Leader’s Influencing Change

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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Like never before, the way in which organizations adapts and implements change strategies has become a critical tool in determining their success in face of ever intensifying competition. According to Nadler, Tushman and Nadler (1997, p. 278) the traditional response to economic, regulatory, technological or competitive shifts using the same organizational systems does not work anymore. The implication of this is that organizations need to come up with better approaches to change initiative. The idea in implementing change should advance to change management other than just implementing the desired change. In their view, modern change should be characterized by a number of aspects; first, effective management of either revolutionary or incremental change. Secondly, the aspect of speed in the implementation of change; this has been precipitated by rapidly rising global competition among different industries and institutions which demands that organizational transformations should be implemented rapidly. Thirdly, the leadership in change must be informed adequately and well positioned to steer change in a manner that would benefit ...
... the organization. In this analysis, an effort will be made to analyze the role that the leaders in JF must play in assessing and proposing implementations for change.
As identified in the case brief, the organization is currently facing a major decrease in their donations volume, which is detrimental to their charity activities. Fundamental players in coming up with a solution to the impasse will primarily be the organizations chief executives. The role played by leaders in the organization places them in a position not only of decision making but also of influencing the vision, mission and objectives of the organization. The activities pursued by the organization are a reflection of the leaders choice and as such, leadership in coming up with a solution must start at the leadership. The bottom line in this case identified that if leaders are more effective with their fundraising techniques, their fundraising efforts will be more successful and as such, they will attain the required budget goal of 4.8 million. A good point to start would therefore be an analysis of the strategies that leaders in JF have been using in the past and analyze the cause or the source of the current decline.
Primarily, the organization has diverse ways of fundraising that are listed in a guide list posted on the company’s website which include; credit cards donations, memorial or tribute gift, gifts of securities, by telephone or mail, planned giving, taglight-birthlight Israel and corporate matching gifts. Donations are targeted to private individuals either from their savings or through their employers programs on employee’s donations. Besides that, the organization has traditionally targeted sponsors who as identified in the organization’s website includes; Glantz and Glantz, P.A., Greenberg, Traurig, Maroone, Charitable Foundation, waste Pro, Pension Investors |corporation, GPG, Berkowitz Dick Pollack & Brant, Action Video, TD bank, bank of America, Seitlin Insurance among others. These sponsors are categorized into two; the $50,000 and $25,000 sponsors (JewishBroward, 2010). Considering that the deficit in budget started in 2008 and identified as a consequence of the global financial crisis, the leaders ought to brainstorm mechanisms that they can continually partner with their corporate and individual sponsors even in lean financial times. Essentially, the role of the leaders starts at examining their sponsors, both in regard to their potentials as well as their corporate social responsibility missions. It is easier to get long term sponsors who value the ideals that JF aspires to achieve. The leaders have a role in examining the 2008 financial crisis with an aim of identifying sponsors in sectors that were not greatly affected by the financial crisis. This is because continued reliance on sponsors who lost significantly in the crisis may prove futile in the long term since the organizations are first concerned with recovering their financial positions before venturing towards eternal expenditure. In his book, ‘Real Change leaders’, Katzenbach (1996) identifies seven characteristics that should be evident in effective leaders. In a sense, these characteristics should be evident in the Federation’s leaders in such a time when a major paradigm shift in strategies is desired. These include;
• Commitment to a better way- at a time when the organization is performing minimally, it is desirable that an evaluation on the leader’s personal opinion of the situation is. Leaders who show a desire to adopt a better way in the organizational operational approach would be more defective when new approaches to fundraising are suggested. Besides, it is easy for such leaders to brainstorm and identify new techniques due to their open mindedness and their general approach to change.
