Organizational Leaders Online Tutoring
Introduction
Organizational performance is influenced by its leadership and strategies implemented. Organizational leaders should effectively identify the opportunities and bring effective changes in the internal environment for sustained growth. This report discusses the key issues faced by International Institute for Education Excellence (IIEE) and also discusses the key concepts identified during the analysis of the issues.
Identification of the Key Issues
International Institute for Education Excellence (IIEE) being a joint venture of three leading educational organizations in Victoria has been successfully running a contract of delivering executive education and training in international education market. The joint venture secured a contract and has been continuing with it due to quality and clarity of the courses and access to qualified presenters and course co-ordinators along with good administrative support. But there were several issues the organization was facing and which was overlooked by the board members as well as the staff. The key issues evident in IIEE include dependency on only one client for the past 7 years, which has not enabled the organization to make any financial progress. Due to the continuation of the contract with a single client not much profits have been made and hence no effective investment has been done in the business development, infrastructure and also organization lacks employment security. The quality of the course content also has not been upgraded to a great extent due to lack of involvement from the staff. The organization also lacks effective strategic planning and implementation as a result of which it has never attempted to attract new clients or gain any new contract form a new client. IIEE though has been performing effectively but it lacks implementation of effective growth strategies. The organization lacks creativity and innovation, which has led to the staff maintaining the status quo and not attempting to bring changes in the system and strategies so as to identify and gain advantage of new opportunities. IIEE, thus lacked effective leadership and strategic planning. Janet Stone who was appointed as Institute Director in 2012 though acted as an effective leader and influenced the members of the board and organization to look out for more opportunities the company was not able to effectively manage the change, which it required to work on new opportunities.
Literature Review
Organizations constantly need to analyse the internal and external environmental factors and bring required changes in the various aspects of the business for sustained growth. Organizational development is a system-wide process for bringing changes, which are planned and aimed at improving overall organizational effectiveness by integrating and aligning the key elements of the organization, which includes mission, strategy, culture, structure, information, systems and most importantly effective leadership (Argyris, 2012). Organizational change is essential for sustainability and growth and managing change requires organizational and management skills to perform effectively in a competitive market. According to Waddell et al. (2005), organizations need to be able to implement incremental as well as transformational change for sustainability (Anderson, 2014). The changes in the organization is driven by several factors, which include political, economic and social conditions, industry deregulation, rapid advancement in technology, increased competition and changing consumer needs (Lencioni, 2012). According to Francis and Bessant (2005), organizations can map innovations using the framework developed by them, which is called 4Ps of innovation space (Laloux, 2014). The framework states that every innovation can be mapped in four dimension space and the dimensions are process, position, product and paradigm (Kitson, 2008). These innovation according to the framework can be either radical or incremental. Product and process innovation refer to changes in the product organization offers and processes it carries out to deliver the product respectively (Cummings & Worley, 2014). Position innovation refers to changes in the context in which product or services are introduced. Paradigm innovation refers to the overall changes in the organizational process, behaviour and mental models, which frame organizational activities (Bhattacharya, 2011). Incremental and radical innovations differ based on the use of knowledge and resources. Incremental innovation is about building upon existing knowledge and resources within the organization, which can be referred to as competence-enhancing (Gilley et al., 2009). Radical innovation requires new knowledge and/or resources and thus, is addressed as competence-destroying (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
Changes in organization can be planned and implemented effectively under a good leadership. Organizational leadership enables it to streamline the processes and align the human resource efforts with the goals and objectives of the organization (Argyris, 2012). Organizational leadership and its culture are interrelated and the leadership encourages certain kind of work culture and strategic approach in every aspect of the business. Effective leaders within the organization can lead to effective strategies and changes, which enables it to sustain and grow. Effective leadership approach involves bringing required transformation in the attitude, behaviour and approaches both in leaders and followers (Bhattacharya, 2011). One of the effective leadership approach is transformational leadership wherein the leaders understand the needs of the organization, new opportunities and needs of the human resource (Kitson, 2008). Such leaders influence the followers in a manner that they realize their potential and effectively contribute towards achieving the shared objectives. Effective communication is one of the important characteristics of transformational leaders wherein they build good networks within the internal and external environment and enables them to find new opportunities (Kotter, 2012). Effective leaders initiate required changes by analysing the internal and external environment and effectively utilize the resources to take advantage of the new opportunities (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
Strategy planning is equally important to provide sustained growth to the organizations. Strategic planning is an organizational management activity used to set priorities, strengthen operations, focus energy and resources and ensure that employees and all stakeholders are working effectively towards shared goals (Anderson, 2014). It also involves assessing and aligning organization’s direction in response to the changing environment. To bring effective changes in the organization it should have an effective strategic management approach, which should involve systematically coordinating and aligning resources and actions with vision, mission and strategy of the organization (Gilley et al., 2009). The change strategies can be effectively applied when the organization and its members work collaboratively towards achieving the common goals.
One of the change management models is Kotter’s 8-step change model, which includes eight-step change process. The eight steps include
- Create Urgency
- Form a Powerful Coalition
- Create a Vision for Change
- Communicate the Vision
- Remove Obstacles
- Generate short term wins
- Sustain acceleration
- Institute change
(Kotter, 2012)
To effectively implement change strategies organization or the leader has to create urgency for the need for change. The leader should identify potential threats and opportunities and influence all the stakeholders to identify the need for change. According to Kotter, a change can be successful only when all the stakeholders understand and realize the need for change (McLean, 2005). The next step of forming powerful coalition, which involves bringing together influential people whose power comes from different sources such as expertise, status, job title etc. (Laloux, 2014). The coalition enables the organization to maintain the momentum regarding the need for change. Organization should build teams, which include members with greater commitment (McLean, 2005). Creating a clear vision for change is very important, which enables the employees to have a clear direction towards achieving the desired vision and apply effective strategies to achieve the desired goals (Kotter, 2012). Communicating the vision effectively would enable all the stakeholders to work effectively and make effective decisions and solve the issues, which can act as barrier to achieving the visions (McLean, 2005). Effective communication among the stakeholders would enable them to overcome the concerns and anxiety of any of the members involved in the change process (Lencioni, 2012). The next step of removing the obstacles involves changing the structure, system, role of the employees or buy new resources. This step also involves identifying people who are resisting the change and help them overcome it.
The next step is of creating short-term targets, which is easily achievable and can motivate the employees to achieve bigger goals (Kotter, 2012). The short-term wins can further motivate all the stakeholders to carry out the next tasks effectively and perform even better (Laloux, 2014). The next step of sustaining acceleration involves setting new goals after each target is achieved. It is essential for the leader to identify what needs improvement and it should continuously improve all the aspects of the business (Lencioni, 2012). The organization leaders should continue to build momentum and bring changes effectively. Kotter further states that to sustain change it should be institute in the corporate culture (Kotter, 2012). This will help in reflecting the values of the organization in every day work and the approach of continuous improvement will get embedded in the corporate culture.
Conclusion
Organizational development enables it to constantly look for opportunities and threats and align its resources, strategies and systems in a manner that the desired objectives ca be achieved. The main elements, which influence organizational performance is its leadership, strategic planning approach and change implementation approach. Effective leadership can enable organizations to effectively plan its strategies and implement changes effectively.
