The Role of Effective Leadership in Organizational Innovations and Changes: A Study of Selected Organizations in Katsina State Metropolis
The Role of Effective Leadership in Organizational Innovations and Changes: A Study of Selected Organizations in Katsina State Metropolis
The Role of Effective Leadership in Organizational Innovations and Changes: A Study of Selected Organizations in Katsina State Metropolis
By
Bashir Bello
Abstract
Globalization has converted the world into a small global village; in which there is an ever high
stream of contentions and competitions between organizations. As such, the most effective and
beneficial maneuver for any organization is to create innovative ways in conducting business.
This study explained the role of leadership in the phenomena of organizational change and
innovation. The leader as a person in charge or as a change agent can manage an organization
or the process of organizational change more effectively and successfully if he or she is capable
and competent. Rapid technological advancements, high expectations of customers, and ever
changing market situations have compelled organizations to incessantly reassess and reevaluate
how they work and to understand, adopt and implement changes in their business model in
response of changing trends. Organizational change is a demand of the day, and needed for
organizations to survive.
Key Words: Leadership, Innovative Approach, Organizational Change,
Introduction
Achieving organizational objectives should be the priority and most driving force of every
individual in an organization. While the fact remains that changes in organizations stem from the
contribution of all the employees; whatever the outcome of the changes whether positive or
negative will be attributed to the leaders. Changes, therefore, has been conceptualized differently
by scholars (Caetano, 1999 in Abbas & Asghar, 2010, p 1). Organizational change is important
for long term success and survival of an organization. There are possibilities for organizations to
lose their repute and market share if they do not prepare themselves according to rapidly
changing circumstances and situations. (Boston, MA, 2000 in Abbas & Asghar, 2010, p 1).
Different authors describe the significance of organizational change in different way, but it’s an
accepted fact that organizational change is important for sustainable business and long term
success.
Accepting the greatness of organizational change and knowing the fact that practical steps are
needed to make things happen, the next question may arise in minds that “who will take initiative
to bring these changes for organizations, to take practical steps” and “who will be the person in
charge”. Scholars and researchers also agree on the point that role of a leadership or leader is
very important while managing organizations or addressing the issue of organizational change.
The role of the leadership is a key while addressing the issue of organizational change and
effective leader can bring effective change for an organization (Kennedy, 1998. p 2). Leader is
also seen as a change agent who can take initiative and bring change for organization (Senior and
Fleming 2006. p 6).
Organizational change is the demand of a time and for sustainable success there is need for a
leader that can play a key role in bringing and implementing these changes; a leader that will
decides the desired form of an organization and taking the practical steps which are needed for
the process. The point remains that there are needs for an effective leader and it is crucial for
managing organizational change, at the same point the process of organizational change is very
complex and challenging. A competent and effective leadership is required to manage the
situation. Leadership competencies have a great relation with successful organizational change
and a competent leader may prove more effective in managing the change process successfully
(Gruban 2003. p 8). Special qualities and characteristics are therefore required from a leader to
bring successful organizational change (Bennis, 1987. p 505). This paper, therefore, seeks to
examine the role of effective leader in organizational innovations and changes.
Research Questions
1: What are the roles of leadership in bringing about changes and innovation in an organization?
2: What are the challenges leaders confront in achieving organizations’ innovations and changes?
Operationalization of concept
The Organization: Organization is a combination of individuals, people or groups trying to
influence others to achieve certain objectives by using different processes and technologies in a
structured way. They May consists of social arrangements of certain groups in a formal way to
achieve certain objectives and having well defined boundaries and limitations (Senior & Fleming
2006 in Kumar 2013).
Change
The word change is taken as a result normally. A simple definition of change in the Sansom and
Reid Oxford children’s Dictionary (1994:195) defines the change as to become a different. Van
der Merwe tells that the word change is obtained from the Latin word to better (Van der Merwe
1991).
Organizational Innovation
Innovation in simple words can be defined as to change in ways of doing things in order to create
useful new stuff (McKeown, 2008: 7). It can also be viewed as change in product or services that
involves the evolution of features and capabilities as well as the introduction of “new-to-the-
world” (Benner & Tushman, 2003: 241).
