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Leadership Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction
This paper will analyse major challenges in managing
leadership during organisational change periods. Leadership style is the key to
overall success to management which needs to be changed in a great extent
during organisational changes. In this report, organisational changes that two
of the reputed companies Orange and T mobile faced during their merger will be
discussed. This paper will evaluate the leadership styles which can be
considered and find out the appropriate leadership style which can match the
situation. Furthermore, this paper will focus on three important change models
of Kotter, Lewin and Mckinsey 7s to get the overview of all the important
aspects regarding change management. Finally, ethical recommendations will be
provided to manage the situation.
Case background:
Telecommunication industry in UK is very competitive. To
manage the competitive pressure most of the companies are using strategic
approach to get advantages. The impact of mergers and acquisition has both
positive and negative sides. This study will focus on the changes derived by
the organisational merger between Orange and T-Mobile.
Orange and T-Mobile has merged to create countries
largest mobile phone operator (The Gurgian.com, 2008). Jointly they had 28.4
million customers or 37% of the market leapfrogging rivals O2 and Vodafone at
that time. Rival Vodafone, growth of.7
in the quarter, amid an improving European picture (Wray,
2009). But this merger has caused thousands of jobs cuts, heavy investment in a
new network etc. To manage the changing environment Olaf Swantee, Chief
Executive of EE was appointed a year after the tie-up between Orange and
T-Mobile (Wray, 2009).
Task 1: Appropriate Leadership Style
According to Lewin’s theory of three main leadership styles
are autocratic, participative and laissez-faire. He showed a continuum of seven
leadership styles from which any point of the degree can be selected.
Autocratic leaders only give orders and the
subordinates are supposed to follow that orders. They do not consult with the
subordinates or takes feedback from them. Autocratic leadership is much
formalized and structured leadership style. Participative leaders allow the
participation of subordinates in the decision making process. The leader does
not give order but consults with the subordinates for ensuring maximum output. A
participative leader participates in the implementation of decision process as
well. Laissez-faire leadership style the leader delegates the rights and power
to make decisions to the subordinates. This leadership style was also first
explained by Lewin in 1938. Transformational/ Charismatic Leadership suggest
that the effectiveness of leadership depends on the form of relationship
between a leader and his members. Here, leader and follower encourage each
other to increase motivation morale. Here, trust, respect, inspiration and
admiration are absolutely crucial for the leadership to be successful (Schein,
1985).
Appropriate theory:
In this case, Orange and T-Mobile has merged to create
countries largest mobile phone operator (The Gurgian.com, 2008). Jointly they
had 28.4 million customers or 37% of the market leapfrogging rivals O2 and Vodafone
at that time (Wray, 2009). But this merger
has caused, thousands of jobs cuts, heavy investment in a new network etc. Olaf
Swantee, CEO of EE, the UK telecommunications company that offers T-Mobile and
Orange in the country must play an
important leadership role to manage the changes in the organisation.
Appropriate leadership style must be taken from these styles autocratic,
participative and laissez-Faire. The Situational/Contingency Theory will be
applied to select the appropriate theory. Analysing the case we found few
important issues that are given below-
First of all, Olaf Swantee must try to understand the
situation better. Proper examination of the situation is a must. This issue is
under Laissez-Faire leadership
style because this style suggests that the employee get support from
employer directly. Feedback and supportive material has been provided the
leader to their employees. Leader supervises
all the element of the activities under control. Here a leader understand the
situation and supervises the situation.
Secondly, selecting particular traits is very
important to meet the particular demands of successful changes. This is under Transactional leadership style because here focuses on the certain issue or
task. The subsidiary factor of the leadership style is rewarded the employee.
Thirdly, appropriate leadership style must be chosen
based on the goal of the organization. It can be either functional. It will
consider each function which may affect changes. Or it can be transformational,
which includes maintaining relationship with people for the change outcome. Here
Transformational leadership style is followed.
In a new report Deloitte Swantee mentioned major
characteristics of the workers of this generation. These are ‘inclusive and collaborative decision
making, fostering more flexible and human working environment and persistent
challenging of the status quo’ (Wray, 2009).
For the case of Orange and T-Mobile showed that the
appropriate Leadership style has to be chosen for changes the organization. So it
is considered that Participative
leadership style is perfect to
changes based on the third issue that is mention
above. In this leadership style an employer takes his decision based on the opinion
of employees. One important recommendation for Orange and T-Mobile is to
involve their employees and encourage Participation in the process of decision
making. In this participative leadership all employees from both organisations
will share their input in the decision making process.
The entire important task has been invisibly found only
in Participative leadership style because a leader suggests his employee thinking
as his problem that is in Laissez-Faire leadership. Sometime a leader can focus on specific
task by negotiating to employee that found in Transactional leadership. The
communication process and goal setting also can achieve by connecting and
friendly behaviours that is related to Transformational leadership. So for
their changes of whole system of the organization Participative leadership style is most important.
