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Leading and Managing People and Organizational Change: IndivIdual

Organizational Benefits and Its Value on Staff Development

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 Academic Research Publishing Group

Business, Management and Economics

Research
ISSN(e): 2412-1770, ISSN(p): 2413-855X
Vol. 3, No. 8, pp: 146-150, 2017
URL: http://arpgweb.com/?ic=journal&journal=8&info=aims

Leading and Managing People and Organizational Change:

Individual and Organizational Benefits and Its Value on Staff
Development
Revenio C. Jalagat, Jr. Assistant Professor, Al-Zahra College for Women, Sultanate of Oman

Abstract: Understanding the interconnectedness between leading and managing people and organizational
change served as one of the highlights in this paper and the importance of leading and managing people to
leaders, managers, employees and the entire organization as a whole. In the course of achieving well-informed
economic decisions, organizational change should be incorporated not only to the organization’s strategic
business plan but also included as an important consideration for managers and leaders in managing and leading
people in their own workplaces. This study utilized secondary data to support the author’s claims and
arguments to establish the linkage between leading and managing people and organizational change, individual
and organizational benefits and other issues. Key findings suggest that organizational change and leading and
managing people are both useful in organizations and regardless of management positions held by employees,
change plays an essential role in coping up with the never ending changes organizationally, nationally and
globally. For employees and staff, change allows them to hone their knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes to
be productive in their own fields. Change also promotes organizational productivity and profitability. Hence, it
is recommended that leading and managing people and organizational change should be taken serious
consideration by organizations to stay competitive, relevant and enjoy the long-term benefits and should be
mutually applied to achieve favorable outcomes.
Keywords: Leading and managing people; Organizational change; Staff development; Organizational benefits;
Organizational productivity and profitability.

1. Introduction
The main trust of this paper is to provide clear understanding on the concepts of leading and managing people
and how important it is to managers, leaders, employees, and the business organizations in general. As applied in this
study, it discusses primarily on the significance of studying leading and managing people as a framework that aids
the junior managers in making well-informed economic decisions with the new insights and learnings that this
concept can offer. It will also enhance the learning potentials of future leaders. According to Spinelli (2006), the
success of any organization is dependent on how leadership and management is applied. Also, organizational change
should form part of leadership and management because leadership has something to do with flexibility (Lussier and
Achua, 2004). More importantly, this paper has affirmed that organizational change and leading and managing
people are related to each other and it adds value to staff development as well as the concepts applicable to the
workplace. The inevitability of change allows organization to change themselves for the better. Moreover;
discussions are provided to illustrate the arguments on the topic “there is no right answers” people leadership and
management arena with the support of literatures and articles thereby affirming or opposing this claim.

2. Leading and Managing People and Organizational Change

Farlow (2012) stressed that leading and managing people plays a vital role to organizations and most especially
to the workforce like managers and employees and an integral part of the operations and policies of the companies.
As a matter of fact, ability to lead is not only expected to managers and leaders but it has become a necessity that
will enable them to become effective and efficient in their field of expertise and specialization as combined with
skills, knowledge and attitude. Increasing demands and concerns have increased significantly by companies and
organizations with regards to the ability of managers and leaders to lead and at the same time increase their
awareness on the changing roles and responsibilities that will be encountered in workplace setting and thus, being
fully aware of their role in establishing a good and ideal ways and means in leading and managing people. Hesser