Literature Review
Leadership as a concept has been used in various aspects of human life such as politics,
businesses, academics, social works, etc. Previous views about leadership show it as personal
ability. The degree to which the individual exhibits leadership traits depends not only on his
characteristics and personal abilities, but also on the characteristics of the situation and
environment in which he finds himself (Messick and Kramer2004). Basically, every individual
become members of an organization in other to achieve certain personal objectives; the extent to
which they are active members depends on how they are convinced that their membership will
enable them to achieve their predetermined objectives. As such, an individual will support an
organization if he believes that through it his personal objectives and goals could be met; if not,
the person’s interest will decline. Leadership style in an organization is one of the factors that
play significant role in enhancing or retarding the interest and commitment of the individuals in
the organization, it is, therefore, essential for a leader to discover his or her leadership style
(Glantz 2002).
Transformational-Transactional Theory
Among the various theories of leadership and motivation relating to effective organizational
change management, perhaps the most prominent is the transformational-transactional theory of
leadership. As explained in Saowalux and Peng (2007), Burns (1978), conceptualizes two factors
to differentiate “ordinary” from “extraordinary” leadership: transactional and transformational
leadership. Transactional leadership is based on conventional exchange relationship in which
followers; compliance (effort, productivity, and loyalty) is exchanged for expected rewards. In
contrast, transformational (extraordinary) leaders raise followers’ consciousness levels about the
importance and value of designated outcomes and ways of achieving them. They also motivate
followers to transcend their own immediate self-interest for the sake of the mission and vision of
the organization.
Such total engagement (emotional, intellectual and moral) encourages followers to develop and
perform beyond expectations (Burns, 1978; Bass, 1985). Burns (1978) observes that
transformational leadership involves the process of influencing major changes in organizational
attitudes in order to achieve the organization’s objectives and strategies. Bass (1985) observed
that transactional leaders work their organizational cultures following existing rules and
procedures, while transformational leaders change their cultures based on a new vision and a
revision of shared assumptions, values and norms. When an organization must adapt to changes
in technology, its leadership is a critical factor in its successful change.
Bass (1985) operationalized the work of Burns (1978) by developing a model of transformational
and transactional leadership, referred to in more recent publications as the “full range leadership
model” (Bass and Avolio, 1997).
Contingency Theory
Fiedler (1996) presents the contingency or situational theory of leadership by highlighting the
three important factors which has affect on the performance of leaders. Some of them are listed
below:
- Leader-Member Relations: It describes that what are the relations between employees
and the leader and up to what extent the employees have trust on leader’s and how much
the leader can attract h/her employees and subordinates and up to what level the
leadership is source of inspiration for them.
- Task Structure: This factor talks about the nature of jobs for employees whether they are
routine or non routine, in order to manage and get the maximum output of employees
work.
- Position Power: The position power is the power of leadership which s/he has in the
organization. The leadership with the power of decisions and their implementation is
needed to handle and manage the organizational issues with confidence (Fiedler,1996).
Path-Goal Theory
Path Goal theory claims that the most successful leaders are those who keep their employees and
subordinates motivated defining and making the path of work clear to them through their clear
vision. The main characteristics of a leadership according to this theory are to motivate their
teams to meet the organizations goals by keeping control on the outcome of their work and
activities. Leaders also appreciate the employees and give rewards on their good work, and to
raise and maintain the enthusiasm by giving them confidence about their ability as well as to
work (House 1971).
Managerial Grid Theory
Robert R. Blake and Anne Adams elaborated the theory of leadership grid. This theory describes
the concern of leadership with the customers demand based production by focusing the better
management of teams by leadership styles. This approach may be difficult to implement in
certain circumstances. In the theory leaders keep their teams motivated and flexible to realize the
need of change and accept it (Blake R and Anne Adams 1991).
The transformational leadership also increases the level of dedication and motivation for
employees to work for the betterment of organization in spite of their personal interest.
The qualities of transformational leadership may include: Ability to work as change agents,
Courage to take bold steps, ability to trust on others, value driven characteristics, Good learning
abilities, strong mental model to work in complex situation and a clear vision
From the above debate it can be seen that different scholars and researchers put the light on
characteristics of leadership from different angles. There may be some difference in opinions and
approaches to analyze these characteristics but all the authors agree on the point that the leaders
must have some qualities to become effective leaders.
Innovative approach of leaders can helpful to foster the growth of innovative culture within an
organization which at the later end can leads innovations for that organization. But the question
is what kind of innovation has not been be fitted for the organization and what is the desired
format of innovation that can be proved worth for that organization? For this, the visionary
leadership is needed along with the innovative approach. Like only innovative approach is not
sufficient, vision is also needed, likewise only vision is also not sufficient for leadership for the
development and the sustainability of an organization. Vision is only 10 % and the rest is its
implementation (Jick, 2001) It is good for leadership to have a clear vision, but how to achieve
that vision. Five common qualities are discussed in literature for the leadership which can prove
more beneficial for the firms, if the leadership has these qualities along with their vision
(a) Formulate strategies and plans to achieve their visions (Bass 1985).
