees.
● Better production process than
competitors.
● Unique design and features of the
● Lack of innovation.
● Does not have strong public
relation department.
● Unclear instructions from the
management.
products
Opportunities
Threats
● Tech industry is growing rapidly in
the United Kingdom
● Media and customers get excited
about the new product launch
● Developing countries demanding
tech products
● Competitors are launching
innovative products every year.
● Youtube reviewers are less
interested in Blake Logitech
● Competitors have a better
marketing strategy.
Table 1: SWOT Analysis of Blake Logitech (Self-made)
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Factors
Analysis
Political
The United Kingdom has a stable political environment for
tech companies like Blake Logitech
Economic
The economic environment is not that much pleasing
because of COVID-19
Social
People are interested in tech products and they want
performance boost with durability.
Technological
Next-generation gaming is evolving and opportunities are
available to do well with the right decisions
Environmental
Tech products somewhat harm the environment but durable
products can reduce wastes
Legal
The United Kingdom has tech-friendly rules and regulations
but to do business internationally Blake Logitech may face
difficulties in developing countries.
Table 02: PESTEL Analysis of Blake Logitech (Self-made)
Internal Drivers of Blake Logitech
The internal drivers of Blake Logitech are Production, Company Structure, and Internal
Communication. The effects of these drivers are described below:
Strength of Internal Drivers
● Applying in Leadership: In Blake Logitech, leaders are getting an extra edge by
the knowledge and skills of employees because the leaders can get things done
by the employees as early as possible.
● Applying in Team: The team has high productivity which is necessary for tech
companies like Blake Logitech. Blake Logitech is getting produced products before
the deadline.
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● Applying in Individual Behavior: Everyone in Blake Logitech has good time
management and focuses on work. It helps to reach the goals and keep the
company financially stable.
The weakness of Internal Drivers
● Applying in Leadership: In Blake Logitech, leaders has no personal relationship
with the employees because of a long chain of command. It causes the
communication gap.
● Applying in Team: In Blake Logitech, the team does not feel motivated all the
time because of the boring leadership approach. Their innovation is not being used
by Blake Logitech.
● Applying in Individual Behavior: Big portion of the people in Blake Logitech is
feeling demotivated and sad because of monotonous work routine.
External Drivers of Blake Logitech
The external drivers of Blake Logitech are technological environment, geopolitical
environment and economic environment. The effects of these drivers are described
below:
Strength of External Drivers
● Applying in Leadership: In Blake Logitech, Leaders are focusing on product
development because of the high demand in the market. Therefore, they need an
innovative mind and innovative leadership
● Applying in Team: In Blake Logitech, the team has confidence over their work
that it will make good results because of the positive technological environment
and a stable political environment.
● Applying in Individual Behavior: Everyone in Blake Logitech has a good sense
of tech industry so they are applying the knowledge and skills to bring out the best.
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The weakness of Internal Drivers
● Applying in Leadership: In Blake Logitech, Leaders are concerned about
expanding the business in developing countries because these countries often do
not have tech-friendly rules and regulations
● Applying in Team: In Blake Logitech, The team is concerned about the economic
environment because people are losing jobs in this pandemic.
● Applying in Individual Behavior: Economic environment affects the individual
behaviours also like employees of Blake Logitech always stay in fear of sickness
and income drop.
In a nutshell, Blake Logitech has good potential to do well in the tech industry. The leaders
need to focus on the innovation-friendly environment within the organisation. The
management needs to assure the employees about job security and hiring capable
manager and employees in public relation department can bring various opportunity to
get exposure.
Measures that Can Be Taken to Minimize the Negative Effect of Change
in Organizational Behaviour
Process of Changes needs attention from the management to keep the company stable.
Changes can bring negative or positive impacts on the organisation (Czichos, 2014). To
reduce the negative impact it is important to take some measures which will be discussed
in this section.
Change can impact leadership. The leaders may shift to innovative leadership approach
from the transactional approach. Change can affect employees. If they cannot follow
instructions then it might be a problem for Blake Logitech. Changes also affect reputation.
By bringing unique changes Blake Logitech can be the Center of attraction. On the other
hand, wrong control over changes can affect the company badly. To avoid the negative
effect Blake Logitech can apply the measures described below:
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● Proper Defining of the Process: The employees need to know every detail of the
change process because they are going to execute the steps. Blake Logitech
management can present the process details in front of the whole team. A
PowerPoint presentation and Excel sheet for the record can make the task easy
(Czichos, 2014).
