Major themes of Leading Change Essay

Efforts of more than 100 companies and 25 years of author’s working experience of becoming the better competitor were examined by Harvard Professor John Kotter in his book Leading Change.
I need to mention that Leading Change is an absolutely relevant reading source in the conditions of globalizing economy.
Efforts of are becoming the better competitor mentioned above were made in a world of constantly changing business environment. In order to help organizations to stay leaders in the competition, Professor has defined some major factors influencing the organizational leadership.
Kotter describes the issues of change, leadership, continuous improvement and continuous learning. These issues are vital for the transition process in each company.
The main theme of the book is that a vital quality that is lacking in many organizations is leadership. There is a lack of leaders first of all due to on an outdated education system. Kotter says that only recently new leaders are developing quickly. Then author describes the qualities that leaders should possess and also explains how proper leaders spend their time in effective way.
A chart with compares management to leadership comparison is shown on page 26. As an example we can mention here that leaders tend to motivate people and managers are rather used to take control and solve problems. Actually in Leading Change author states that successful change efforts are “70 to 90 percent leadership and only 10 to 30 percent management”.
Usual mistakes of leaders and managers in creating change were described and analyzed in this book. Kotter developed an 8-step process of overcoming these common mistakes:
Establishing a Sense of Urgency
Creating the Guiding Coalition
Developing a Vision and Strategy
Communicating the Change Vision
Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action
Generating Short-term Wins
Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
A definition devoted to each of the eight stages provided in this book; besides it, Kotter suggests many examples of what happens when any of the 8 steps is ignored by the management.
Concepts
In the first chapter “Transforming organizations: Why firms fall” he outlines eight mistakes common to organizational change efforts and their consequences.
Second chapter is called “Successful change and what the force that drives it”. Among the economic and technological forces driving the need for major change in organizations are: technological changes, international economic integration, maturation of markets in developed countries (in general it sums up as globalization of markets and competition).
A team of leaders and managers with a common goal is needed for change, and this team has to be communicated clearly by the main leader. Author doesn’t insist that change should be accomplished by one person. This team of leaders is called “Guiding Coalition”.
Kotter does not minimize the importance of managers, on the opposite he indicates, “Ironically, great success creates a momentum that demands more and more managers to keep the growing enterprise under control”.
A balance between leadership and management is require for successful organizational change.
Besides the leaders subject, author also indicates that in order to survive organizations should be constantly changing. According to his words, “If environmental volatility continues to increase, as most people now predict, the standard organization of the twentieth century will like become a dinosaur”.
Kotter describes the way he sees successful organizations in twenty-first century. He insists that companies will make sure of their survival by growing their leaders.
He also mentions a term ‘learning organization’. The successful company should become a learning organization by all means, and the training should be given to the lower level employees in order to make them successful as well.
In his book, Kotter also raises the issue of the personnel who resist change efforts. He says, “Personnel problems that can be ignored during easy times can cause serious trouble in a tougher, faster-moving globalizing economy”
A clear vision and strategy is very important factors for change implementation, according to Kotter. The reason why employees are being asked to participate in change, and the way the need to implement this change will not be obvious for the personnel without a clear mission statement.
An effective vision “results in a direction for the future that is desirable, feasible, focused, and flexible”. Simply speaking, employees’ anxiety will be lowered and the change is likely to be supported by them if the vision is effectively communicated.
The last chapter of the Leading change is dedicated to leadership development in the modern times. Thanks to continued learning and education leaders become better leaders, it is important to learn constantly. An author makes us to believe that leaders can be “grown” instead of only “born”.
The chart placed on page 183 is a listing the mental habits that support lifelong learning; it includes: risk taking, humble self-reflection, solicitation of opinions, careful listening and openness to new ideas.
A failure is due to happen is any of the eight stages are to be ignored in accordance with authors’ conclusion.
I also need to draw your attention to the general idea pointed in Leading Change, it suggests that leadership is an absolutely different thing to management.
Critiques and the reader’s experience
Leading change was an inspiring and useful reading which has a phenomenal success and I would definitely recommend it to any person who is deeply interested in business, management or leadership issues. This book might help the leaders and managers responsible for providing changes in organizations.
Leading change explains the reasons for change, the stages for change, and individual characteristics of a person required to manage the process of change and actually lead it. It also shows us the features of a future organization that achieved a success.
Many charts and diagrams were included into this book, and it is written in simple language, with an easy book structure. Besides it, real life examples are used to maintain interest and establish credibility.
In regards to the critique’s issues, I would like to note, that although author presents a guide to a leading, some important human implication and cultural factors are missing. For example, next generation leaders are not willing to take risks of to overcoming complacency and it causes complacency to exist all the time.
Kotter doesn’t mention the idea of technology-based improvisational change. He doesn’t pay any attention to the increasing trend of individualism as well. So I have a slight doubt if the Leading change is relevant nowadays as much as it was relevant previously.