Managing change is a leadership problem associated with giving directions, managing resources, mobilizing employees, and understanding differences in organizations undergoing constant change in business operations. Also, change management means challenges with adjustment in business operations, including shifting culture from existing to new ones. In addition, these changes may include changes in technology, internal processes, and other infrastructure in the company, for instance, in the case of GE Internet of Things (Kang et al., 2022, p. 278). Therefore, this management problem is common, especially with companies constantly changing their management personnel and production technologies. Hence, this paper discusses guiding the change leadership problem concerning GE’s Internet of Things case study and explains various issues that lead to the management problem. Finally, the theories paper discusses possible solutions to the problem of applying theories of leadership.
The innovations highly influence the guiding change management problem in the company; for example, GE’s Internet of Things software introduced in 2011 brought about a significant change in company operations (Lakhani et al., 2015, p. 11). The technology development in a company enhances improved transparency in the company’s functions, and the employees and customers can coordinate efficiently. Some inventions like automated internal controls strengthen the ease of business. Another way technology contributes to change management includes improved communication in the company, the leaders in GE Internet of Things company were able to strengthen the coordination of athletic activities. Communication in the company operations is an essential strategy to the success of company goals, for instance, communicating company performance and new products in the market, among others.
Also, change management problem arises from the culture of people in the company on resistance to change. According to Bagga et al. (2022, pp. 1-35), the organizational culture coupled with transformational leadership causes change management in the companies; further, the study noted that a culture of resistance to inventions in companies leads to challenges in change management. An example is the case of GE Internet of Things, where Ruh faces opposition from other leaders and works alone, even without funding, to promote high performance in the company. The resistance culture in an organization involves personal agendas where people feel that change in the company is their ambition. Senbeto et al. (2022, pp. 1135-1142) explain that organizational culture resistance to change is due to traditional beliefs in management, and people tend to resist innovation because of old cultures in business methods. Another company culture related to resistance to change problem is internal politics in the organization; all organizations have political and cultural behaviour; thus, technological resistance is related to internal fights in the leadership.
In addition, guiding change management problems results from change fatigue, a situation where the company experiences a constant change in its operations. Some reports indicate that these problems are because of the high rate of product innovations. For example, getting all the functions in place presented a big problem for employees to adopt in the GE Internet of Things case study, which had many thousands of new products because employees had become fatigued by recent changes. The reports of Bagga et al. (2022, p.28) indicated that people could develop change fatigue because of the company’s culture of increased product innovation within a short period. Krasniqi et al. (2022, pp. 11-22) indicated that various cultural attributes contribute to guiding change management problems in firms, such as a lack of appropriate coordination of the changes to employees and a lack of skills that match the technological evolution in companies. Thus, change fatigue is among the cultural change features that lead to guiding change management problems.
Further, guiding change management problems relates to lack of organizational buy-in, the condition of the change communication disparity where top managers are aware of the change but junior workers need to be made aware. For example, the GE Internet of Things case study showed that most decisions are at the top management level, and the people downstream were unaware of the changes. Involvement of all workers in the company in any change is crucial because it leads to the adoption of the difference without any severe barriers or rejections, the Ruh had to start alone the introduction of the Internet of things in the GE company, and other followed later because they were not involved in the process (Lakhani et al., 2015, p.13). Therefore, this show that the need for more people involved in the significant changes of the company is a challenge to adopting the new technology in the company by the employees at the bottom of the ladder. A study by Salgado et al. (2022, pp. 731-732) found that a lack of customer and employee-centred approaches in communicating the change leads to problems related to the guiding change management problem. Therefore, this indicates that communication breakdown of the technology highly contributes to guiding change management problems in multinational companies like GE.
Possible Solutions
The solutions to the guiding change management problem involve applying leadership theories or approaches such as transformational and charismatic theories. Modern ideas in leadership, such as transformational leadership theory, can offer an alternative solution to guiding change management problems; transformational leaders can bring positive changes to the company’s running and post good results. Also, transformational leadership entails leaders attaining more excellent performance than expected because they can clean any loophole in administration (Asbari, 2020, pp. 51-55). The theory enables the leader to; identify individual needs and provide learning opportunities. In addition, transformational leadership theory assists in guiding organizational change by influencing and motivating employees to undertake the change. Most people want to be associated with a successful company. Thus, a transformational leader brings the necessary transition to a company.