● Effective Feedback Loop: A goal or objective will be set and managers will
assess the real outputs compared to expected goals. Blake Logitech Managers
will point out the faults and give feedback according to the faults (Onwuchekwa,
2015).
● Effective
Communication
Process:
Verbal,
non-verbal
and
written
communication should be clear between managers and employees. Blake
Logitech managers need to communicate directly with respective employees and
employees need to ask respective managers about the work (Czichos, 2014).
● Improved Coordination: Dots need to be connected between every employee
and departments. Coordination means every employee and the department will
know about what is going on with others. The goals and timeline will be connected.
Blake Logitech can apply improved coordination to make the workflow smooth
(Onwuchekwa, 2015).
Evaluating the Measures
In this section the above-mentioned measures will be evaluated:
Strength of Proper Defining of the Process: the employees of Blake Logitech will have
a clear idea about what is going to happen and what they can contribute to the process.
It will improve the productivity level.
Strength of Effective Feedback Loop: Employees of Blake Logitech will be able to know
the faults and improve their task. Reaching the goal will be more effective with this
measure. Work accuracy will improve.
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Strength of Effective Communication Process: The relationship between leaders and
employees in Blake Logitech will improve which will affect the office environment.
Employees will get clear instructions about their responsibility and managers will be able
to conduct them correctly.
Strength of Improved Coordination: Teamwork will improve and efficiency of Blake
Logitech will boost with this measure. Proper coordination will result in quality product
and every employee and every department will be part of progress.
The weakness of Proper Defining of the Process: This measure can be timeconsuming and if some employees of Blake Logitech miss the meetings, it will be difficult
for them to coordinate with others.
The weakness of Effective Feedback Loop: Some managers of Blake Logitech may
give unnecessary feedback to keep the employees busy which may result in employee
dissatisfaction.
The weakness of the Effective Communication Process: This process may give birth
to jargon in Blake Logitech. Employees may influence managers by unethically praising
the managers.
The weakness of Improved Coordination: If any team or employee fails to complete
any task because of unavoidable circumstances then the whole workflow of Blake
Logitech may suffer. Finding a replacement can be a time-consuming process.
In a nutshell, it is suggested that every measure has some positive side and few negative
sides. But the measure can give efficiency boost to the organisation while processing a
change.
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Critically evaluates the long-term implications of internal and external
drivers of change within an organisation
Blake Logitech is a tech company and it needs efficient innovative products. Both internal
and external drivers of change can help the company to go through a successful change.
A critical discussion about the implications of the drivers of change will take place in this
section.
Internal Drivers of change
Internal drivers of change like production process, communication, company structure,
etc. influence the process of change. By using each of the drivers with proper attention is
what a manager needs to do (Ziegler, 2015). The production process is already doing
better than the competitors but the management needs to keep eye on the cost of
production to maintain margin. The company structure is not that much innovationfriendly. To compete in the market, Blake Logitech needs to reconstruct the company
structure so that employees can pitch the innovative ideas and managers can evaluate
fast. Blake Logitech has strict communication system which does not create personal
bonding within the organisation. Managers can communicate more with employees with
care and empathy. These will help in the long term.
External Drivers of change
External drivers are a bit risky for Blake Logitech because it cannot control those drivers
but assuming the situation and making a draft plan for possible incidents can help the
company in the long run (Ziegler, 2015). Using the advantage of a technological
environment is necessary for Blake Logitech at this moment. But the company should
choose wisely in which area of technological environment it should invest. Building good
relationships with other countries can enable Blake Logitech to expand their business.
The company needs to evaluate the rules and regulations before this step so that the
geopolitical environment cannot do any harm to the company. Budget accessories can
improve sales in the pandemic situation while maintaining margin. But it is not suggested
to decrease the standard price and quality.
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Task 02
Barriers of Change and Their Influence on Leadership Decision-Making
In previous sections, the discussions about change and the aspects related to change is
giving an understanding of changes in the business. Changes need management to get
good output from the process. Change is time-consuming and is a complex process. In
the time of change process management and leaders faces various obstacles. The
management needs to take actions according to the situation to keep the organisation
stable. Thus, the change of process faces barriers and those barriers influence the
decision-making mechanism.
