How companies sustain effective leadership while implementing organizational change?

Abstract: Today’s business environment is becoming increasingly dynamic, complex and socially aware. One sustainable competitive advantage in contemporary, rapidly changing organizations is competent management (Waldman, Ramirez, House, & Puranam, 2001). The behaviors of organizational leaders directly influence actions in the work environment that enable change (Drucker, 1999). Leaders in complex organizations are now responsible for creating and nurturing conditions which will enable fast, innovative adaptations to change. Indeed, leaders and managers are responsible for change strategy, implementation, and monitoring, thus they function as change agents (Kanter, Stein, & Jick, 1992). However, they must take into consideration that there is a part of unknown, which they will never control. As a result, the challenge of managing change is one of the most essential and enduring roles of leaders (Ahn, Adamson, & Dornbusch, 2004) while current rapid organizational changes has made effective leadership more imperative. Resistance to change is a dead-end street. In today's business world, organizations that support and implement continuous and transformational change remain competitive (Cohen, 1999). Many researchers have attempted to explain why change is so difficult to achieve, and develop models to manage the change process. Despite the numerous theories, models, and multi-step approaches, leaders continue to lack a clear understanding of change, its antecedents, effective processes or the ability to successfully implement organizational change and how to engage members in change initiatives (Armenakis & Harris, 2002). The purpose of this study is to explore leaders’ effectiveness in implementing organizational change and the processes, skills, abilities required for such effectiveness. My reference to leaders implies all leaders and managers within an organization. The literature review that follows explores change implementation processes, current complex environment and the leadership behaviors associated with successful change.