Leadership and Change Management
Change management is an integral part of any organization or industry. Organizations are constantly changing in order to adapt to the constantly changing environment in terms of technology politics. Change is required throughout day industries all over the world in order to grow and develop and venture into new areas. Any organization that fails to adapt and change according to the needs and requirements of its time often fail to sustain itself throughout the global market. Every organization have applied various strategic changes in order to retain and sustain themselves throughout their top competitions. However, improper change management strategies often backfire, leading to the reduced efficiency of the organization as well as a negative impact on their growth and development. The leadership of an organization is one of the key parts of change management. A leader determines the type of change management that an organization needs to get as well as this strategy through which the organization needs to develop itself. In many cases, the organization feels leaders attitude and behaviour becomes a barrier in smooth management.
The leaders and the management are the ones that determine the type of change that an organization needs, as well as helps in determining how this change will impact the entire organization. It is in the power of the leader to bring out the entire change. A leader facilitates the smooth conversion of the change as well as motivate other members of the institution to adapt and accept the change. However, if a leader fails to acknowledge the needs and requirements of these subordinates throughout the change management process, it is definitely going to be a failure in change management.
This paper is going to discuss the topic of change management in the education sector. The education sector is one of the most dynamic sectors that constantly changes and adapts to the new and effective knowledge that has been found. New discoveries are constantly being made, and therefore changes are constantly occurring within this system as well as the teaching patterns. However, incorporating change within this sector is a very difficult task as it often results in strong opposition or inertia towards change. This paper is going to discuss various factors that make a leader the critical factor in introducing change within an organization, as well as exhibit leadership qualities.
There are different factors that affect the growth and development of a leader. An effective leader is created not only by his skills but also Through the values they have inculcated. A leader is a person who not only leads the entire group but also is responsible for holding the entire group together. An effective leader is not the one who orders the group about what to do but instead a person who participates along with the group and forge the way ahead. An effective leader is known to leave by a sense of strong values, which he often exhibits through their behaviour and decision-making ability. The second thing that an effective leader has is the ability to communicate effectively. A leader who honestly interacts with every member of the group Ann is able to clearly express their opinions and understand others. Creativity and logical thinking he is also the important factors that build an effective leader. A leader who has the ability to come up with innovative solutions to various problems and facilitate change within the team or the group. The emotional intelligence of a leader also helps them to identify and understand we need those requirements of the group and empathize with them in order to facilitate change and development. And the major factor in leadership is the leadership style. Each and every group has its own compatibility towards the definite leadership style; therefore, the most effective leader would be the ones whose leadership style alliance perfectly with the leadership style requirement of the group. An effective leader also needs to have the ability to influence and look at others and follow the way paved by them. Risk management is also one of the most effective qualities of a leader within a group. An effective leader is always known to be very transparent with all the decisions and choices made by then. This quality helps to achieve defeat and trust of the group members.
Essential Qualities of an Effective Leader
The education industry is one of the most dynamic industries in the whole world. The needs and requirements of a student are changing each and every day. In order to facilitate the change in the education industry and manage the change efficiently, the empowerment of future leaders is very much necessary. According to Fullan, all of these strong leaders of the world have a strong foundation of credibility. In order to enhance and empower a person’s credibility and create a future leader, one must instil the values of transparency and accountability within individuals. Fullan’s leadership guide provides the much-required insight or leaders of today’s generation. He has clearly outlined six different practices in order to become an effective leader. The six different practices are earning trust, developing others’ focus, embracing complexity, knowing your impact, and finally having hope irrespective of any scenario. According to Fullan’s ideology of change leaders, it has been stated that even though the six characteristics look very simple, they are the qualities that differentiate a powerful leader from an incompetent leader (Dix,2017). Truthfulness and honesty are often known to develop a sense of trust and credibility among their followers. Apart from that, after the analysis of Michael Fullan, a leader, even in a very tight situation, always needs to remain optimistic and find out ways in order to facilitate and progress the change. Fullan has argued that powerful leaders have the support and trust of their followers and have the strong ability to identify things that matter most in the current scenario (Fullan,2020). According to his findings, a leader could be empowered through here knowledge and the ability to develop others. Any individual who is well aware and well versed in the skills of leveraging the entire group is known to be a very strong leader.
Change management is not a very easy task. A lot of challenges and obstacles show up during the process (Ryan, 2018). One of the major challenges that any leader faces during the implementation of change management is to make people aware of the needs and requirements of the change. Human, by nature, opposes change even though it is required. Therefore, it is the role of the leaders to make the people aware of the need and the importance of the change. There are various organizational and cultural structures instilled that resist change. The second most challenge that changes management please is the lack of support for any specific solution or change management executive.
