Change_Leadership_Strategy

Running head: CHANGE LEADERSHIP STRATEGY Change Leadership Strategy University of Phoenix Organizational Leadership 531 Michael Ventrone August 17, 2009 Change Leadership Strategy Background and Overview Gene One is in trouble at the moment. The unexpected death of Don Ruiz during this critical time of developing a change management strategy to lead the company into becoming a publicly traded organization has left the entire company in flux. As is characteristic of most entrepreneurs, Don was highly motivated to success and he expected all of his associates to feel the same way. Don did a wonderful job expressing his vision for the company. Unfortunately, his autocratic management style did not fit well with a number of employees on the senior staff. Teri Robertson's letter of resignation and one of her subordinates in the research group (Angela) reflect this loudly.  According to out text, Organizational Behavior, the Lewis Three Step Model (Robbins & Judge, 2007), it appears that Don moved a bit too quickly after unfreezing the status quo to the movement phase of changing the organization.  This impacted many of the long term players within the organization that represent the cornerstone of the companies' success. . Given Don’s sudden demise, it is incumbent upon the remaining senior management team members to develop a strategy for effectively salvaging the company and determining the proper course for developing a change management strategy for moving Gene One into the next phase of the company’s development. This strategy will involve a paradigm shift in the leadership by remaining management to a transformational style in order to right the organization and head it towards prosperity. According to Leadership in Organizations (Yukl, 2006), there are nine different factors affecting a resistance to a change management program. Since the management team is basically starting over at ground zero, there are a there are a number of considerations that need to be taken into account in order for the company to develop a strategy that will take full advantage of the opportunity to initiate a transformational change in the company’s culture to prepare it for the future. Phase one of this strategy will be to identify the actual barriers or areas of resistance to change within the company and address any positional changes the company must make in order to eliminate or diminish future resistance. In response to the issues identification process, we will then initiate phase two of the strategy to identify the proper leadership structure that will allow Gene One to maintain its competitive advantage in the marketplace while preparing to evolve into a public entity. Phase three of the strategy will outline a cogent approach to shaping the corporate culture going forward for Gene One. It is with great hope that the senior management team of Gene One will move earnestly towards rebuilding the corporate culture of the company by following the outlined strategy. Barriers to Change As discussed earlier, many of the initial failings of Gene One’s move towards positioning itself as a publicly traded corporation were due to Don’s autocratic style of management where he rarely consulted with senior management team members to determine the direction of the company. This resulted in a general meltdown of the company’s senior management team. For the lack of repeating history once more, management will take a close look at the potential factors for resisting change in order to gain a general feel for how the company should address each area going forward. As stated in our text, Leadership in Organizations, (Yukl, 2006) these areas are; 1. Lack of trust. During Don’s tenure, he did very little to communicate openly with all members of his team, breeding misinformation and mistrust. Going forward, the leaderships of Gene One will consistently maintain transparent communications regarding the status of the business and openly communicate how the company will be structured going forward. This measure should build a general consensus of trust within the organization as all employees will be fully informed of all corporate intentions. 2. Belief that change is unnecessary. As Gene One has been very successful to date by maintaining its private status and allowing its R&D to create products that are well received in the marketplace. Management must communicate clearly to the staff of the company that the conversion to a public company will allow the business to be of greater assistance and out for the common good by attaining public status and receiving the ensuing capital infusion that will allow for more research dollars to fund helpful product development. 3. Belief that the change is not feasible. Management must do their best to communicate that change is not only feasible, but inevitable due to the economies required to create a more powerful and profitable product portfolio. 4. Economic threats. Since there is a great deal of uncertainty floating throughout the company. Management must openly communicate all changes in compensation and job position titles in order to reflect the evolving business demands. 5. Relative high cost. As the company moves towards developing the infrastructure to support going public, there are inherent costs that the business must incur, both from a capital and resource standpoint. Gene One must communicate openly as a team to uncover and account for these expenditures to rationalize the planning going forward. By recognizing the above potential areas for resistance to change, the senior management team can then develop a strategic plan that reflects the most pertinent areas in order of importance and prepare to implement a change strategy that addresses each area point-by-point to allay any fears of concerns within the organization and smoothly transition the company going forward. As the roles of most employees within the company are clearly identified, management can move forward to developing a process intervention exercise that will create a cohesive culture within the company that sees one vision. This will allow the company to move forward to phase two of the strategy, which involves developing a transformational approach to changing the culture of the company. Transformational Leadership It is obvious with the departure of Don Ruiz that Gene One is about to make major changes in the organization. As Don managed the business in an autocratic style with little input from the employees and senior management of the company, now is the time to implement a transformational leadership style that will allow all employees a semblance in input into the future of the company. This will first be signified by the selection of a new CEO that is open to completely clear lines of communication throughout the organization. This will allow every employee to be on the same page with both the board and all management. It will also allow transference of a new corporate culture that is unified in it mission, to create a powerful publicly held company that continually uses innovation to its advantage in bring new products to market. By instilling this culture into Gene One, management will allay many of the resistance to change factors and allow for sharing and input from every employee to accomplish their now common goal. According to Role of Gender in Transformational Leadership (Partners, 2004), “leadership in the past was based on believing it made people do things that you wanted done whereas, today, leadership is about a mutual relationship where each can transcend to a worthy purpose and behave with moral fibre, courage, integrity and trust”, management of Gene One will attempt to follow these principles by presenting a solid written statement that lists the core values of the company along with a stated mission. While this written statement will be published, a concerted effort will be made to “walk the talk” by providing a unified approach to dealing with a number of cultural issues within the company, such as; attention, reaction to crisis, providing a good source of role modeling, allocation of rewards for performance, and by creating a clear criterion for employee selection and removal. In a sense, the company will maintain a transparent policy that reflects the stated corporate values that is apparent even to the casual observer. Corporate Culture Upon developing a transformational leadership style for Gene One, both management and staff will collude to develop a mission statement that expresses the corporate culture of the organization that reflects a unified intent and commitment of the company. This statement will reflect the vision of the company to become a publicly traded, research driven company that positively impacts society by creating products designed for the common good. Management will strive to fortify this statement by making decisions based on this statement by selecting personnel to move the company towards IPO status. This culture will reach down to every associate in the company. By creating a unified corporate culture that includes input from every individual in the company, all involved will become true stakeholders in the success of Gene One and will provide maximum effort and loyalty as long as they feel these corporate truths are being held. Conclusion Any business is continuously challenged to develop innovative ways to develop high performance working environments. While Don Ruiz was a charismatic, dynamic and heartfelt leader of Gene One, his early demise can present a positive opportunity for the company to create a positive change within the organization while accomplishing the growth objectives he held. This change in company objectives and culture is imperative if the company is to achieve its objective of becoming a publicly held corporation within the next three years. Through careful analysis of the barriers to change presented by employees and developing a transformational style of management, Gene One can forever change the corporate culture of the company while implanting a change strategy to channel the business into the public arena and positively impact its growth curve within the next three years by going public. References: Robbins, Gary and Judge, Timothy (2007). Organizational Behavior (12th ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall. Copyright 2007 by Pearson Education, Inc. Yukl, Gary (2006). Leadership in Organizations (6th ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall. Copyright 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc. Spreckley Partners (2004). The Role of Gender in Transformational Leadership. Issue 118. Onrec.com. Copyright 2004 Online recruitment.