Another vital contribution of transformational leaders is that they transform and initiate positive organizational cultures, thus leading to significant changes in companies, such as expanding their products and services (Reza, 2019, pp. 119-123). Hence, this theory is critical in solving the change management challenges experienced by GE and Industrial Internet companies. Also, most organizations that have faced guiding change leadership problems have adopted the transformational leadership theory that has enabled the leaders to reduce change resistance. According to Cao and Le (2022, pp. 5-21), transformational leadership theory has a high chance of improving employees’ trust in company leadership; further, the study noted that transformational leadership aspects are positively related to organizational changeability. Therefore, confirming that transformational leadership theory is suitable for solving the problem associated with guiding change management challenges.
Some principles of transformational leadership theory directly related to the management problem include simplicity on the part of the leader, and the leader is expected to be clear in instructions and the direction the company is heading. Also, the final results are essential for employees to know the firm’s focus and the success made so far. An example of a guiding change management problem is when the GE Internet of Things experiences a buy-in challenge because not all employees engage in critical decision-making. According to Schiuma et al. (2022, p. 1281), the simple principle of transformational leadership theory leads to tremendous success in solving problems in management. Thus, different leaders must apply simplicity to improve all employees’ communication.
Another principle of transformational leadership theory is motivation, and leaders need to understand the drivers of explaining their employees by assessing their likes and dislikes. Examples of motivation issues in employees include training them to improve their job performance skills. Also, motivation involves recognizing employee achievements, such as meeting performance targets, and the director should ensure that the best-performing workers get credit. Good working conditions are also essential to encourage the motivation of employees, and the manager ensures that the working environment is safe for all employees. Some managers even provide weekly or daily rewards to promote good work relationships with their workers, such as giving them half-off days and snacks at work (Schiuma et al., 2022, pp. 1275-1282). All these actions promote increased morale among all employees, who improve their performance at work, thus promoting increased company performance by all employees.
Determination is also an essential principle of transformational leadership theory, and it entails the zeal to finish the work regardless of the hurdles on the way. For example, in the case of GE’s Internet of Things, Ruh was determined to succeed in the mission of software change in the company changes from 2011 (Lakhani et al., 2015, p. 13). The value of determination requires courage, charisma, strength, and stamina; in their opinion, the leader needs to be firm on the stand in bringing change to the organization. The principle of determination is an essential aspect in solving challenges related to the difference in the organization because the change in the company needs to be well-endorsed by all people; thus, the leader needs to be strong. Therefore, transformational leaders must be strong enough to promote a high adoption rate of organizational structure changes.
In addition, the leader must have high mobilization skills under the transformational leadership theory. Mobilization involves aligning the right people for the right job to avoid confusion in operations at the firm; the leader inclusively assigns roles to all employees to meet the organizational goal. Mobilisation also ensures adequate equipping of the staff personnel to increase their effectiveness on the job role; hence will be willing to adopt the change at all means. Further, the leader can clearly understand the importance of assigning tasks to the employees, thus promoting high output by all workers. For instance, the leader of GE’s Internet of Things needs to improve their skills in mobilizing employees to reduce the challenge of guiding change in management. Other principles include preparing to nurture and support relationships with employees; the transformational leader should keep their relationship with them. Another related principle in transformational theory is facilitation which involves working condition that facilitates critical thinking among the employees whereby they can understand the need for change from standard operation methods to new ones. Finally, the theory insists on constant innovation to promote transformation in the company. The leader needs to ensure that employees are ready for innovation and changes in the company.