There are various problems that, when faced by an institution or organization, require to completely change their policies and structures. This change is facilitated through change management strategies. The leaders of the organization at the key role players in the change management strategies and actions. In order to reduce the resistance and explain the importance of change among the employees, a leader needs to communicate effectively with the group. Apart from that, the leader also needs to express and communicate openly with individuals and maintain a transparent approach for change management (Brown, 2018). Apart from that, the leaders are also required to honestly communicate the problems as well as the important steps that the leadership has taken in order to tackle those problems. It is very necessary for the leaders to understand and identify all the changes that are required within the organization. The role of the leaders is to influence every individual present within the organization to accept the change and understand the benefit and requirements of the change. Rapid change management strategies I often know to be a great failure as the individuals often fail to understand and fathom the depth of the change management strategy.
Empowering Future Leaders in Education Industry
According to my own experience of change management, I have learned a lot of things. Full of my life, I have experienced a lot of change in terms of educational institutions as well as culture. During the initial stages, add experience that most of the people would try and resist change. In fact, there have been occasions where I have found that people have outrightly opposed. There I have found that the rules of the leaders have been quite effective and important. One of the most prominent examples of change management was during the COVID-19 pandemic when the entire education system had to change play online mode. Initially, during the conversion, I have seen many of my classmates panic as well as resistant to change as they felt that taking to online medium would impair effective education. This is also being found that a few of my classmates also thought that the online mode of education would reduce the employability rate among them. However, as the management of our institution explain various strategies and policies that they have undertaken in order to facilitate the change, most of the students’ doubts wear clear. Similarly, many of the students corporated with the management in order to help the teachers and professors continue. Apart from that, the students were also found relieved when the management actively communicated all the strategies and current status with the students.
Michael Fullan focused his entire work on studying and suggesting the ways of educational change. He mainly focused on the human participants who were taking part in the change management process. According to his study and findings has broadly classified told management under four different phases. The four different phases of all the models are initiation, implementation, continuation, and finally, the outcome. According to the initiation phase, the leaders are required to understand the requirement of change (Ball, 2018). A values different factors could impact the initiation phase, such as the existence of quality innovation, its access, advocacy of the teachers, and finally, external change agents (Earley and Greany 2017). Followed by the implementation stage, where the proposed changes are implemented for the institution. After the successful implementation of the change comes the continuation phase, where the implemented change continues to occur and settle within the institution and finally comes the outcome stage where the entire change is evaluated and the impact of the change is assessed.
This is quite similar yet contradictory change management model presented by Kotter (Kotter 2012). The change management model of Kotter was based completely on facilitating the change. This model has eight different stages that help a person to facilitate change within an organization. This model mainly focuses on how an organization could implement and facilitate change. This is in contrast to Michael Fullan’s model as that focuses mainly on the leaders at leaders perspective. According to the model of Kotter, a person needs to create a sense of urgency in order to facilitate change, whereas Fullan suggests that they need to understand the importance of innovation in order to initiate change.
Fullan’s Six Practices for Effective Leadership
Education is a very dynamic topic, and changes occur in it every day. Change in education could be brought in many different ways. One of the most common ways is the emergence of blended learning such as online classes, experiential learning, and interactive educational content. Changes in the education industry could be born in the contents of education such as the programs and the causes that are being provided by the education institutions, the mode of teaching such as incorporating technology other interactive tools in education or to completely change the education system as a whole. As we know that education has changed a lot since the beginning of the 21st century. The education system now is more focused on skill-based learning rather than contextual theories and understanding. Modern technology and also made its way through the education system as the use of virtual reality and online teaching platforms has increased exponentially (Ball, 2011).
The education industry has got its own fair share of problems in implementing change within the industry. One of the first and major problems is the lack of infrastructure and organizational structure to facilitate change within the organization. Most of the educational institutions either lack the infrastructure to incorporate modern technologies or do not have any organizational policy or structure to implement change within the organization. The next very big problem that we organizations and educational institutions face is the lack of proper knowledge and skills of implementing change within the education system (Bowe, 2018). As the change continues in the education industry, the various educational institutions and professionals where the skills and knowledge of there is new modern technologies is scarce. This becomes a barrier in promoting change in the educational institution. Apart from that, the resistance from the organizational staff and the students also become a very big obstacle.
The organization, when it comes across as a big problem, adopts to be the method of change in order to tackle this problem. Change is often associated with high productivity and efficiency. End in many cases had brought positive impacts throughout the organization where is in some of the cases the change has led to the downfall of the educational institutions with poor management facilities. Change can be brought to an educational institution productively if the leaders manage big change efficiently. If change is not managed properly would do more damage than benefit. Change that has been brought into an organization through proper change management strategy has often been found to produce positive results within the organization. In order to bring change productively, the organization leaders need to communicate the reasons and importance of change to their subordinates (Brent, 2018). The leaders need to maintain a transparent attitude well facilitating the change. All the other stakeholders involved in the change need to be informed as well as involved in the change management strategy. This would ensure that be leaders gains the crust as well as the credibility of the subordinates. Apart from that, the leader, by clearly communicating and informing everyone about the value strategies and policies as well as the steps for initiating change, also ensured that they gain proper accountability as well as support the improvement and development of others. As described by Michael Fullan, most great leaders have a strong bedrock of trust and credibility. When all the stakeholders are informed about the change and its importance, they themselves become part and key role players in managing and facilitating change throughout the organization.
