Introduction
Effective leadership skills are crucial in managing employees with a negative attitude toward their working environment. While technological advancements and consequent integration into organizational activities are beneficial, they are also associated with negatively impacting employees. Consequently, departmental leaders responsible for employees likely to be laid off due to technological adoption face resistance. An unconducive working environment precipitated by employee resistance requires effective and strategic management approaches. The main subject of this reflection is how leaders can face resistance from employees threatened by their operations’ digitization.
Terms Definitions
The reflection will utilize various terms to describe personal experiences and how they changed my leadership behaviors and approaches. A “crucible” experience, as used in the reflection, means an event that I experienced when working in an insurance company and changed my personality. Transformational leadership involves adopting management approaches that cause positive change in individuals and social systems. On the other hand, personality includes a combination of characteristics and behaviors that make an individual’s distinct reputation as a leader.
Report Scope and Topics
The reflective report is divided into two main sections, each dealing with different aspects of organizational management based on personal experiences. The first section will detail the “crucible” experience I faced when working in an insurance company. It will highlight the problems faced and their consequences for personal character and organizational performance. The second section will critically analyze the event’s impact on personality, skills, strengths, and the leadership style adopted.
Problem Clarification
Crucible Experience
Organizational challenges are inevitable, and a leader’s effectiveness and success are determined by how they deal with them. While some experiences can be worse to the extent of destroying a person’s reputation altogether, others act as inspiration for better management and leadership skills. Bennis and Thomas (2002) state that some leadership experiences are transformative. While every person can be subjected to difficult experiences, only a few extract strength and wisdom from them. The transformative experiences faced by wise and strong people and leaders are what Bennis and Thomas (2002) call “crucible” events. I have never encountered such an event as a business leader, but my strength and resilience saved me.
The insurance sector is one of the financial areas rapidly being revolutionized by technological developments and advancements. I joined an insurance company as a head of product development. Intending to improve my career profile, I had high hopes and expectations from my new position. As the head of product development, I was assigned to lead a retail sales team for personal lines insurance products. Consequently, I was expected to exhibit effective leadership and management qualities. My performance would be reflected in the change in the number of sales and total profits that my team would generate for our company.
Problem Background
Our organization had adopted a digitization strategy to gain a competitive advantage over other insurance companies in the sector. Improved customer service and communication would be key advantages of the strategy (Zhao, Tsai, and Wang, 2019). Additionally, digitizing the selling process would allow the organization to save on operational costs while maintaining a loyal consumer base (Crittenden, Crittenden, and Crittenden, 2019). Furthermore, the move meant increased sales since most clients would access the services digitally instead of physically visiting our offices (Senyo et al.,2022). Although the vision to digitize the selling process was seemingly significant for our organization, the team I led feared the move. The employees were aware of the negative consequences of the vision on their employment.
Employee Resistance
Having ascertained that about 50% of the employees would be laid off, I started facing resistance from my team. The sales team would be the first and the worst team affected by the digitization move. Most of my team members were sure of losing their positions and saw no need to make an effort in their activities. Some of my team members started failing to meet their targets. The increased pessimism among my team members negatively affected my performance rates as their leader and manager. Although I tried adopting team-building activities to motivate them, they remained adamant.
Repercussions
As an undertaker of the digitization project, my team failed to meet the organizational target. We spent two years trying to accomplish the project, but there were no positive results. I approached the management for a one-year project extension. Requesting the extension meant I had to adopt leadership styles and approaches that would motivate my team to undertake the project. Therefore, I aimed to establish friendly relations with my team and make them optimistic about the project.
Critical Discussion
Personal Transformation
“Crucible” events are central to transforming one’s beliefs, values, and personality. According to Schein (1983), difficult experiences necessitate changes in personality and values for one to overcome them. Leaders who notice their failures are due to their poor character and relationship with their subordinates adopt new personalities that make them comfortable (Keenan and Newton, 1985). Therefore, a leader and manager’s personality must be dynamic to blend in with the changing social circumstances (Pettigrew, 1979). A behavior change is crucial for promoting a transformative working environment for the employees and their leaders. My “crucible” experience had a significant impact on my personality, beliefs, and values.
Personality
A person’s personality sums up their overall behaviors and characteristics. Before I joined the insurance company, I was working in an organization that had a good culture. In the company, the employees and managers had one voice and would often consult among themselves on major decisions. Therefore, I developed the character of being open with my subordinate. I would prioritize their problems over my success. Additionally, I was generous to my subjects and would always want to work for their advantage. My team took advantage of my generosity and openness to derail the project at the insurance company.
Having noticed the problem with my personality, I had to change for the better. I developed a strict but fair character. The majority of my team members used to come up with unnecessary reasons for not meeting their targets. I would remind them that failure to work as required would lead to punishments, and it could worsen to being laid off. Moreover, I started being honest with my subordinates, especially regarding the inevitability of digitization. I would often encourage them to work on their computer skills to lower the chances of being laid off. The majority of my team took professional courses that would later benefit them.
