 Hi, my name is Dr. Marci Stone and this is a video that will accompany the study guide for the course Leading Organizational Change and this video covers Unit 1. Welcome. The course is laid out with five units. We're going to be covering the first one today. It's Introduction to Leadership and Organizational Change and then in separate videos we're going to cover each of the other units that will go with the study guide. Before we talk a little bit about your learning outcomes, I just wanted to spend a minute here discussing why they're important. So every learning outcome in the course ties back to your course materials and also your content. Assessments are tied to each learning outcome and then they also help with test preparation because each of the questions designed for your exams actually tie back to those learning outcomes over these. So here are your course learning outcomes. So there are seven of them for this course. The first one is to apply well-known change models to drive organizational change in given organization. Then we have determine the scale and scope of organizational change initiatives and then we have interpret the reasons organizational organizations fail in implementing change and mitigating strategies, analyze critical people skills to effectively lead others through change in a given organization, differentiate between long-range strategies to lead the organization to successful outcomes and then analyze methodologies to plan change initiatives with appropriate measures in a given organization. And then finally we have analyze change management practices in a given situation within a global context. So we're going to be talking about these as we go through actually some of the things in the unit today. Here are your learning outcomes for unit one. Compare various leadership styles, compare how different leaders may affect change, describe organizational change in the business setting and then analyze why organizational change in a given organization needs to occur for business purposes. These we actually have some topic overviews for today. So we're going to be looking at different leadership styles and some examples. We're going to be looking at how leaders can affect change and then also how organizational change takes place in the workplace and what are some examples of that. And then also why organizational change needs to occur. So for our first slide here, these are your definitions for the course or your vocabulary terms. We're going to be covering each of these in the course but you'll also see them mentioned in the study guide. We're looking at autocratic leadership style, democratic leadership style actually on the next slide, liaison fair leadership style, organizational change in general and then also a transformational leadership style in a few slides actually. Alright so first of all, let's talk a little bit about why it's important to understand leadership styles. This can help you in a variety of ways. It can help you in management, it can help you when you're leading a team, it can help you when you're affecting change in an organization. So it's really important as a manager that you are able to understand the different leadership styles and be able to differentiate between them. You may be, if you understand it, you may be a little bit better prepared if you understand maybe what your supervisor's leadership style is and maybe what yours is and how those two interact. So it's really important as a manager to be able to understand this and then it can also kind of connect with other people, with other leaders, with your employees as you move through the change process. So the three classic leadership styles include these three here. So we've got autocratic, we've got democratic and liaison fair and each of these styles are good for a specific type of work or assignment. So the first one there, an autocratic leader, this person may be sometimes seen as very stern, maybe as like a type A personality, like they have to have things a certain way, they may not want to listen to other people's opinions. In the change arena, it can be very, it can be a very difficult person who has an autocratic leadership style maybe to work with because they're not going to be open to listening to different ideas. Now the other side of that is that when there's an emergency or when somebody needs to make really quick, you know, when there's chaos, you know, someone needs to make really quick decisions in a short period of time, this leadership style can do that. And so you'll see in some of these larger organizations when they bring in CEOs sometimes they may have this leadership style because they know that they have a limited amount of time to make decisions and to work through that and an autocratic leader is perfect for something like that. But your individual employees may not relate to that person as much as they might be these other leadership style. And then the next one on here is democratic, the democratic leadership style. So this is somebody who they're going to ask for input from employees before they really make a decision that might affect everybody. They want everyone to have a fair shot at answering and listen to what is needed. And they really want to understand about how their team thinks about something before they make a decision. And so that's more of a democratic, they're going to, they won't make decisions on their own. They want to make decisions as a group. And then the last one on here is liaison fair and this leadership style. This can be a really interesting style to work for. During periods of change, they can be actually quite effective. So typically what they will do is they will give their direct reports or if you're on a team and this is your supervisor, they're going to give you a great deal of freedom to do your job. And in return, most employees will actually thrive under this type of leadership because they can almost create their own job in a sense and what that job entails under this leadership style. That one of the negative, one of the downsides, I guess you could say of this leadership style is that they give everybody all of their direct reports this freedom. And some employees don't handle it very well. I think that's probably the best way to put that. They may be really, they may, most employees will thrive if they're super kind of leaves them alone, but you'll have those few that will not and need to really be watched. So that's something to really think about when we're looking at these different leadership style. It's really quite interesting when you start to think about maybe what your leadership style is, what your supervisors are, maybe what your employees are, but understanding those differences can really help you to become a better leader. All right, let's see. Okay, so this slide just shows you, it gives you a really good idea of what the leaders are responsible for. So and it has, I mean, it looks like so much when you look at this, but you've got communication, setting a tone in an apartment, you've got coaching, they're going to be giving feedback, you've got self management, they have to manage themselves, they have to manage their emotions, they have to usually be pretty good at emotional intelligence and understanding that. You've got coaching and development on here because you're constantly looking at your almost kind of where they are, what they might be able to do or do better, or maybe what