For example, Coca-Cola is a popular multinational company and it is operating in more
than 195 countries. It produces coke and this product is widely popular among the
customers. Despite being so popular this product faced dark period because Harvard
Medical and Science has published research where it is said that coke from Coca-Cola
is using an extreme amount of sugar which is as addictive as cocaine (Coke Zero (CocaCola Zero Sugar): Good or Bad, 2020). Considering the health hazard, coke faced low
sales figures and hatred from the customers and critics. To get rid of this situation CocaCola decided to launch Coke Zero which will be a sugar-free soft drink. To make this
change, the management faced objections and barriers which will be discussed below:
❏ Influence of Third-Party: Shareholders, stakeholders and suppliers are
considered as third-party while making a decision. They raise questions about the
viability of decisions made by the management and sometimes try to restrain the
changes because they do not want to take risks (Pollitt, 2016). In the case of CocaCola, related stakeholders made issues to stop the launch of Coke Zero because
they were not confident enough about the new product. Their influences create
trouble in the process of change.
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❏ Lack of Communication: Companies need to communicate the features,
advantage, and contents of the product with the customers. But most of the time
companies fail to convey the message. It creates a communication gap between
the customer and the company (Pollitt, 2016). Coca-Cola failed to convey that the
new Coke Zero is a healthy choice for soft drink lover. Thus, the communication
gap creates barriers to change.
❏ Lack of Information: Change brings new or modified things. The market often is
not ready to accept the changes because there is an absence of information about
the new or modified product. Coca-Cola was accused of using an extreme amount
of sugar in its product. Information about diet coke and the healthiness of diet coke
is absent in the market (Pollitt, 2016). Therefore, no evidence is available to prove
that Coke Zero is a healthier option. This lack of information created a barrier to
bringing change in Coca-Cola.
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Force Field Analysis of Coca-Cola
Force field analysis helps to find out the influence of the drivers of change. Identified
drivers can be used to get a better result from the process of change. In this section,
Force field will be discussed in the context of Coca-Cola.
Figure 1: Force Field Analysis (Self-made)
Force field model consists of two types of forces. Those are Driving forces and restraining
forces. Driving forces helps to drive a change and restrain forces creates an obstacle for
a change (Dewar and Rigney, 2015). The driving forces and restraining forces of CocaCola are described below:
Driving Forces
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❏ Customer Demand: Customers of Coca-Cola wanted healthy product from the
company. That is why they decided to launch Coke Zero. Here customer demand
worked as a driving force of Coca-Cola.
❏ Market Share: After publishing the research paper about using an extreme
amount of sugar in coke. Coca-Cola’s market shares in the soft drink industry
started to decrease. Therefore, a driving force drives the company to change its
portfolio.
Restraining Forces
❏ Customer Expectation: Customer expected harmless soft drink from Coca-Cola.
Soft drink is junk food and it is close to impossible at this moment to bring a
harmless soft drink. Customers expectation is working as restrain force for CocaCola’s change.
❏ Supplier Complexity: Supplier has zero information about the new product. They
were thinking about the business deal with Coca-Cola after the change. Because
Coca-Cola is decreasing sugar in its product and the supplier may think it will not
be profitable to continue the deal with Coca-Cola.
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Task 03
Applying Different Leadership Approaches to Dealing with Change to a
Leadership Change in a Range of Organisational Context
Leadership approach affects every aspect of the business. Change is a part of the
business and leadership approaches also create differences here. Leaders choose
different approaches to tackle the barriers and make the process of change smooth (Daft
and Lane, 2015). It is important to pay attention to every detail while leading a team.
Three leadership approaches have been discussed below in the context of Coca-Cola to
get a clear view of leadership approaches for changes.
Transformational Leadership
One of the popular and frequently used leadership approaches is transformational
leadership. Every company faces a problem and seek solutions. Transformational
leadership is an approach where the leader also invests his or time to find a viable solution
along with the team. This approach helps to bring the best from employees because the
leader motivates them frequently. When Coca-Cola was facing troubles in the soft drink
industry the leader and employee decided to shift to another industry. After that CocaCola brought Costa Coffee. This approach helped Coca-Cola to save scarce resources
(Daft and Lane, 2015).