Values
Differentiating good and bad in an organizational setting can be beneficial to a leader. Personal values are actions and inactions that help an individual determine which actions are best to take and which ones are worst (Keenan and Newton, 1985). Throughout my career, I have maintained integrity in whatever tasks I have been assigned by my seniors. The value of integrity allowed me to perform my duties perfectly regardless of their impact on my feature endeavors as long as they were in the best interests of my employers (Pettigrew, 1979). However, I was always ready to give up on tasks that seemed difficult to achieve. My experience at the insurance company was one of the many tasks that I felt like giving up on them.
Some personal values can be beneficial when a leader is having difficulties. I transformed my value of easily giving up and developed perseverance. I agreed with myself that, indeed, it would be difficult for me to manage a project that was detrimental to my team’s future. As a leader, I developed a strategy that would allow me to endure failures while appreciating the little success we experienced as the days went by. Persistence in doing something despite resistance eventually leads to success (Ecker et al., 2022). My team enjoyed the little success we had after various phases of the project. The change in my values as a team leader had a positive impact on my team members.
Beliefs
The terms beliefs and values are often used interchangeably but have different meanings. Unlike personal values, beliefs are subjective attitudes that something is true (Kennedy and Willer, 2022, p.1341). A manager’s set of beliefs is crucial in determining their team’s actions and inactions. Positive beliefs attract productive performance, while negative ones lead to organizational failure (Abane, Adamtey, and Ayim, 2022). I used to believe that it is often impossible to change the attitude of resistant employees. According to my experience, it only takes an employee’s initiative to change their attitude towards work. Therefore, I did nothing to try to make my team members appreciate the oncoming change since it would present them with better opportunities. My beliefs about the team’s attitude were detrimental to the project’s success during the initial phase.
I had to adopt positive beliefs that would encourage hard work and unity of purpose between the management and the sales department. I engaged the management on the importance of not laying off the employees. Instead, I encouraged the top management to absorb some of my team members in departments that had a limited labor force. Such a move allowed me to become positive about changing employees’ attitudes towards work. I started believing that it only takes a courageous leader to help solve their subordinates’ problems (Sah, 2022, p.165). Being a problem solver due to positive beliefs bore fruits for my efforts in meeting the objectives of the project by achieving deliverables on time.
Impact on Self-Leadership
The “crucible” experience impacted my self-leadership in various ways. Firstly, I transformed my leadership into a new strategy of leading for successful outcomes. While my previous beliefs and values harmed my leading approaches, I developed a leadership strategy that would influence change from a personal level before affecting my team. Therefore, I started to lead by example and show the team the importance of meeting organizational targets. My team members started to embrace my character and would start to perform even better than me. The positive outcome of the project was significantly influenced by my new leadership approach.
Another impact of the experience on my self-leadership was on the communication approaches I developed. Initially, I had poor leadership communication skills that derailed my relationship with superiors, peers, and team members. Positive stakeholder relationships are influenced by effective communication approaches (Jiang and Park, 2022). Therefore, I dealt with my superiors in a manner that showed them a promising future for the project’s success. I shared the problems I was facing with my peers. Being open with my seniors and peers allowed me an opportunity to learn new leadership tactics in the context of my organization.
Furthermore, I had to reflect on the quality of achieving the project’s goals and eventual success. That meant that I had to create a positive working relationship with my team, who had posed a detriment to the project’s success (Loosemore et al., 2022). I routinely engaged them in identifying areas where they felt I was not doing enough as a leader. Consequently, I improved on the identified areas for the betterment of the project’s success. Employee engagement played a significant role in aligning my leadership style with the overall organizational vision (Wijayati et al., 2022). The sales team was one of the most proactive teams in the insurance company as a result of the new leadership approaches that I took.
Change in Assumptions About Leadership
Various leadership approaches can be adopted when dealing with employees’ resistance to change. Transformational and traditional leadership approaches are the commonly adopted styles. Initially, I assumed that the traditional approach was the best when dealing with employees with a negative attitude toward change. In my opinion, limiting employee democracy and saying things in the projects’ deliverables were the best ways to achieve my personal goals, which were anchored on the success of the project. Instead of receiving a positive result from my team, my directives were met with even more resistance. Much pressure accumulated, leading to the project’s failure during the first phase.
Another presumption that I had about organizational leadership and management was that the seniors are always right. Therefore, it was upon the subordinates to follow as directed whether it would benefit them or not. Such a presumption caused enmity between the management and my team. The majority of my team members believed that the digitization move was deliberately implemented just to get away with it. Poor relationships between the management and employees can be detrimental to overall organizational success (Jiang and Park, 2022). The consequences of my assumptions on the traditional leadership approach as the most convenient led to project failure and consequent losses for the company.