Challenges in Change Management Process
The leaders also play a very vital role in influencing and motivating others to adopt the change and see the bright side. The introduction of the change within the organization in the face of any problem helps to ensure and create hope among the employees, which boosts morale and facilitates change and development within the organization.
From the above discussion, it has become very clear that an effective leader has a very vital role in change management strategies. In the face of any trouble a problem, it is the leader who is looked up to by everyone to show a solution to the problem (Dunn, 2018). The leader again organization needs to analyze the situation at the same time initiate the change management process by highlighting all the available resources and infrastructure. The leader at first needs to realize all the possible innovative options for any hair change within the education industry. The leaders are then required to prioritize the task at hand and set them according to their priorities. The leaders are then required to again advocacy from the central administration and at the same time needs to gain trust from the subordinates. After the leaders have got complete support and understood the priorities of change management, the leaders could then-president to the second stage, which is implementation. During the implementation stage, the leaders need to look after the various activities better being conducted and support the change management process. During the implementation stage, the leader needs to look after all the identified stakeholders and the change in characterization of each of the stakeholders (Ball, 2011).
However, in order to implement change, the leaders have to face a lot of problems as well. One of the first and major problems that the leaders need to face is the lack of infrastructure and organizational structure to implement change (Jonesl, 2011). Therefore, to facilitate change within the organization in the education industry, the leaders at first need to develop all the organizational infrastructure environment to facilitate change. Another major problem is gaining the trust of the stakeholders. It is a well-known fact that most people resist change and, therefore, show higher inertia towards change.
The moral imperative of Michael Fullan’s word change management in an educational institution is very much effective in creating strong leaders and change management strategies. From the above discussion, it is very clear that the theory proposed by him is one of the most efficient strategies in change management (Hughes 2019). The leaders in educational institutions, through the model by Fullan, instigates the more imperative of the individuals. The moral imperative could be defined as a strong felt principle that forces a person to act. Here the leader influences the subordinates and others in such a way that each and everyone gets motivated to act without any hesitation. In the education institution, strategy changes such as policy formation and regulations have very little impact. Therefore the leaders of the organizations are required to bring change through self-derived strategies. The self-derived change management would ensure proper change management within the organization and lead to a more welcome to change within the education industry. It is a well-known fact that the global changes in cultural tradition and the organizational structure could be brought through the changes in the educational system of the world. Fullan calls all the principals to become the agents as well as the beneficiaries to support the process of who will change (Bowe, 2018). I totally agree with the idea put forward by Fullan. He successfully recast principals of various schools as prominent figures in this school as well as a member of the largest cooling system that surrounds them. The main leader of educational institutions and schools are the principal, and therefore there ought to play a very pivotal role in a systematic change in the complete educational system worldwide.
Overcoming Challenges through Leadership
In order to drive change, there is a requirement and need for certain qualities. Throughout my experiences from my student life, I have come to realize that the education system is the institution where the leaders to bring future change are born. One of the major and most important skills that I have learned through my experience is communication skills. During my high school days, I was lucky to have a principal who was an excellent communicator. Throughout his tenure, he brought many changes without much resistance. He was able to drive those changes because he easily convinced us that whatever he was doing was for the benefit of our school and us. Even during the class projects during my graduation, I have seen that the group leaders who had an excellent communication ability well very efficient leaders and driving change. As far as my qualities are concerned, I have found that my inefficiency in communicating effectively often becomes a barrier for my change management strategies. I’ve also seen that the leaders who will have a very high critical logical thinking ability and a high emotional intelligence unknown be very efficient and effective leaders. As far as my talents are concerned, I have seen that I have a very high emotional intelligence, which allows me to empathize with my teammates. This, to some degree, has helped me to bring out some change and influence others I’m doing the right thing.
Conclusion
This entire discussion has found that change management requires effective leaders. It has also been found that the leaders who had high credibility among this about next and an efficient ability to identify and prioritize tasks according to the importance are found to be efficient leaders. It has also been found that the leader’s ability to be transparent and honest with the subordinates provides a huge advantage to party leaders. I clearly agree with all the ideas and the concept presented by Fullan. He clearly defined all the required model strategies skills that end leader needs in order to bring change in the education system. The paper has also found that principals and teachers are the main change management leaders of the education industry and play a very important role in the complete education network. Change management in education industry is a very delicate process and hence it is required to proceed with utmost prudence.
Reference
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