Successful change in a digital environment.

Successful change, whether large or small, begins with good leadership.  In my view, “successful change” is based on the acceptance of the change by the company, group, and individual.  My colleagues both corporate and academic interviewed all proposed that leadership in its many forms, influence peoples decisions and have greater effects on accomplishing change. One of the important conversation being told was that hiring or placing the right person for the job in a leadership role and champion the project was paramount in producing a successful outcome. The consensus was that leadership and leadership style, the type of leadership, and how it is introduced has a greater effect on the outcome of change than the method of change facilitation employed.  This is not to say that change theories and models are not necessary.  Indeed, they provide valuable clues and guidelines regarding the appropriate leadership style to implement and when to enact different elements of that leadership.  However, I feel that successful change is supported by flexible, change-promoting leadership.   Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015) present their model of successful change against known models of systematic or managerial change methods. Their findings uncovered that less than 30% of the initiatives end in success, stressing the need to plan and adjust and select the methods that are likely to produce the desired outcome.  Wenek (2005) describes a viewpoint from the military leadership doctrine that instills the required leadership skills at all levels of the organization.  Providing leadership training to guide, monitor and adjust on the fly, with proven results in adapting to changing situations faster, and willingly.  A leadership style that promotes delegation of authority helps to train subordinates to the next level while building confidence, motivation, and buy-in.   It also helps increase tolerance for change in employees and leaders, since change becomes part of the organizational ethos through built-in expectations.  At the same time, these leadership skills offer some risk and leaders need to be able to accept this and focus on the benefits, such as building increased trust and improved communication.  Thus, leadership is, in my opinion, the underlying foundation of the change process.

While leadership drives the project, “resources required” moves it forward.  Resources and technical equipment must be provided to the project as the need arises in order to facilitate smooth transitions. Interviewing colleagues highlighted that improperly designed interfaces, programs, or learning material and resources will derail any project. This and my own experience in finding the resources needed to move a project forward, helped me to see the importance of resources as a contributing factor in successful change management.  Resource definitions are varied and could be specific or vague,  but all the participants interviewed indicated that successful change required resources at the right time.  For example,  one colleague talked about employees that were asked to use their own computers/devices to complete the course.  Without establishing a minimum requirement for computers and programs needed, caused a huge delay and issues in technical problems ranging from which browser worked and what programs open the learning material.  Navigation through interfaces in the programs utilized or organizational structure of the material can either frustrate the participant or build buy-in. The act of providing the additional training, allowing for feedback and acknowledgments of suggestions are all leadership skills that need to be applied while designing learning material.

In addition to leadership and resources, work groups are needed to assemble to complete further tasks within project scope, full time and temporary leadership positions can be assigned and nurtured to further give a value to tasks assigned. Recognition of milestones, accomplishments, and feedback is of utmost importance at this stage, helps build trust and commitment, turning the employee into a participant. Weiner. (2009) Readiness for change theory breaks down organizational change and implementation theories have been looked at both together and separately, to guide one or determine the best way to implement change.  I believe it can be monitored in this group and as the attitude and buy-in build, so will the readiness for change.

Leadership is demonstrated both in the individuals and groups, It is, however, the individual with the ability to use reason to overcome perceived fears and facilitate change.  Build on knowledge, milestones, personal goals, with rewards (certification and acknowledgment) filling the needs of adult learning, giving purpose and direction to the mission and acknowledgment, involvement and feedback to the employee. The individual leader is the one variable that holds the power in the successful change in a digital environment and can be the driving force or champion behind it. The Individual or team can also be the catalyst for failure.

References

Al-Haddad, S., Kotnour, T. (2015) ‘Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), pp. 234–262. doi: 10.1108/JOCM-11-2013-0215.

Weiner, B. (2009) ‘A theory of organizational readiness for change.’, Implementation science IS, 4(1), p. 67. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-4-67.

Wenek, K. (2005) ‘Leadership in the Canadian Forces: Doctrine, http://www.cda-acd.forces.gc.ca.

by

Klaus Rimke

Has the digital age changed leadership?