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(1999) pointed out that, leadership is a two-fold phenomenon that encompasses the individual and organizational
leadership. Individual leadership is practically how the individuals manage themselves as leaders and managers that
will influence others to follow. It has been said that you cannot lead if you yourself cannot manage your personal
affairs. On the other hand, organizational leadership requires the leader’s ability to lead with his knowledge, skills
and attitudes that will install control and management over the corporate or organizational functions. This is viewed
by the fact that leaders know how to lead and willing to sacrifice personal preferences for the sake of organizational
benefits and success.
Furthermore, evidence showed that it takes a considerable amount of communicating effectively the goals and
objectives of the organization as an important ingredient of leading and managing people to drive these organizations
to success with a sense of accountability (Daft, 2005). This will shed light on the importance of leading and
managing people especially to junior managers as a good learning experience to improve their abilities and preparing
them to face higher responsibilities as well as give them flexible outlook to embrace change for their welfare and
betterment of the organizations where their careers evolved. According to Clark (1997), one of the ways and
measures on how effective a leader could lead or the sense of good leadership depends on his/her ability to adopt and
be flexible to change when it occurs or the tolerability to accept change then doing something when actually
confronted with demanding characteristics of that change. In fact, Chan and Chan (2005) posits that change should
form part of the strategic management plan of the organizations which should be part and parcel of leading and
managing people. Change therefore completes the leading and managing processes. To provide specific details on
what organizational change is, the succeeding paragraphs will highlight the concepts and application of
organizational change.
Several definitions have been highlighted by many authors, however these authors defined organizational
change as modern ways and means of organizing and working to make change to happen and the organization’s
ability to adopt the ever changing environment in the workplace (Dawson, 2001; Hornstein, 2001). Change occurs
because of the driving factors that triggers the needed change which is commonly caused by internal and external
environmental factors. Cummings and Worley (2008) highlighted the details of these factors as applied to the
workplace/environment settings. Internal factors encompasses the changes that relates to the structural, strategic,
people-centred and process-oriented while the external factors has something to do with the economic, technological,
economic, socio-cultural and physical forces. For Bowe (2011), leading and managing change will not be complete
if companies do not consider organizational change as part of it and further stressed that combining leadership,
management and organizational change are what drives the organization to achieve organizational success as well as
implementing effectively the needed change. This has been affirmed by Wood (2006) who expressed that a good
leader and manager should also possess an attitude of being a change agent that is expected to be change initiator
that is instrumental to the successes of any change initiatives of the organization and should be a change supporter
and not a change resistor. In other words, change and leadership are two important considerations in order to
establish and sustain an effective management and leadership in organizations. This is in view of the reality that
leaders and managers are instrumental to shaping the corporate success and relates to the most accepted principle
that, people or the workforce are considered to be the best assets of organizations with leaders and managers
occupying the biggest part of it. So, change should be integrated and institutional by making it a long-term
commitment for managers, leaders and the whole organization for a sustainable change and long-term success.
Several researches have practically evaluated how change impacts organizations and companies in various
ways and results suggest that planned change contributes positively to the long-term successes of the organization
when compared to short-term change initiatives. Moreover, it also revealed that most of the planned change were
designed to be implemented for long-term and are integrated to the strategic plan of organizations that by itself is
long-term in nature although short-term change may not be totally eliminated. Various authors affirmed that, change
are intended for long-term purpose and should be aligned with the corporation’s strategic plans (Cai et al., 2009;
Cousins, 2008; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000). However, change is not as easy as people think because it needs a
wider understanding on what is really change is, the positive and negative impacts and the possible resistance that it
will bring. Hence, change should be widely understood by the participants that mostly involves the employees and
the top management that also considers the change typologies.

3. The Perceived Benefits of Organizational Change

Organizational change when rightfully perceived by leaders and managers who lead and manage organizations
brings positive benefits and advantages to them regardless of their positions and status or whether junior or senior
level managerial positions (Jalagat, 2016). Firstly, for junior managers change allows them to make decisions with
flexibility and be flexible in finding for solution on issues and challenges that they face whether regularly and
infrequently in their own capacities in workplace setting. They will develop a tolerable attitude to adopt change as
fast as possible and decide when change should be adopted and applied. They will also make realization that change
will also be instrumental towards development and increase productivity. Change will also help shape the future of
the organization in consonance with the change requirements and demands of the marketplace and in many
organizations. For instance, new processes nowadays in many offices requires to be technologically advanced like
promoting the paperless transactions. Conventional companies should then adopt this change by redesigning the
present operation or changing from the conventional operation into fully automated processes that requires major

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change, more costs and changed workforce if needed. To stay with the competition and be competitive, the
organization should implement the change in order to be relevant and effective.
In addition, change that stems from the lower level or the junior managers help organizations and companies to
provide very satisfactory service to their clientele in a customized way and at the same time be highly productive
with technological advances as a driving factor to that change. Junior managers will likely be improved and
developed in the way how they respond change effectively in varieties of ways thereby enabling to become a good
positive thinkers and problem-solvers. To organizations, change is most beneficial in maintaining profitability with
an effective service quality that satisfies them. Change allows the organization to deal effectively with the changing
demands of customers in a modernized means that will surely improve how the organization respond to customers’
needs. With the joint efforts of the junior managers and employees, organizational change drives new employees to
hone their skills, provide more opportunities and enhances creativity that will serve as a baseline in the delivery of
goods and services. As an example, organizations may institute new mechanisms in conducting trainings with
technological applications, online learning opportunities, and more career path enhancements. Junior and senior
managers are both benefited from the understanding that, change is needed and is a regular endeavor, why change is
important, the impacts that it will bring to individuals, to organizations and top management, and how it helps shape
personal career and development paths. The essence of changing for the better and counter the status quo as well as
the danger of stagnation with the increased tolerance to change and managing change when it occurs is an evidence
of the importance of change as an essential consideration in managing and leading people. As Smith (2008)
described it, change helps managers and leaders to be flexible in viewing situations and identify the situations that
call for change.

