The role of leadership in organisational change

By John Berry, TimelessTime Ltd, January 2012

www.timelesstime.co.uk ©TimelessTime 2012

Organisational change doesn’t just happen (Crozier & Friedberg, 1980). It is something that humans make happen. We recognise that leaders cause change and we respect ‘great men’ who do great things with organisations (Stogdill, 1974). But we also recognise that leadership is also more abstract concept, existing without presence of a central actor (Bolden 2011). This paper investigates how the role of leadership can best be understood in organisation change. Initially it makes a bold statement, postulating a modified input-process-output (IPO) model (Steinder, 1972; McGrath 2000; Hackman 1987) in which leadership plays the role of enabler but later it introduces a second view that positions leadership styles and approaches by coordinates on an X-Y model. This paper defines leadership, the organisation and change. It goes on to determine influence as the common denominator and enabling force. Finally it looks at how leadership impacts the organisation, investigating how the models stand up to criticism.

Organisations and groups exist as soon as two people come together for a purpose (Statt, 1991). Ilgen et al (2005) discussed what made one team or organisation more effective than another and introduced the original IPO model as a classic systems approach with inputs to the group converted to outputs (Steinder 1972; McGrath 2000; Hackman 1987). Because mediating factors such as leadership were in fact neither processes nor inputs the model was abandoned as an approach to understand leadership. Today, modern systems modelling recognises inputs, processes, outputs and enablers (sometimes referred to as resources or mediators) (Ilgen et al, 2005), a subtle but significant development from the earlier structure. This essay goes on now to assert that leadership can be understood as a change process enabler.

Exploring Influence and the Idea of an Enabler

Many have defined leadership and many definitions exist (Stogdill 1974). Such diversity means that, unless common ground can be found, a single answer to the question will be difficult. Yukl (2010) noted that leadership is “a process whereby intentional influence is exerted over other people”. This supports the idea that someone, a leader, does the influencing but it leaves space for leadership as a more abstract concept. However Knights and Roberts (1982) suggest that the real power of the group or organisation lies in the relationships between people, and they portray leadership as an exploiter of relationships. This suggests leadership acting one-to-one, one to many, many to many and many to one in line with existing relationships. Knights and Roberts (1982) propose that performance comes from authoritative, moral and trust relationships, making way for participative and distributed forms since it is only through these that such multiplayer linkage can be achieved. Leadership also involves transactional negotiation (Avolio & Bass, 1991) suggesting that influence (benefiting the leader) requires consideration (for the follower). Goleman (2000) identified styles of leadership that achieve results whilst Currie and Lockett (2007) described leadership approaches, two taxonomies differing only perhaps in their time horizon. In each case they are described as a means or method of exerting influence. So, from Stogdill (1974) and Yukl (2010) to Currie and Lockett (2007), the lowest common denominator is leadership as the bringer of influence.

So how does one choose from the various leadership forms? Leadership approaches are reported as sensitive to context (Currie & Lockett, 2007) and hence appropriate selection of the form of leadership is critical to achieving desired output.

Organisations have characteristics (Daft 1991): they are social entities with a purpose, bounded so that some people are in and some are not and with patterns of activities. A logical conclusion is that organisations therefore do something and hence can be thought of as processes acted upon at the highest level of abstraction by the influence determined above.

Organisational change is the “initiation of new patterns of action, beliefs and attitudes among substantial segments of the population” (Schein, 1969). These new patterns are outputs or results. Organisations had existing patterns of action, beliefs and attitudes before the change therefore change can be detected or sensed (normatively or interpretively) as the difference between the input and output. Change is considered opposite to the status quo (Karreman & Alvesson, 2009). ‘Status quo’ is perhaps the condition where a process with no new influence passes these patterns through unchanged.

Change can be resisted (Karreman & Alvesson, 2009). Buchanan & Huczynski (2010) suggest that resistance is overcome to enable change implying that influence results from a balance of forces (Burnes, 2004). Leadership is therefore not the only influencing factor. Empirical work (Van der Ven & Scott Poole (2005); Buchanan et al, 2005) illustrates that we observe difference over time (and hence that change may or may not be sustained). This shows that leadership and its resulting influence are seldom perfectly or efficiently built.

These definitions, with their common denominator of influence, support the idea of a modified post-modern IPO model with leadership as an enabler.

Positioning Leadership and Exploring Continuums

There are of course other ways of looking at leadership. Leadership is something that is obvious and driving, the form of which process owners would select in order to maximise the chance of successful change (Chin & Benne, 1969). Academics herald brash and overt styles like transformational leadership (Yukl, 2010) contrasted with equally definitive change management (Herold et al, 2008). Both approaches centre on leadership vested in central actors. They discuss the relationship between form of leadership and the nature of the organisational change sought, paralleling the idea of leadership form selected by context. Others illustrate leadership as a more subtle form of influence, emphasising slower, more incremental change achieved through internal influential actors and facilitators (Castel & Friedberg, 2008 and Luscher & Lewis, 2008). This emphasises the large number of variables existing in organisational change, suggesting that it is often difficult to discern the primary change drivers. There is suggestion that leadership, as the bringer of influence, is somewhat fuzzy, its effect is not clear (Castel & Friedberg, 2008). This empirical work portrays leadership on a continuum with brash, overt forms at one extreme and covert, subtle, activist forms at the other with practical forms between.

Looking in another way, distributed leadership is not something done “by one person to one or more other(s), it's a group activity that exploits relationships between group members” (Bennett et al 2003). Distributed leadership conjures the possibility of leadership as a democratic phenomenon. As a contrast, centralised leadership best fits the vertical relationships that exist between super-ordinate and subordinate actors (Bolden 2011). So in this case there is a different, perhaps orthogonal, continuum between actor-based leadership and distributed leadersh

This discussion positions centralised-versus-distributed leadership on one axis and overt-versus-subtle leadership forms on another orthogonal axis of a graphical model. The various leadership approaches and styles existing and discussed can then be positioned at their X-Y coordinates.

Bringing Two Models Together

No literature, theory or empirical research offers a singular description by which we can understand how leadership bears on organisational change. The common thread is the general understanding that leadership works through influence and has different forms. This paper has captured both, describing the former by way of an IPO model and the latter by a coordinate model. The coordinate model describes the form of leadership from which selection is made (according to context, goals and existing actions, behaviours and attitudes) and the IPO model describes how leadership impacts the organisation to effect change.

As Gronn (2008) described, the various leadership approaches are simply “variants, and the practice of leadership happens to be shaped by context”. Gronn (2008) also suggests the possibility of a hybrid configuration of leadership practice. This suggests that all approaches and styles of leadership can exist simultaneously in an organisation with some marginalised and others coming to the fore case by case to achieve change. Gronn’s (2008) view supports the twin model approach developed in this paper, allowing the enabling influence to be achieved through a plurality of leadership forms.

Future Developments

The modified IPO model allows many enablers (such as context and resources) to be conceptualised, working alongside leadership. The coordinates model allows leadership to be envisioned. Both are notions that fit theory and empirical research rather than exhaustively researched and developed ideas. If accepted as useful approaches to aiding understanding, significant work will be needed to form the various model relationships and explore model completeness. For example, the idea of leadership as an enabler may dilute some of the power-coercive ideas discussed by Chin & Benne (1969), particularly extreme forms. Similarly, the models in this paper depict leadership as a factor. Some references suggest leadership as something embedded, which cannot be thought of separate from the organisation. This too will need to be explored.

However, that said, this paper has shown that the dual model fits theory and post-modern empirical research and by its ability to simplify and create an easily understood vision, hugely aids understanding of organisational change.

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