Transactional Leadership
When leaders need to focus on the result rather than the process of the task, they go for
transactional leadership. It helps to make revenue fast but the employees may become
bored because in this approach challenges are not that much available. Coca-Cola is now
at maturity level and soon it will face decline so the company has limited time to make
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revenue from the soft drink industry. Therefore, the leaders are now more result-oriented
and they are not focusing on the process of outputs (Daft and Lane, 2015). It is helping
Coca-Cola to milk the products as much as possible before the decline period. As CocaCola is trying to shift to other industries, it is using transactional leadership to get benefit
in the current situation.
Innovative Leadership
Innovation needed to get an extra edge from the competitors. Innovation helps to grab
the attention of every party like shareholders, customers, suppliers, etc. To bring
innovation the leader needs to approach innovative leadership. It creates an innovationfriendly environment which leads to innovative products or services. Creative and critical
thinker leaders often go with this approach. Innovative leadership can save a company
from closing the business. This leadership approach is needed to bring back the past
glory of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola brought Coke Zero as an innovation but this innovation
did not work well because of other factors. Therefore, logical innovation is a crucial part
of innovative leadership (Daft and Lane, 2015).
Trait Approach
The trait approach to leadership refers to the concept that good leaders come with godgifted abilities. The leaders do not need to learn leadership. The traits of leadership like
drive, self -confidence, tolerant, honesty and integrity grow naturally in an individual
according to the trait approach of leadership (DuBrin, 2019). To give an extra advantage
over competitors Blake Logitech can go for this approach. There are a lot of individual
available both within Blake Logitech and outside of Blake Logitech. Hiring leaders with inbuilt leadership traits can turn the company into a profitable company.
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Figure 2: Trait Approach (verywellmind.com)
Systems Approach
Dr Ian Macdonald has developed the Systems Leadership approach. This approach uses
good virtues of human to create models of ideal leadership, organisational strategy, and
social process (DuBrin, 2019). This approach helps build a system which analyses
employee behaviour and provide appropriate leadership instructions through different
tools. This approach can be used in Blake Logitech when the leaders want to have a
closer look at the employees. It will help the leaders to have a better idea about
employees which will lead to the ultimate success of Blake Logitech.
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Figure 3: Key Elements of System Leadership (weforum.org)
Contingency Approach
❏ Fiedler’s model: This model based on a concept which expresses that there is no
one best style of leadership. The effectiveness of a leader is grounded in the
situation (DuBrin, 2019). The model works with two factors - "leadership style" and
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"situational
favorableness".
Figure 5: Fiedler’s model (mindtools.com)
For example, if a new leader comes in Blake Logitech and getting little trust from
the employees then the Leader-Member Relations are poor. If the task is well
defined then task structure is structured. The leader’s position power is strong
because the new leader is the boss. The appropriate leading approach will be high
LPC (Least-Preferred Co-Worker) according to this situation.
❏ Vroom and Yetton’s model: No single leadership style or decision-making
procedure fits all circumstances is the main concept of this model. Factors like time
constraints, the quality of the final decision, teamwork are needed to be considered
before choosing an appropriate solution (Yoder-Wise and Kowalski, 2016).
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Figure 5: Vroom and Yetton’s model (mindtools.com)
These codes represent five decision-making processes which are Autocratic (A1),
Autocratic (A2), Consultative (C1), Consultative (C2), and Collaborative (G2).
Generally, consultative or collaborative style is more preferable than the autocratic
style.
❏ Path-Goal Theory: This model consists of for main functions of leaders. Defining
goals for followers, eliminating difficulties that may avert the accomplishment of
goals, illuminating the track to attainment goals, and providing provision to
followers are the main functions. the directive, supportive, participative, and
achievement-oriented are the four-leadership style of path-goal theory. These
styles are not mutually exclusive. Mixing the styles may bring good results in some
situations (Yoder-Wise and Kowalski, 2016).
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Figure 6: Path-Goal Theory (mindtools.com)
❏ Situation Leadership: This approach works with a specific situation along with
behaviours and attitudes of other relevant people like employees, teammates, etc.
Rather than sticking to a single method this approach suggests changing process
and methods according to situations (Yoder-Wise and Kowalski, 2016). For
example, if Blake Logitech continues to hire new employees for new projects then
the strength and weakness may change from time to time. The leaders need to
follow this approach in that situation. Telling or directing, coaching or selling,
participating or sharing and delegating are the leadership styles that this approach
suggests.
