{"id":359,"date":"2020-02-17T21:10:07","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T05:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/?p=359"},"modified":"2020-02-17T21:10:07","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T05:10:07","slug":"leading-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/leading-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading Change"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although theories, strategies, and models do not provide explicit, practical advice, they are important tools that can help us understand our situations, identify problems, and plan solutions.\u00a0 Leaders often turn to such tools when faced with organizational change.<\/p>\n

Weiner\u2019s (2009) theory of organizational readiness for change aligns well with my personal leadership approach because I strongly believe that the first step in change is determining whether or not the organization is ready for change.\u00a0 Weiner defines organizational readiness as \u201corganizational members\u2019 change commitment and change efficacy to implement organizational change\u201d (Discussion, para. 2).\u00a0 This means that members are psychologically and behaviourally ready to take action.\u00a0 They have a shared resolve to pursue the change and share a belief in their collective abilities to achieve the change successfully.\u00a0 Without organizational readiness, successful implementation of change is unlikely.\u00a0 In fact, Weiner (2009) states that \u201cfailure to establish sufficient [organizational] readiness accounts for one-half of all unsuccessful, large-scale organizational change efforts\u201d (Background, para. 1).<\/p>\n

I have been in a leadership role in various organizations as a lead teacher or teacher trainer.\u00a0 I have witnessed first-hand the challenge of trying to implement change among organizational members who were not ready.\u00a0 I believe that implementing strategies of \u201c\u2019unfreezing\u2019 existing mindsets and creating motivation for change\u201d (Weiner, 2009, Background, para. 1) would have made the members more likely to value the upcoming change and exert more effort and cooperative behaviour to implement the change more effectively.\u00a0 A leader who can encourage organizational readiness will have an organization that is more likely to succeed in that change.<\/p>\n

Biech\u2019s (2007) CHANGE model also aligns well with my leadership approach.\u00a0 I firmly believe in taking the time and effort for all members to understand why change is needed, what exactly the change will entail, how the change will occur, and how members will be involved.\u00a0 These are the first 3 steps of Biech\u2019s CHANGE model (Figure 3-2).\u00a0 I have been a member under leaders who have failed to convey this information and the change has been ineffective.\u00a0 As a leader, I believe in being transparent when asking people to change and a great way to start is for those involved to understand why something is changing and what and how it will change.\u00a0 With understanding and acceptance, members\u2019 organizational readiness will be higher, leading to more effective implementation (Weiner, 2009, Abstract, para. 2).<\/p>\n

I am also a firm believer in Biech\u2019s (2007) step 6: \u201cevaluate and institutionalize the change\u201d (Figure 3-2).\u00a0 Unfortunately, many organizations fail to follow through once implementation is complete.\u00a0 Biech states that \u201cit is essential to encourage people and the organization to accept the desired change and to permanently institutionalize the variations\u201d (Overview, para. 8).\u00a0 Omitting evaluation and institutionalization may cause the changes to veer off course or revert back to old ways.\u00a0 This may be caused by changes in members or management.\u00a0 An expensive, time-consuming positive change could be easily undone if step six is ignored.<\/p>\n

Change is inevitable in all organizations.\u00a0 It can be a smooth and effective process or an expensive and chaotic one.\u00a0 Ensuring organizational readiness and following a thorough model, such as Biech\u2019s CHANGE model, help leaders make decisions that lead to efficiency and success.<\/p>\n

References<\/p>\n

Biech, E. (2007). Models for change. In Thriving through change: A leader\u2019s practical guide to change mastery<\/em>. Alexandria, VA: Association for Talent Development.<\/p>\n

Weiner, B.J. (2009). A theory of organizational readiness for change.\u00a0Implementation Science, 4<\/em>(67). doi: 10.1186\/1748-5908-4-67<\/p>\n

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Although theories, strategies, and models do not provide explicit, practical advice, they are important tools that can help us understand our situations, identify problems, and plan solutions.\u00a0 Leaders often turn to such tools when faced with organizational change. Weiner\u2019s (2009) theory of organizational readiness for change aligns well with my personal leadership approach because I … Continue reading “Leading Change”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt525"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":364,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0119\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}