Leadership:
Understanding its Global Impact
Chapter 11:
Leading change
Learning objectives
• Understand the nature and speed of
change in organisations
• Describe the different types of
organisational change
• Recognise the importance of understanding
personal change
• Implement planned change models
• Develop a change plan
• Apply adaptive leadership to change efforts
• Identify why people resist change
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Chapter contents
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Spotlight: Professor Peter Farrell
Introduction
The nature and speed of change
Types of organisational change
Individual and personal change
The organisational change leader
Models of planned change
Leader in action: Dr Dennis Richards
The adaptive leadership change framework
Resistance to change
Reflection
Summary
Case study: World Vision Australia
Spotlight: Professor Peter Farrell
• Presents a picture of the way
important elements of the
organisational culture must be if
innovation and change in the
organisation are to thrive
• A very good example of a
coherent, practical, corporate
values statement
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Introduction
• Change, both personal and
organisational, is inevitable
• Enthusiasm for change may be
due, in part, to the way the path is
planned, communicated and
directed by leaders
• Chapter discusses four types of
organisational change
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The nature and speed of change
• Continued globalisation of markets
and supply chains will lead to
change intensifying
• Each change in an organisation is
unique
• Change programs are subject to
very high failure rates
• Leaders must be skilled at leading
change
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Types of organisational change
• Four types of organisational
change - Cao & McHugh 2005
– change to organisational processes
– change in organisational functions
– change in organisational culture
– change in power distribution in
organisations
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Individual and personal change
• People change, organisations don’t
• People change by being led
• Leadership concerns influence and
building strong team relationships
• Transitional Cycle Model - Scott &
Jaffe 2004 - represents the change
process for individuals and for
organisations
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The Transition Curve
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The four stages of change
• Individuals typically move through
four stages; some move quickly
some get stuck
• Scott & Jaffe 2004:
– denial
– resistance
– exploration
– commitment
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The organisational change leader
• Three kinds of leaders in organisations,
those who:
– watch things happen,
– make things happen, and those who
– ask ‘What happened?’
• Second group:
– Provide a planned change effort –
a change plan
– Diagnose the organisation and problems
to be addressed
– Focus on action – develop strategies
specifying action steps
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Change plans
• Should:
– Adopt a systems perspective
– Be a blueprint for success
– Enable monitoring and tracking
– Acknowledge organisational culture
– Provide a framework for implementing
change
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Models of planned change
• Lewin’s force-field analysis 1951
– Change process divided into three phases:
unfreezing, changing, refreezing
• Kotter’s eight-stage model (1996)
– Eight stages: Establish a sense of urgency,
create a guiding coalition, develop a vision
and strategy, communicate the vision,
empower actions, generate short-term
wins, consolidate gains and produce more
change, and anchor new approaches in
the culture
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Leader in action: Dr Dennis Richards
• Be crystal clear in what change you
think should be implemented, and why
• Do not try to impose change on others
• Be patient and persistent
• Occasionally review your plan for
change
• Relentlessly and repetitively
communicate the need for change
• Mentor others
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The adaptive leadership
change framework
• Lowder 2009 : there is a need to
challenge many of the leadership
theories that focus on traits,
behaviours and situational factors
• Leadership should focus on the
needs and demands of
stakeholders
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Model for sustainable leadership
• Heifetz, Grashow & Linsky 2009
• Adaptive leadership - leadership
framework - includes all
stakeholders
• Leaders confront two types of
problems:
– technical
– adaptive
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Seven stages of adaptive
leadership
• To implement complex change
• A cyclical process
• Adaptive leaders are willing to:
– entertain diverse and divergent views
– admit when they are wrong
– experiment and take reasonable risks
• What is new is the speed of change
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Resistance to change
• Any change in one part of a system
will result in associated effects in
other parts
• Leaders must look for resistance at
the group and organisational levels
• Connor (1995) lists reasons why
people may resist change
• Leaders should view resistance to
change as a given
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Summary
• Change is continuous rather than occurring in
discrete or specific events
• Individuals affected by change move through a
transitional curve consisting of four stages
• Leaders need to be able to develop a change
plan
• Models can be used to understand and plan
change in organisations: Lewin; Kotter
• Adaptive leadership emerged as a response to
constantly changing and complex environment
• Individual resistance to change is one of the
primary reasons that change programs fail
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Case study: World Vision Australia
• Comment on why a change program in a not-forprofit organisation like World Vision would be
more complex and difficult than a change program
in a similar-sized for-profit organisation.
• The role of the change leader is critical to the
success of a change program. Review Kotter’s
eight-stage change framework outlined in this
chapter. Would this framework be helpful for the
World Vision change leaders to gain an
understanding of the dynamics of the change
program they are undertaking? If so, how?
• Apply the seven stages of adaptive leadership
outlined in this chapter to the case. Identify which
of the seven stages are applicable to this change
effort and say why they are.
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