Page 168 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Leaders and situations
Finally, charisma or personality features in both Stewart and Chadwick’s and
Itami’s views. It may be dangerous for organizations to become overexposed to,
or too dependent on, charismatic leaders. Nevertheless, we live in what seem
to be times in which individual values have gained growing recognition. People
will respond to personality. Can system, order and consensus not feel dehu-
manized?
If the strategy is made explicit how may its content mobilize the organization?
From Itami we see that this operates at three levels:
1 By providing a unifying focus.
2 By creating momentum.
3 By sustaining creative tension.
The strategy should be simple and clear, based on an identifiable core concept,
priorities should be clear, resources should be clearly allocated, continuous adap-
tation and improvement should be stressed and it should match the corporate
culture. To create momentum leaders must sell the core concept, ensure and
reward early success, involve people in clear tasks and pay attention to timing.
Accumulating resources and people can create the invisible assets so crucial to the
launch of a major new activity. To avoid complacency the leader will put con-
tinuing pressure on the organization. Constantly seeking new methods and pro-
cedures, improvements, new products and services is an excellent means of
sustaining creative tension. Strategy formulation should seek the limits of the
organization’s consensus and explore beyond it. Generally, consensus is agree-
ment that the policies successful in the past will continue to be so in the future.
This consensus needs careful but continual pressure and questioning. Finally,
placing people in conditions where the resources are inadequate can encourage a
creative effort to resolve the problems so created, usually a very uncomfortable
working situation. This can encourage the development of the invisible assets
needed as people seek their own ways out of the impasse thus created.

Leaders and situations

From this sketchy analysis it seems that the effective corporate leader uses skills,
knowledge, charisma and much else besides. These are deployed to encourage the
development of the invisible assets so central to competitive advantage. In turn,
this development flows from involving people in change, enabling them to act,
allowing them to learn and develop, sustaining them with confidence and with
vision.
Can we identify corporate leaders as individuals? Cooper and Hingley (1985)
studied 17 ‘change-makers’ in the UK. From this study the following pattern
emerged:
■ Early childhood experience: early feelings of insecurity and loss led to a subse-
quent drive and need to control their own future.
■ Later childhood experiences also developed self-reliance.
■ Motivation and drive: a recurring element was strong motivation and drive.

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