After all we can say Laissez-Faire,
Transactional, Transformational
leadership Style are suitable for them and Participative
leadership style is perfect that they chosen for their change.
Task 2: Managing change
There are several
change models which has made the change easy to describe. EE takeover can be
discussed through different models such as Kotter’s eight steps change model,
Lewin’s three stage progress of change, and McKinsey’s 7 S models. These models
are used in the below to describe how the EE takeover of BT could be managed.
Change Model: Kotter
Kotter’s eight Steps of Change:
The takeover of EE
will be looked through this process to describe how takeover of BT could be
managed.
Step 1: Create Urgency:
‘The future is
bright. The future is orange’ was the tagline of Orange smartphone carriers. It
was important for the umbrella brand EE to be taken over by some powerful brand
to survive in the market. Customer does not satisfy because it is not find EE.
Also Urgency is opposite to time which is difficult to gain quickly through BT.
Step 2: Form a Powerful Coalition:
In this case change
was necessary for performing better and the better performance by EE has showed
that that change was necessary. So, BT announced that it is going to acquire EE
for £12.5 bn. For long time relation the Coalition has been generally happened
among various factors. Sometime it is difficult to find true leader, team
building, and emotional commitment.
Step 3: Create a vision for a Change:
As in this case the
integration puts the company of the 25pc target set by the current owners and
EE reported the growth of the revenue of 0.1 pc and 2.2 pc. The vision of this
takeover by BT was ‘to generate revenue synergy by providing full range of communication’.
The vision doesn’t always gives the value of Determine, creating strategy and vision
speech.
Step 4: Communicate the Vision:
The objective of
this vision is to combine the operating cost and complex synergies of around
£360 m within the fourth year. This should be communicated with the employees
by regular meeting and information exchanges. The communication process is need
by walk to talk that become difficult for changing.
Step 5: Remove Obstacles:
During the change
process obstacle is bound to come. The act needed to play here is to identify
the obstacles and to select the change leaders who will deliver the change. Obstacles
have removed by the cost cutting, thousands of job cuts which helped the
integration n to take place (Carnall,
1991). But to remove it is needed to
aware about Vision to everyone that may not occur.
Step 6: Shortcut Wins:
Success is
considered as the main motivator. So, for the change quick wins will have
positive impacts which will restrain the negative thinkers to stay away from
hurting the process. The early targets should not be expensive and the people
who made the success possible should also be rewarded. Sometime there is no Shortcut
to Win.
Step 7: Build on the Change:
Many projects fail
only because win is declared so early. In this case, after the integration EE
reported 2.2 percent point increase in adjusted earnings in the first half of
the year compared to 2014. That proves that integration was a right decision
and is working but EE should keep looking for improvements. The achievement
should be continues process but overtime it is decline. The changing is so
difficult so it is not happen as we tell easily.
Step 8: Anchor the changes in Corporate Culture:
It is important
that EE leaders support that integration and talk about the progress in every
chance they get. That will ensure that the vision is not lost or forgotten. As
it will be a world-class digital infrastructure for Britain, this will open up much
opportunity for the employees. The vision has to scatter to all but lacking of
it Corporate Culture is not be target as Anchor of changing.
Change Model: Lewin
Lewin’s three Stage process of Change:
For a successful
change, one should first understand why the change should take place and then
to change the whole process. Lewin recommends three steps in this model which
are unfreeze, Change and Refreeze. These are discussed shortly in the
following:
Unfreeze:
It is involved with
preparing the organisation to accept the change and to breakdown the running
status of the company. So they to make them mentally prepared. Otherwise it
would make a chaos and would result poor financial results, customer complaints
etc.In 2010, Swantee fired six of his
most senior managers of T-mobile and Orange. That was basically a control
mechanism for the stuffs. Here EE takeover could be managed the Unfreeze with
few difficulties because there are difficult qualified employees as manager and
leader.
Change:
When the unfreeze
stage is over, then the main process starts which is change stage. People who
believe in change and find it more beneficial go through the change process.
Rather it may take a huge span of time to make the change. The concerned
integration had a total time span of five years which shows the perfect curve
of the change (Carnall, 1991). Joining BT will take EE further by improving
opportunity for the company, customers as people. UK's most advanced 4G
network and most extensive superfast broadband network was combined by the
integration of EE and BT. But there is future investment and product innovation
is facilitated by this process which is not citrine and keep in risky.
Refreeze:
When the changes
are made and it takes a new look then people are ready to refreeze with the new
way of working. It means they are ready to refreeze. The refreeze process will
make the organisation stable, will give a consistent job descriptions and it
will make the employees more confident and comfortable. In this process BT
planned ‘to generate revenue synergy by providing full range of communication’.
Net present value of which is 3.5bn. In the refreezing process the employees
should be communicated as well as the customers. Sometime Refreeze brings negative
impact on organization because the new way of working may be decline the
previous system and would not be effective as before.