Charismatic leadership theory is another theory that could solve guiding change management problems; the approach works on three basic phenomena; self-eloquent, energetic leadership skills, and the ability to identify the required change in the company. According to the study by Tokbaeva (2022, pp. 311-318), charismatic leadership works in various situations, such as in conditions of change from one economy to another; it is also a good strategy for companies operating in a competitive environment like the case of GE internet of things. Further, the study explains that charismatic leadership theory applies highly to companies operating in technology avenues such as GE’s Internet of Things. Another work by Perera et al. (2022, pp. 128-135) explains that charismatic leadership theory solves challenges related to technological changes and employees’ acceptance of the change. Thus, it is a critical theory that assists in solving the challenges in guiding change management theory; the leaders may use it to promote positive motivation toward the change.
Conclusion
The paper discusses guiding change management theory under its leading causes, highlighting the GE Internet of Things challenges. It is a big challenge for leaders trying to cope with new changes as they maintain the company’s competitiveness. Some causes of guiding change management problems are rapid innovations in the company, company culture change resistance, the change fatigue, among others. The solution for this problem was adopting the transformational leadership theory that can promote efficient change in the company products and leadership. Secondly, the paper has found that the charismatic approach is also suitable for solving the current problem. The leaders can promote a good relationship with the employees in various ways, such as using self-eloquent skills to influence workers to accept the change in production technology. Another feature necessary for change is energetic leadership; the leader portrays abilities to bring change firmly. Finally, leaders use charismatic leadership skills to influence acceptance to change in their organizations and adopt technological change.
References
Asbari, M. (2020). Is transformational leadership suitable for future organizational needs? International Journal of Social, Policy, and Law, 1(1), 51–55. Doi https://doi.org/10.8888/ijospl.v1i1.17
Bagga, S.K., Gera, S. and Haque, S.N., 2022. The mediating role of organizational culture: Transformational leadership and change management in virtual teams. Asia Pacific Management Review. 3(2) 1-35 Doi https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2022.07.003
Cao, T.T. and Le, P.B., 2022. Impacts of transformational leadership on organizational change capability: a two-path mediating role of trust in the administration. European Journal of Management and Business Economics, 3(6) 1-29. Doi https://doi.org/10.1108/EJMBE-06-2021-0180
Kang, S.P., Chen, Y., Svihla, V., Gallup, A., Ferris, K. and Datye, A.K., 2022. Guiding change in higher education: An emergent, iterative application of Kotter’s change model. Studies in Higher Education, 47(2), pp.270-289. Doi https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1741540
Krasniqi, S., Haliti, L.R. and Mehmeti, I., 2022. Implementing organizational ethics as a change process in banks: A case study Bank for Business. Bussecon Review of Social Sciences (2687-2285), 4(1), pp.11-22. Doi https://doi.org/10.36096/brss.v4i1.328
Lakhani, R., Lansiti, M., and Harman, K. (2015). GE and Industrial Internet. Harvard Business School, 9(32), 1–42.
Perera, A.H.U. and Jayawardana, A.K.L., 2022. Role of Charismatic Leadership and Technology Self-Efficacy in HRIS Use Behavior: A Conceptual Study. Journal of Management and Research, 9(1). Doi https://doi.org/10.29145/jmr/91/04
Reza, M. H. (2019). Components of transformational leadership behaviour. EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 5(3), 119–124. Doi https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2230
Salgado, M., De Castro Martinez, M.V., Marcos Martinez, E., López-Sanz, M. and Martin-Pena, M.L., 2022. We are driving organizational change in SMEs using service design. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 32(5), pp.701-736. Doi https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-08-2021-0174
Senbeto, D.L., Hon, A.H. and Law, R., 2022. Organizational cultures determine employee innovation in response to seasonality: Regulatory processes of openness and resistance. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 46(6), pp.1122-1146. Doi https://doi.org/10.1177/10963480211011629
Schiuma, G., Schettini, E., Santarsiero, F. and Carlucci, D., 2022. The transformative leadership compass: six competencies for digital transformation entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 28(5), pp.1273-1291. Doi https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-01-2021-0087
Tokbaeva, D., 2022. Charisma and charismatic leadership in organizations. In Research Handbook on the Sociology of Organizations (pp. 311-328). Edward Elgar Publishing. Doi https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839103261.00027
write