they're doing really well and maybe just letting them know that. And then also you have decision making skills on here, courage and risk, you've got relationships and power, so you're not only dealing with your own team, but you may have to deal with other leaders, other managers of other departments, you may have to deal with people that are higher up, you may have to deal with people that are even below your own employees. So and then finally on here, we have planning and vision and then also innovation and change. So it is one of the responsibilities that you'll see that leaderships are responsible for today. And it really can be, depending on the type of change that you're trying to make, it can really be a fun thing to do to be in charge of change. It may be a small project, maybe you want to change your own department and things within your department or maybe it's a large, maybe you work for a large company and changes are happening company-wide. So we're going to talk a little bit about that today, but innovation and change is definitely one of those responsibilities that leaders are responsible for. Okay, so now we're going to talk a little bit about how we can compare how different leaders may affect change. So leaders are needed to help create change. That's one of the things that they may be responsible for. And you have to really think about change from a variety of ways, if you will. So leaders might be able to create change. Leaders might have to enact that change. Leaders might have to be in charge of employees who are going to actually make those changes. And then your job as a leader in that department would be to just follow up and make sure that everyone's doing what they're supposed to be doing. There might be training involved or you may be supervising a large group of managers and their teams are responsible for enacting that change. But they're still follow-through, they're still making sure that the changes are being made. Every leadership style, when it comes to change, every leadership style is a little bit different when it comes to enacting those changes. And so you have to really be aware of what's going on and then maybe also trying to understand what maybe the best leadership style might be. And so what we know is one of those leadership styles that really is great for change, really great for change. And these type of leaders in today's business world, they have to really be able to be flexible during change and kind of figure out what needs to happen, facilitate that change. And it's an interesting thing to watch. So these type of leaders are exceptionally good at this. It could be because they're really comfortable with the change process. They usually have a pretty positive attitude, which is then transmitted to the employees and then the employees are more receptive when they hear about what changes need to be made. They also work to ensure that employees are comfortable with the change process and that they seem to see the good in employees, which then to kind of create that better working relation. One of the things we talked about in the last section is another good leader during the change process is the Liaison Fair leadership. And this leader will rely on employees to help create the change and then make employees feel comfortable during the process. Transformational leaders can be authentic, humble. They tend to be very self-aware. They know what effect they have on other employees. They're able to listen to employees. They're to their ideas with an open mind. And then they can respond without judging. They may be able to utilize those ideas in some way during the change process. And they're also good collaborators. So this will allow them to use those ideas maybe from employees or from the team as a whole, other teams, or maybe through any research that they're conducting to see how the changes should be made. So in many ways, they know how to bring people together to try to solve a problem or perhaps an issue that's preventing that change from occurring. And the other thing to consider, as I'm jumping around here a little bit on these slides, the other thing to consider is employees are the ones who really do make the changes. And we're going to talk about that a lot in this course. They're usually the ones, no matter what the change is, they're the ones that have to do it. And as a leader, you will be supervising that change. And so it's really important to get their buy-in. And we're going to talk a lot about that in this course. But getting their buy-in is key. And then employees usually will follow leaders who know how to lead. And I think you probably know what I'm talking about. You'll see employees, sometimes you'll see supervisors and you're like, oh, that's just not a good leader at all. Or maybe they are a good leader and every once in a while they'll make some mistake or a faux pas or something where you're like, oh, what was that? Where did that come from? No, and so these good leaders, truly, usually authentic, really authentic, people will easily follow them and they don't have a problem in acting change. If you don't feel comfortable with that, it can be a little awkward. It can be one of those things that you're just trying to feel comfortable with and then hope that the employees kind of follow you. But it is a process. It's a process of really just trying to understand yourself and then from that, articulating those ideas to your employees and getting there by. All right, let's see what we have next here. Okay, so describe organizational change in the business setting. So another one of our learning objectives. When we think about organizational change, we've got like, what does it look like or what happens if the change, if it does not occur? Like if we need to. Organizational change is different. Every situation is gonna be a little bit different. Like I said at the night, you might wanna just have some changes done in your department. Maybe you take over a new department and you suddenly realize that you need to make some changes. Maybe that department has had some problems where you've got a couple of negative letter kind of bringing everyone down and you realize quickly as a new leader in that department that you're going to have to make some changes. And so to kind of plan that and we're gonna talk about that in this course. But organizational change can be on a small scale. It can be on a very large scale if you work for a large corporation and change is happening company-wide or maybe just your division or your department. It's going to look a little bit different. But typically you'll see a plan and you're gonna be told here's what needs to happen with your team and another person's gonna be told here's what needs to happen with their team. And then you have to figure out a way to make those changes and get your employees to buy into it. So what happens if change does not occur? So that's an interesting question because a lot of things will happen. We've all seen and we're gonna talk about in this course but we've all seen examples of businesses that fail to change. And over the last two decades technology has changed quite a bit. If a business hasn't changed to adapt to those changes then they're not going to survive. It's that simple. And so when usually when a company needs something to occur it's very detrimental that it does but it can also be very hard to implement which is why supervisors who understand