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Figure 6: Situation Leadership (oregonbusiness.com)
Leadership Styles
❏ Autocratic Style: This style is strict and employees are bound to follow what the
leader says. The employees have no saying in this leadership style, they only
follow the instructions (Fries, 2020). This style is appropriate for manufacturing
firms. In creative firms, this approach cannot bring any good results. Coca-Cola or
Blake Logitech cannot get benefitted by this style.
❏ Democratic Style: This style is suitable for creative firms like Blake Logitech. This
style allows employees to speak. The leaders listen to employee’s opinion and
consider their suggestion which makes the work environment more enjoyable and
participating (Fries, 2020).
❏ Laissez-Faire: This style is less productive because the leader become inactive
and employees work on their own. This style is appropriate for those firms which
need employees more than leaders. Manufacturing and creative firms cannot get
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a good result from this style rather it can harm the productivity of these firms (Fries,
2020).
In the summary, there are so many leadership approaches and styles are available. The
leader needs to understand the situation and employees while choosing a style or
approach. Ignoring the employees or situation may result in the worst outcomes for the
organisation.
Evaluating the Extent to Which Leadership Approaches Can Deliver
Organisational Change Effectively
Lewin’s Change Management Model
Kurt Lewin designed a model for change management in the 1950s and this is still
relatable. This model helps to understand the organisation and structured change. This
model explains how a cube of ice like an organisation can melt and become an ice cube
again. This model has three main stages and those are described below:
● Unfreeze: This is the first stage and the organisation prepare for the change in this
stage. To do that it is needed to breakdown the current situation and finding out
what is going wrong in the organisation. This step is difficult and needs patience.
It is mandatory to point out why the change is needed in this stage.
● Change: In this stage, a company plans the changes it wants. The mangers set
the strategies and goals. Employees get to know about the process and
understand the whole change. Execution takes place after planning.
● Refreeze: After executing the planes managers refreeze the organisation to get
back to a stable situation. This stage works as a sustainable process. A change
needs time to get stable. If any employee faces difficulties to fit in the new structure,
then proper feedback can help to settle down.
According to the discussion, transformational leadership is needed in the unfreezing
stage. Because everyone needs to contribute to the thought about change and leaders
need to analyse the situation and find a proper solution along with other team members.
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In the second stage of Lewin’s Change Management Model, Innovative leadership
approach need to be implemented because this stage needs creative ideas and
innovation and a friendly work environment which can be provided by innovative
leadership approach. In the last stage, the transformational leadership approach can be
taken again because employees need feedback and need to settle down properly.
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Conclusion
Understanding the change is important to lead an organisation during the process of
change. In this report, change and the other aspects of changes have been described
which can be used as a resource for a learner who wants to understand changes from
the business perspective. To cooperate with the changes in the business world it is
needed to understand and execute every aspect of changes and its drivers. Different real
examples have been used to relate the theories practically.
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References
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Czichos, R., 2014. Change Management. Freiburg im Breisgau: Haufe-Lexware.
Daft, R. and Lane, P., 2015. Leadership. Stamford: Cengage Learning.
Dewar, D. and Rigney, C., 2015. Force Field Analysis. Red Bluff, Calif., USA: QCI
International.
DuBrin, A., 2019. Leadership. Mason, OH: Cengage.
Fries, K., 2020. 8 Essential Qualities That Define Great Leadership. [online] Forbes.
Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlyfries/2018/02/08/8-essentialqualities-that-define-great-leadership/> [Accessed 9 December 2020].
Healthline. 2020. Coke Zero (Coca-Cola Zero Sugar): Good Or Bad? [online] Available
at: <https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-coke-zero-bad-for-you> [Accessed 28
November 2020].
Onwuchekwa, C., 2015. Organisational Behaviour. Enugu, Nigeria: Zink.
Pollitt, D., 2016. Change Management. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Steers, R. and Black, J., 2015. Organisational Behaviour. New York: Harper Collins.
Yoder-Wise, P. and Kowalski, K., 2016. Leadership. Philadelphia, Penn.: Saunders.
Ziegler, R., 2015. Change Drivers. Chicago, IL: American Hospital Pub.
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