Change And Loss

Change and Loss

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BSHS 461

Instructor ***********

University of Phoenix

Change and loss are facts of life for everyone. Learning how to cope and lead others to cope with change are acquired skills. In the human services field, there will be many different calls for change and for any leader or manager they must possess there skills to lead their people through the change and into new ground.

First of all in order to understand change in organizations we must know the levels of the organization. There are four primary organizational subsystems. Number one is the human social, number two is the administrative/structural, number three is the information/decision making, and number four is the economic/technological subsystem. Understanding these systems of an organization can greatly help in understanding the reasons for change and how to address them. For example, "A stable organization may suddenly be thrown into a state crisis as a result of an economic downswing or change in public policy." Knowing the reason for the change can greatly increase ones chances of finding a way to address the situation and come up with creative solutions.

This brings us to the discussion of our leaders. Today's organizational theorists have focused on levels of management below C.E.O., president, and director of organizations and hove recognized that genuine change requires more than vision and inspiration, these individuals have focused on transforming management from implementers to change agents. "A management style that works in one situation may not work in another. (Blake and Mouton, 1994)" This is because many different situations require different solutions or different approaches to handle the people or the tasks. In order for our leaders to be successful they must possess certain skills as stated before. These skills include:

Ð'* Commitment to a better way

Ð'* Courage to challenge existing power bases and norms

Ð'* Personal initiative to go beyond defined boundaries

Ð'* Motivation of themselves and others

Ð'* Caring about how people are treated and enabled to perform

Ð'* Staying undercover-keeping attention on the process and goal rather than the individual manager

Ð'* A sense of humor about themselves and their situation

Another successful trait for a leader to possess is the knowledge that the organization is only and good as the individuals on his or her team. They recognize that the individuals of the organization are the most valuable resource in the organization. Contemporary leaders play a critical role in engaging workers and empowering their staff to become active stakeholders by contributing through their problem-solving customer relations and change-agent efforts as well as being productive workers. These leaders must bend to new situations and be creative to come up with new ideas. They must recognize that one size does not fit all when it comes to situations and solutions.

"To assist individuals in organizations to determine the most effective style of leadership for particular situations , situational leadership offers a framework based on the interrelationship among the following (Hersey, 1996)."

1. The degree of guidance and direction provided by a leader (task behavior)

2. The amount of social emotional support a leader gives (relationship behavior)

3. The readiness level followers demonstrate in carrying out a specific task, function or objective.

As stated in the readings, readiness has two major components, ability and willingness. In this context, willingness refers to level of confidence, commitment and motivation to accomplish a particular task.

There are four leadership styles that a leader must learn to possess as well and be able to adapt as needed