organizational change are really in demand these days. And then you also need to ensure that your employees understand why that change is needed in order to get their buy-in. If they don't understand it they're not going to do it. And so they need to understand look here's what we're doing and here's what we need to do to change. Yeah. And then who drives the change? Typically you'll see changes come down from the very top and then trickle down to your mid-level maybe upper managers who then give it to the mid-level managers and then you are giving that to the employees who are gonna make the change. Yeah. All right. Let's see here. The other thing to consider too is organizational change is important in business today so that businesses can not only survive but thrive. If you think about all of the companies who are thriving, Amazon is one of them. They are constantly changing, constantly changing trying to improve the way that they do business. They're trying to be more efficient. They're trying to be right now they're trying to be a little bit more business-minded because they made a profit for the first time last year which is amazing if you think about it but they are thriving really. And then if the business does not change it may not survive. So like I said technology has kind of changed the way that we do business and it is really important that change occurs but there is usually sometimes in businesses there can be a negative connotation about change and you really want as a leader it's really important to be positive about change and really try to get your employees to be more positive about change. Yeah. And then let's see here what else we have. The other thing to consider too is that change can be very scary for employees because they may not completely understand why the company needs to change and how that might affect them. And if they've had change in the past the other thing to consider is the fact that if it didn't go well they're going to think oh this is like that one time but this kind of thing. And you want to make sure that they know from the very beginning this is something that has to occur. Here is how it's going to occur and here's why it has to occur. And if that why is really, really important when it comes to employees and making sure that you have their buy-in. So a good leader can recognize that this issue is important and they ensure that employees understand why change is needed to help them get through that change process. All right, speaking of Amazon. Okay, so I have a little quote here which makes me laugh a little bit because when you think about Amazon this is what they're kind of known for. If you never want to be criticized for goodness sakes don't do anything new. And Amazon, I mean they try, they try all of these different things if it's something doesn't work they'll give it a year or something and then you'll hear oh this division and Amazon closed down. But Amazon has been really good about trying all of the changes and trying new things. Yeah, anyway, let's just a little quote. Okay, so why does organizational change need to occur? So we talked a little bit about technology. Advancing technology has literally forced businesses to change. We have numerous examples of businesses that have changed. The pandemic has forced businesses to change. It forced them to change or close. I was fascinated during the pandemic by businesses. I was just walking even where I live. I was watching companies, some of them were thriving. There was, we had this restaurant with this pretty nice restaurant that has a piece of land where the restaurant is there and then they have a lid maybe at like a half an acre where they grow their own vegetables for the restaurant. Right before the pandemic started, they opened a drive through coffee stand thing. And they were about a mile from the Starbucks. And so the drive through coffee did okay. Apparently I was talking to the business owner one day and asking him a bunch of questions about what he was doing and how he was trying. You know, we ordered food from them and then you could go down and just pick it up and take them home and like bake it. You know, lasagna's and you know, that kind of thing. And I was talking to him one night and he said, Starbucks, I don't know if you remember close for about a month initially in the pandemic. And as soon as, and our Starbucks was actually closed for a couple of months and as soon as he stayed open, he had this drive through that stayed open and they made bank. And it was fascinating to watch but he ended up, because he realized this was like our avenue. We close the restaurant, we have people, you know, can come and pick up food. But he ended up doing like a whole business through that drive through. And because it was right there in the parking lot where the restaurant was, they were selling some trays of lasagna or cheese and chihuahua, you know, and you could order them through the drive through. So go through and say, oh, I want one of those trays. It was like $30, whatever you take it home and you baked it. But they were thriving during the pandemic. And then I watched other businesses who refused to change and they just sat there, you know, just whoa is me, what do I do? And they ended up closing during the pandemic because restaurants weren't allowed to be open or stores weren't open for a while but the smart businesses found ways to adjust. They honestly found ways to adjust. There was also a story on the news of a sandwich place that made sandwiches during the pandemic and they didn't do the first few days. They were like, oh, we've got to do, if we don't do something, we're gonna close. We cannot be closed for two. And they ended up, which is a stroke of genius by the business owner, but they ended up making sandwiches for all, for workers at the hospitals. And they ended up, once somebody heard that they were doing that, they started, people started calling in donating money. And so they would make, they would get these donations, make the sandwiches, take them up to the hospital for people and their business just thrived during the pandemic. That's perfect examples of why organizational change needs to occur. And if it doesn't occur, I mean, I'm sure they know how many businesses have closed during the pandemic because they just didn't know how to change. They didn't know how to pivot. But yeah, all right, let me just check my notes here, make sure I've covered everything. Let's see here. It is, yeah, organizational change is understanding the marketplace. So if a business can understand why it needs to change, then it can create its own change. It's important to understand that and then be able to manage that. So once the change is understood, it can be easily explained to employees and implemented. And then employees are key to making those changes in the business world today. So perfect. All right, so just a little conclusion. These are, again, based off of your learning objectives. So you've got compare various leadership styles, compare how different leaders may affect that change, describe organizational change in the business setting, and then analyze why organizational change in a given organization needs to occur for business purposes. And then our last slide here is really just what's next. So in unit two, we're gonna talk about change management models and methods and theories. So anyway, I'm signing off for today, but thanks for your attention.