Training, conditioning, and repetition are interactions that all play a role in retaining learning events, changing behaviours, making them habitual.  Building a directed culture within an organization takes leadership. The type of leadership role adopted can be varied, leadership through reflection helps one to consciously look at what or how your role and or influences played in directing the outcome.  Some of this information can be gleaned from various reflective processes, both internal and external. For example, external reflection could be achieved through after-action reports and data collection such as scores or test results.  Now, if we include a focus on self, and see how it allows for reflection on your actions, the effect had on the outcome, with that could other solutions have had other effects (Castelli, 2016).  In my reflections on leadership and implementing digital technologies, in some cases requires thinking outside the box.  Leadership qualities such as being self-aware, mindful of the present moment, and applying personal wisdom, experience and maturity, all play a role in reflective leadership.  When incorporating these ideas and adapting to the changes created by digital learning, a reflective viewpoint would look at process changes.  Processes such as in testing knowledge retention once viewed as hands-on verification through observation, demonstration, and repetition.  Many safety compliance and regulatory organizations, still require a way to verify compliance and look toward traditional verification methods.  Add the accessibility of knowledge through digital technologies and the question becomes, how can leaders verify skill and ability in the digital world?  As the lines between a physical interaction of observation and the use of digital technology as a verification process are blurred, by computer-assisted testing, AI, and automation.  

Another factor that can affect assessment is the perceived lack of separation between leaders and teams.  While this can facilitate work groups, hiring and training global employees, and educating online students, it creates a unique set of problems in training. Despite this perceived proximity, a degree of separation is always maintained and can foster a unique set of problems.  Some solutions can be achieved through technology, such as LMS’s, which can provide online blackboards and video instruction modules to ensure basic skills are met.  Social media and the various video and chat communication tools can also be implemented and utilized to contribute to learning events.  In addition, leaders will need to adapt to incorporating learning through the growing realm of automation and 3D learning simulators.  Leaders, their teams, and learners’ experiences with these will contribute to determining how learning theory will adapt or be changed entirely by such experiential learning experiences.  Adapting to, accepting and promoting change through technology, from a leadership viewpoint, will invariably be related to buy-in on the part of leaders, learners and their teams, as well as adapting to the process used in implementing new technology.

 In my personal experience, the need or ability to adapt to change in a timely manner as well as being able to learn from mistakes are two of the most critical leadership skills to possess.  While it can be challenging, once you begin to actively practice these skills, learning through reflection begins to occur.  When you feel that you thought or reflected on a decision too long and appeared indecisive still a learning event.  So how does this change digital influences, modify how we look at leadership theories or does the theory need to change when used in digital learning environments?  In comparison, Khan (2017) looked at adaptive and transactional leadership, with adaptive leadership providing a higher capacity as the catalyst for change. Reflective and adaptive leadership both appear to follow many of the same traits and with the similar outcomes. Adaptive leadership theory, however, doesn’t explain how the leader reaches his decision, only that they must carefully consider external changes that can inversely affect an organization.  Thus, reflective leadership theory provides a method of reflection that can will help provide multiple viewpoints and insights through reflective pattern recognition.  Distributed leadership as discussed by Huggins (2017) also requires the ability to delegate authority and release some of the control normally held.  The reflective ability to determine how this will affect both the leader and the learner is based on how much risk the leader is comfortable in giving up. What I’m trying to say, is that in my opinion distributed leadership theory still requires some form of training and reflection to determine how, when, and where to relinquish power and control.  The military machine does this quite well through teaching up and delegation, exercises and training events and in doing so increases the risk capacity within the leaders.  In fact, it’s a brilliant way to build confidence, and leadership skills in a subordinate.

The question of leadership and the ability to adapt to the digital world relies on a leader’s ability to critically evaluate situations through their technical experience and knowledge within their field.  Tying work with a specific mission helps in understanding the culture within the organization.  Buy-in, compliance, and success are all tied to the mission and vision of the organization because these help the target audience know the expectations of the leaders.  In turn, the leaders are expected to help their teams reach the organization’s identified goals in keeping with the culture of the organization.  These leaders recognize the group’s capacity, are responsive to their team’s needs, and adapt quickly to change. To be responsive, they provide the proper and timely communication in both directions and offer constructive feedback.  They also understand that leaders must demonstrate ethical behaviour and build their teams’ trust in them.  Responsive leaders foster characteristics that meet the goals of reflective leadership by creating a safe environment through consistently ethical behaviour, open communication tools that challenge outdated customs, cultural beliefs, and assumptions (O’Toole 2008).  

References

Castelli, P. (2016). Reflective leadership review: a framework for improving organizational performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(2), 217-236.

Huggins, K. (2017). Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals’ Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership. International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership, 12(1).

Khan, N. (2017). Adaptive or Transactional Leadership in Current Higher Education: A Brief Comparison. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(3).

O’Toole, James (2008). Notes Toward a Definition of Values-Based Leadership. The Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 1(1).

Sheninger, E. (2014). Pillars of digital leadership. International Centre for Leadership in Education.

Wenek, K. (2005) ‘Leadership in the Canadian Forces: Doctrine, http://www.cda-acd.forces.gc.ca.