(b) Communicate their visions to promote changes and widen support of the visions (Bass,
1985).
(c) Align people and supporting systems to suit their visions to make it sure that there will be no
procedural and structural hurdles in the way of achieving vision, and provide the good
atmosphere to employees to work with dedication to make the vision in to reality (Nanus 1992).
(d) Empower their people to act consistently with the new vision and help sustain commitment to
it In order to get their maximum work output and let them work confidently for achieving the
organizational goals. (Nanus 1992)
(e) Motivate their followers so that they work by using their maximum abilities and complete the
allocated tasks within the given time (Bass 1985).
All above mentioned attributes refers the leadership to have an innovative approach in there,
thinking, decisions and strategies. It can be assumed from the discussion that the leadership with
innovative and visionary approach along with other characteristics can prove more beneficial for
organizations, for the purpose of success, development and sustainability (Gesell 2010).
Methodology
This part highlighted the ways and approaches of collecting the data (Oliver, 2004).The study is
primarily qualitative and case based. The reason for choosing the case study strategy is the
exploratory and the qualitative nature of study. Since the case studies have become one of the
most common ways to do qualitative inquiry” (Stake, 2000, p.435). One of the reasons to use
case studies in the study is its quality of flexibility which allows the researchers to use multiple
data collection methods (Yin 1989; Merriam, 1998).According to Robson (1993), flexibility is
always the main strength of the case study strategy in terms of interpretation and getting access
to the specified places, or organizations. Document analysis/content analysis also called “textual
analysis” (Travers, 2001: 5) was also done. In-depth interview was conducted for linking and
supplementation of document analyzed.
Study population
The population of the study consists of workers in some selected organization in Katsina. The
following are the organizations involved: Katsina Companion Radio and Katsina Investment
House, Katsina. These organizations comprises of staff that provided the study with relevant
information for the study. The populations comprise both senior and junior staff.
Questions were asked on the roles of leadership in bringing about innovation in an organization
. The followings are some of the responses of the participant:
“In our organization, I can categorically say that whatever innovation you are talking
about; to a large extent, it should be attributed to the leader”.
For another staff, he is of the view that innovation has to do with new ideas and to whatever
extent; leader who is versatile in experience automatically will contribute to the innovation that
takes place in an organization. In his word:
“The experience of a leader will make him have something reasonable to contribute
to the organization. The innovation we are talking about is all about new thing, new
creation and latest ideas. A leader must have experience to do such. To me, a leader
like ours is contributing immensely because of his experience and to a great extent it
is evidencing that he is bringing new innovation to the organization”
In a related interview with another staff in one of the organization, she stated that role of
leader in bringing innovation in an organization cannot be over emphasized. Down fall of
any organization should be attributed to the leader in her own statement. In her word:
Questions were asked on the roles of leadership in bringing about changes in an organization.
The following are some of the response:
Changes are the only things that can say to be the constant phenomena that will make any
organization to meet up with its contemporaries. In one of the interview with the staff, he was of
the view that:
“Changes will surely occur in any organization, however, whether it is positive or
negative changes, that depends on the kind of leader that controls the organization”.
“Why would anyone be call a leader when he or she cannot or will not bring
change to the organization”
Question was asked on the challenges leaders confront in achieving organizations’t innovations
and changes
There are general challenges for leaders in achieving both the innovation and changes in
organization. Some of the staff identified some of the challenges as thus:
Based on the finding of the study the following recommendations are given:
1. It is important for any organization that seeks to achieve its organizational objectives to assign
to the position of leadership in organization competent, efficient, effective leader.
2. For any organization to have a maintained and sustainable achievement it must have a goal
oriented leader who will gear the organization towards attaining its desired objectives.
3. Organizational leader should be given an opportunity to carry out his or her goal oriented
ideas without any external interference.
4. It is the role of leader to bring about innovations and changes to an organization. It is the
responsibility of the members of the organization to give him or her to achieve those objectives.
5. A leader must also seek from the owners and the staff and management the much desire
cooperation to achieve his or her role of innovations and changes in organization.
6. Interaction with workers and their unions as stakeholders will be a good strategy; one of the
important ways to get the much needed cooperation to achieve leadership role.
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