4. Value of Change in Staff Development

Viewing change from the viewpoint of the own organization, more benefits are observed related to staff
development. Observation and research revealed that managers and leaders have come to think how important
change in the incorporation of strategic plans is. Specifically in the human resource functions and employee welfare
and development, technology is blend with employees by working together for the betterment of the organization.
For instance, trainings and seminars relative to the use of technology improves the way junior and senior managers
perform and decide and allows more productivity from employee level to managerial level and the entire
organization in general. The very sense of realization that change is important even to staff development is a
welcome idea in the company and staffs value the change just like how mobile phone changes it models from time to
time is a realization by my organization that change is really needed. Anchored on Lewin (2010) model of change
management consisting of unfreezing, changing and refreezing, where this model demonstrates that the past should
be forgotten and move forward to changing and making the change permanent. Any past decisions that calls for
change should be undertaken thereby unleashing the past and accepting the new.
It is essential for managers and leaders that they will have an in depth knowledge and understanding on how
change impacts positively in the development of the organization in terms of company profitability, productivity and
employee welfare. Its impacts include employee or staff confidence and implementing change successfully enhanced
positive or favorable experiences for both the staff and the organization with its managers and leaders as well as
prepare employees for higher responsibilities considering their abilities to improve and be promoted to higher
positions. Change enable them to assess and re-assess their potentials to become leaders like the employee’s ability
to be developed through trainings and enhancements with modern technologies. Consequently, staff are proven to be
more confident to make decisions in individual capacities in carrying their tasks and can adopt changes with ease
with less resistance. Secondly, change has enhanced dynamism as employees were able to create a good mixture of
change and culture together that makes a successful change initiatives for a better relationship and better
organizational performance. Since corporate culture is an integral part of corporate’s existence, embracing change as
institutionalized by the organization would give employees and staff the confidence to value their worth and
confident to do their best for the welfare of the organization. Mosenkis (2002) lamented that the company’s
dynamism allows them to be flexible to changes and easily adopt the needed change in a way that employees would
feel that they can openly express their views and opinion even facing with challenges and situations that others may
feel difficult to overcome. Organizational change indeed is beneficial to employees and to the company’s
productivity and performance.
Moreover; according to Smith (2011), change enhanced the employees’ personal career and development either
directly or indirectly. People-oriented change for instance institute change in the trainings and programs
implementation to further enhance the employees’ skills, knowledge, attitudes and abilities in a direct manner to be
more productive in the job while indirectly, change will shape the future employee development like how the
promotion can be instituted as well as changes in structure and management.

5. Manager’s View That There Is No ‘Right’ Answers in the People

Leadership/ Management Arena
Many authors suggested different ways and models on how to effectively manage people which are existing and
applied today as answers largely dependent on the organizational situations. In other words, different problems
require different solutions at different times. Smith (2011) depicts that leadership and management is applicable to

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different situations as one that workable in one company may not work for others. This makes leading and managing
people a complex and refutable concept. However; even if many can say that there is no right answer as they may
call it but it should be fully understood that models, framework and guidelines serves as a very useful tool in order to
mechanized a possible choices of solutions that will enable managers and employees to come up with a well-
informed decisions. These models will also serve as a systematic way of dealing with the problem with well-guided
sets of solutions that will lead to evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of choosing the solution which maybe
believed as the best alternative courses of action. Also undertaking the management and leadership courses will
expose the employees into complex problems that many organizations are facing so that they will feel that they are
involved in decision makings. So, in this way the views that there is “no right answer” will be addressed and
converted into reality that there is indeed right solution to given problems when related to leadership and
management.

6. Conclusion
In this paper, it is clear and understood that leading and managing people is important and should form part of
organization’s existence. Regardless of management levels like junior or senior positions, change is needed and in
consistent with the never ending changes organizationally, nationally and even globally. Leading and managing
people may not be complete without incorporating change as many authors affirmed that leaders and managers are
change agents and organizational change will be beneficial to management, individuals and organization as a whole.
Specifically, change allows staffs and employees to hone their knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes to perform
productively. Acquiring flexibility brought about by change will enable organization to be competitive and be
relevant with the changing demands of the world. Change also promotes productivity and profitability for
corporations. Lastly, there is indeed no right answers when it comes to management and leadership as many models
posits different applicability and different situations that calls for different solutions.

Recommendation
Apart from other considerations, junior managers should take priority on understanding change, change
management and organizational change because it is a serious test on how good a manager and leader on his
functions. It is vital for junior managers to understand that change is important and part of the organization’s
success. Change can be rough that it requires more efforts and time-consuming but the benefits that it can offer is
incomparable that those who succeeded in this endeavor stay competitive and enjoy long-term benefits. Therefore it
is strongly recommended that leading and managing people cannot be possible without including organizational
change.

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