Introduction
Leadership promotes the unity of direction. Every leader whether born or made has to discover that people entrust him or her with such authority not to misuse it but to bring them together. Leadership has evolved over the centuries. The current century writers, analysts, and researchers would like to see a paradigm shift in leadership. There is a desire to have all position leaders accommodate the followers in the decision-making process. Organizations need to change their policies to adapt to the new system where decision-making is everyone’s responsibility.
Collaborative Leadership
The writer of Creating Leaderful Organizations seeks to make leadership more collaborative (Raelin, 2003). Because they understand the meaning of collaboration, they try to avoid pretense so that their decisions become valid and useful in the long run. The decisions they make and the goals they set become helpful to everyone in the organization (Raelin, 2003). The position leader’s work is to ensure that they remain united and work towards the vision of the entire team. Decision-making shifts from one individual to many. Due to the unity, the achievements become diverse. Collaborative leadership balances personal and collective needs. The educational leaders should pursue collaboration to make it work. Teams must embrace truthfulness and trust.
Flawless Consulting
Flawless consulting enables people in organizations and in the organized unit to work together in finding solutions to impending problems. When consulting with a client one needs to focus on the two dimensions of consulting (Block, 2011). One needs to ask the question of whether he or she is authentic with the client. It is important to know if consulting is working or not. It is good to put into words what one is experiencing while working with the customer. It requires one to give feedback on how the client managed the project and get feedback from the client on how one managed it. At this time, one can discuss any future support and conclude. To be sure of the results, any problem solving requires valid data (Block, 2011). The process can be successful if there is enough internal commitment.
Dealing with Resistance
In dealing with resistance, and organizational consultant should be able to identify and address any resistance from the clients. Resistance occurs when a person or a group reacts to recommendations or decisions by the organization because those decisions seem not to rhyme with one’s opinions or desires. Any perceived change in the organization may not be received well by the clients. Resistance becomes direct when the customer can honestly speak about it and state why they may not adhere to the new directives. Sometimes there may be an indirect resistance. Sometimes the clients do not clearly put forward their issues to be addressed. It leads to a lack of cooperation (Block, 2011). Resistance is healthy to any organization because it tells one that there is a need to change certain things to fit into the system (Block, 2011). If one does not recognize resistance, then it means that one is not addressing the cause of issues in the client’s organization. Sometimes, one’s resistance may blind him or them to the realities of the project. To deal with resistance, one needs to identify the form of resistance, name the resistance, and be quiet. One can use open-ended questions on the clients to get the correct feedback (Block, 2011).
Using Change
Change is inevitable. Organizations are looking for ways to improve service delivery to their customers. Some want to improve the working conditions of their employees. Others wish to introduce technology into their systems. All these are aspects to change. Change may present challenging conditions that create a storm at work. It may be a good plan for an organization to introduce new things, but the way it is presented can cause resistance. The managers should not quickly dismiss people who raise objections as resistors (Ford & Ford, 2010). They may have critical views that when listened to make the entire process smooth. Collaboration can be one of the best ways to smoothen change. Some managers may push too hard to make people accept their change mechanisms. When resistance becomes too high to bear, they blame the resistance for any difficulties and failure (Ford & Ford, 2010). Resistance could be the energy needed to channel for the benefit of higher objectives. Resistance is a sign of engagement. It opens up the dialog about the realities of the organization. Change plans and implementation can become smart and enjoyable by just listening to the feedback embedded in the resistance (Ford & Ford, 2010).
Change in the Field and the Classroom
Culture is one aspect that clearly resists change. Some people have deeply embedded beliefs into their culture until it becomes almost impossible to change them. But culture can also be the starting point to embrace change (Schein, 1999). The change agent has first to learn and understand the cross-cultural attributes that make a community. It enables the agent to appreciate their way of life and after that influence change in a modest way. Training and development can also be another way to affect change. Once people learn how the new system would look like and its benefits, they contribute towards its development. It makes the change process faster and easier. The learning institutions should also provide the breeding ground for change (Schein, 1999). The syllabus and the lessons in the classes must adopt the culture of change into the system such that people can easily understand how to influence change.
Leaderful Learning
The writer says that leadership is a shared mutual phenomenon where the learner is necessary. The pedagogical method is not necessarily teacher-directed (Raelin, 2010). There is openness, patience, and frankness. Students learn from their problems, challenges, resource suggestions, and alternative framings (Raelin, 2011). Students start adapting to the new behaviors and hence reducing the tedious work on the part of the agent. The agent only makes occasional interventions since the student determines the learning process through consultations (Raelin, 2011). There are various intervention strategies to consider learning to succeed. Learning is a mobile, continuous, and collective process (Raelin, 2010).
Change in Organizations
The change agent who uses the leaderful principles needs to put together a team comprising of all the workers and the top managers (Raelin, 2010). All of them need to go through training. At least two-thirds of the population needs to grasp the changing concept amendment for it to take effect. They would become the change agents (Fisher & Robbins, 2014). They would assist the trainer to ensure that the new ideas can become successful (Yukl, 2012). The portion above has to include a small number of managers. But the bigger percentage would preferably be the workers.
Work with all Categories Equally
One should divide the group into different levels. The ones who adapt faster would train others. When the members see one of them as a trainer, they tend to become free and more supportive (Fisher & Robbins, 2014). They can ask questions and offer suggestions. One would have to work with the most supportive group first. The team would, later on, become influential when working with the potentially supportive.
The Interventions
Whether other related interventions are in the domain or not, people would still fall into and out of the categories (Raelin, 2010). But the other interventions would have more adverse effects than this one. The old system was more mechanistic and ruled with the stick. It was the organization that started the change process and finished it without getting the views of the workers. In the end, it led to drastic reactions that would sometimes bring the activities of firms to a standstill. The new intervention would still have the same results from the workers. The difference is that the new intervention seeks to solve the concerns during the training and introduction stages (Bass, 1990). They would not flow into the work-related activities because of consultation and information sharing. The old system only looks for harsh mechanisms to contain the complaints when they have already affected work and the workers.
Schein’s Process of Consultation
The change strategy can easily work with the leaderful approaches (Raelin, 2003). Schein proposes consultation with the other staff. When consultation happens, it requires that the change agent gets information from the workers and aligns them with the intended mechanism (Yukl, 2012). In case of any disparity, there would be a need for clarification to the worker why the ideas could not go hand in hand (Avolio, Sosik, Kahai & Baker, 2014). But the discussion would require the workers to give more suggestions. It has the same characteristics of collaboration and consultation as those of the leaderful process (Yukl, 2012).
The Global Oil and Gas Company
As the principal project manager, the first thing to do is to ensure that there is a learning environment at the workplace (Blokdijk, 2008). The workers would be in groups of one hundred people to give their views and suggestions about work. Their suggestions would be available for reading at the next major meeting (Raelin, 2003). The company would strike a deal to enable some of their views to become part of the regulations at work (Avolio, 2007). The company would also provide languages tutor to allow them to learn a few basics about the parent company’s language.
Conclusion
Many people would not welcome change because it upsets the traditional setting in organizations. The management needs to employ leaderful and consulting techniques to ensure success. Managers must not ignore any dissenting voice because it calls for dialog. Good focus on the change resistance enables the organization to use it to its advantage for the benefit of all workers. All the articles clarified how solutions are readily available when people work together and as a team. The workers have to ask the management to accommodate them in decision-making. The best organization succeeds because of its workers.
References
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