Having noticed the impacts of my poor leadership approach, I had to change them for the project’s success. Consequently, I started to involve all the stakeholders in the problems faced and possible causes of action (Wijayati et al., 2022). Setting up new rules for engagement, such as positive behaviors and control over resources, made my team members more responsible. Moreover, they completed any task that I assigned them with no complaints. The change in leadership style started bearing fruits when I realized that all my subordinates were emulating my positive attitude toward the project. Therefore, the transformational leadership style was inevitable, given its positive impact on the employees and the top management. Changing my leadership style from the traditional to transformative approaches fueled the project’s success.
Skills and Strengths
Amid the “crucible” experience, I developed various skills and strengths that helped me improve my personality and leadership approaches. Engaging my team on a routine basis helped me develop the skill of openness to new thinking (Jiang and Park, 2022). I often allowed everyone to share any new ideas they had for the project’s success. I learned new techniques for broadening my team members’ minds (Loosemoreet al., 2022). For instance, in case we had the most difficult situation, I allowed my team to ponder possible solutions when we were out of work. Therefore, I acquired an ability to inspire participation from all the stakeholders.
Our project was subjected to various risks which include a potential loss to the company. However, critically conducted a risk analysis, adopting a mechanism that will help my team and me avoid them. The developed tolerance for intelligent risks was fundamental to our project’s success (Westley and Mintzberg, 1989). When team members made a mistake, I was always willing to accept responsibility while encouraging improvement. Furthermore, I developed trust in my team members, who proved productive during the course of the project. The skills and strengths I developed helped me overcome similar experiences outside of my career life.
Leadership Style Adopted
The transformational leadership approach is one of the most effective styles that promote productivity. According to the transformational leadership theory, managers and organizational leaders ought to work with their teams and followers beyond their immediate self-interests (Kotter, 1995). The approach helps identify the needed change and overall vision to achieve organizational goals (Westley and Mintzberg, 1989). Transformational leadership has four elements: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration (Kotter, 1995). The elements are central to bringing positive change among the followers who emulate their leaders’ behaviors. Therefore, the transformational leadership approach is impactful at personal and organizational levels. Successful organizational leaders have adopted transformative management approaches.
Various advantages of the transformational leadership approach inspired me to adopt it in the context of my “crucible” experience. Firstly, the approach encourages teamwork among employees (Westley and Mintzberg, 1989). The success of our project depended on our unity as a team in solving the problems we faced. Secondly, the leadership style encourages team members to emulate their leaders’ behaviors. It was easy for me to encourage positivity and hard work in my team. Any positive step I took was adopted by my team members to promote our project’s success. Lastly, transformational leadership promotes knowledge acquisition through learning new techniques. The sales team realized that the department was becoming more competitive due to the positive attitude among their colleagues. Therefore, all team members needed to improve their knowledge and skills.
Although transformational leadership was beneficial to my management activities, it had some limitations. The approach made me lose focus on my career goals since I was more concerned with inspiring my team (Kotter, 1995). I spent much time and energy adopting behaviors that inspired my team more than myself. Additionally, the approach subjected me to burnout since I multitasked on many occasions. With a need to lead by example, I found myself executing tasks that were meant for my team members. It was difficult for me to execute both the leadership and team members’ roles. Furthermore, the style encouraged favoritism to some extent due to the lack of time spent with the team members. Favoring some members would potentially lead to conflicts. The benefits of transformational leadership outweighed its detriments.
Conclusion
Key Points
Leadership challenges are inevitable among organizations that are undergoing major changes. Technological integration is beneficial to businesses but poses a major threat of layoff to employees. My “crucible” experience was when I was employed in an insurance company and assigned to lead a sales team. The company intended to digitize its activities and would lay off about 50% of its employees. While I put much effort into ensuring that my department’s project was successful, the team members exhibited resistance. Therefore, I had to adopt a transformational leadership style that would inspire them to positively accept the inevitable change. The experience made me develop some skills and strengths that were beneficial to my undertakings in the organization. Adopting new leadership approaches had a significant impact on my beliefs, values, and self-leadership.
Recommendations
Organizational changes can pose major problems to the company and its leadership. Various actions can be taken to avoid detriments associated with employee resistance to change. The employees’ needs should be prioritized to encourage their positivity toward the intended change. The management must weigh the negative and positive impacts of the proposed change on employees.
Additionally, strategic actions should be taken to promote employee retention amidst major changes. Employee retention is beneficial since a company can maintain its organizational culture, which is crucial for success. Furthermore, capacity-building and skills and development activities can boost employees’ productivity and usefulness where technological changes need to be adopted. Adopting the changes would benefit the employees and the organization at large.
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