Change Model: Mckinsey 7S
Mckinsey 7S model included 7 influential factors which
plays an important role in setting organisational dynamics and internal
strengths. The seven S’s can be divided in two types one is Soft S’s and the
others are Hard S’s. The S’s are the followings:
Structure: Organisational
systems include the way of communication between employees. In this case, the
reporting and accountability of the employees should be managed properly.
Orange and T-Mobile must ensure who will report to whom. The criticism of it may
not be communicate in proper way with all the element of Structure
Strategy: It is the
game plan or plan of actions to maintain and build competitive advantages over
time. Already by merger Orange and T-Mobile has captured largest market share. The objective of
this vision is to combine the operating cost and capex synergies of around £360
m within the fourth year. Net present value is 3.5bn. This should be
communicated with the employees by regular meeting and information exchanges.
But sometime wrong and unauthentic Strategy would be the cause of unsuccessful.
Systems: The daily
activities and procedures of the employees must be coordinated in order to
manage the change in the organisation. This takeover of EE by BT allowed them
to build UK’s biggest, fastest and best 4G network. But this is huge some costly to
set up the system all over the country.
Shared values: Employees of both companies should show respect to the values of each
other. This is one of the most important soft factors. This includes
‘superordinate goals’ which shows the corporate culture and general work
ethics. But if there is no similarity then it turns into difficulties.
Style: The
leadership style adopted by the change manager is really important in this
case. For the case of Orange and T-Mobile a Participative leadership is the
most appropriate. One important recommendation for Orange and T-Mobile is to
involve their employees and encourage Participation in the process of decision
making. But Leadership style doesn’t give proper solution in particular
situation.
Staff: The
employees and their general capacities to work must be improved. In 2010,
Swantee fired six of his most senior managers of T-mobile and Orange. He also
gave notice to 120 directors and Vice Presidents that their job is at risk. That
was basically a control mechanism for the stuffs. But it is the most crucial
element on the organization that is not works properly.
Skills: The set of
competency each companies employees hold must be shared for the purpose of e-learning.
Top management should put focus on the interaction between employees and them.
It can be facilitated by organizing meetings, seminars and workshops. The plan
of this takeover is to increase the sale of converged fixed-mobile services to
BT’s existing consumer and business customers and offer new services, using
both companies’ product portfolios, skills and networks.
Task 3: Managing resisting to change
One of the major impediments in the process of organisational
change is resistance to change. Resistance can be formed in numbers of ways
like increasing number of turnoff, request for transfer, reduction in output,
chronic quarrels, and hostility (Carnall, 1991). Theses resistance to change management is pretty troublesome but still
a very important task for the change manager. Managing change is difficult and
most of the time manager has been driven in the wrong way. There are some
universal rules for changing the managing resisting. There is also has not hard
and fast rule. But following those ways a manager can lessen resistance to
change. That are-
v Timely
activities
v Try to
find out the causes of change
v Analysis
the past
v Find out
the employees tendency
v Changes
has to be with numerous little portion
v Involvement
to planning
v Engagement
by asking self-questions
v Better
communication to all
v Role of
social media
v Training
session
v Various
methods such as Storytelling, Dramatic and so on.
v Fare
less working and keep patient (Torbenrick, 2015).
Ethical Recommendations
Participation in
change making:
One important recommendation for Orange and T-Mobile
is to involve their employees and encourage Participation in the process of
decision making.
Understanding the
true nature of resistance:
One of key to manage change is to understand the
nature of resistance properly. They key factors like social factors and human relationship
must be identified (Harvard Business Review, 1999).
Effective meeting
and training by top management:
Top management should put focus on the interaction
between employees and them. It can be facilitated by organizing meetings,
seminars and workshops. It will facilitate the change process by increasing
communication.
Ensuring
appropriate strategies for the accountability of the workers:
Olaf Swantee must try to plan for the human resources
of the organisational employees for fair process of accountability and reward.
In this case, both organisational employees must be treated fairly in terms of
accountability to be ethical in decision making.
Improving employee
and customer relationship:
The organisation should maintain proper database in
order to improve the employee and customer relationships. The inclusion of
information in the database must consider the ethical issues.
Influencing
innovation:
The next step for BT should be combining all the
capabilities to delight the customers with new and innovative services to meet
the demand for data and connecting services.
Conclusion
Organisational culture and leadership influences the
change agents as the most important management functions. In this paper organisational
changes that two of the reputed companies Orange and T mobile faced during
their merger has been discussed. Participative leadership style is the most
appropriate leadership style which can match the situation of Orange and
T-Mobile. Furthermore, this paper has focus on three important change models of
Kotter, Lewin and Mckinsey 7s to get the overview of all the important aspects
regarding change management. Finally, ethical recommendations will be provided
to manage the situation.
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