• Audacity to challenge organizational norms and power bases- A critical hindrance to adopting effective changes is the history of an organization. An organization that has traditionally relied on a particular approach for success may find it hard to adopt new styles of operations. In diagnosing leader’s therefore, it would be important to assess their courage and entrepreneurship. In JF organization for instance, an entrepreneurial leader, who would be critical in the organizational search for new fundraising initiatives would be one who portrays; open-minded philosophy (not restricting thought to organizational limits), strong sense of self accountability, sense of organizational discipline, personal confidence, desire to achieve and willingness to learn new strategies. If leaders in the organization are well oriented in these characteristics, it would be easy for them to both innovate new approaches as well as implement the new changes.
• Personal Initiative- Do the leaders in the organization have a personal drive and ideas for coming up with a solution? Solutions generated internally by the leaders are likely to be more effective because the leaders easily understand the organizational demands.
• Personal motivation and ability to motivate others- as identified above, dimension of change involve the teams working within an organization. In an ideal organization, empowering the team serves a great deal in setting the right environment for innovative thinking that is desirable at a time of change.
• Concern about people-their treatment and empowerment to perform- In this organization, it is critical for all the teams to work together to achieve the fundraising initiatives. Diagnosis should be done on how much the leadership creates an enabling environment for this.
• Focus and team orientation- effective leadership in this organization should reflect a focus on the organizational goal as opposed to individual’s accomplishments.
• Problem solving skills- this should be characterized by the ability to dig deep into an issue and suggest solutions. In achieving this, effective leadership should portray resilience and an easy-going attitude. In an effort to come up with new tactics for the organization to raise funds, it is crucial how the leader’s in the organization conveys the message to juniors. If the issue is discussed jovially, all the members in the organization will take it lightly which would serve to boost their productivity.

Diagnosis and Assessment of Change efforts
Attempts to initiate change can be fruitful if a number of factors are taken into consideration. To start with, the cause of situation that demands change needs to be understood. The achievement of this can be successful if a proper diagnosis of the situation is first done, internalized and brainstormed so that when desirable solutions are adopted, they would reflect an informed analysis. Although there are no universally accepted models of diagnosis, the Booz Allen framework of change identifies two dimensions as very crucial in the preparation for change (Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., 2004). The first dimension is the people/ team. In this dimension, important aspects include leadership, organizational culture and behavior. Leader’s Influencing Change
Like never before, the way in which organizations adapts and implements change strategies has become a critical tool in determining their success in face of ever intensifying competition. According to Nadler, Tushman and Nadler (1997, p. 278) the traditional response to economic, regulatory, technological or competitive shifts using the same organizational systems does not work anymore. The implication of this is that organizations need to come up with better approaches to change initiative. The idea in implementing change should advance to change management other than just implementing the desired change. In their view, modern change should be characterized by a number of aspects; first, effective management of either revolutionary or incremental change. Secondly, the aspect of speed in the implementation of change; this has been precipitated by rapidly rising global competition among different industries and institutions which demands that organizational transformations should be implemented rapidly. Thirdly, the leadership in change must be informed adequately and well positioned to steer change in a manner that would benefit the organization. In this analysis, an effort will be made to analyze the role that the leaders in JF must play in assessing and proposing implementations for change.
As identified in the case brief, the organization is currently facing a major decrease in their donations volume, which is detrimental to their charity activities. Fundamental players in coming up with a solution to the impasse will primarily be the organizations chief executives. The role played by leaders in the organization places them in a position not only of decision making but also of influencing the vision, mission and objectives of the organization. The activities pursued by the organization are a reflection of the leaders choice and as such, leadership in coming up with a solution must start at the leadership. The bottom line in this case identified that if leaders are more effective with their fundraising techniques, their fundraising efforts will be more successful and as such, they will attain the required budget goal of 4.8 million. A good point to start would therefore be an analysis of the strategies that leaders in JF have been using in the past and analyze the cause or the source of the current decline.
Primarily, the organization has diverse ways of fundraising that are listed in a guide list posted on the company’s website which include; credit cards donations, memorial or tribute gift, gifts of securities, by telephone or mail, planned giving, taglight-birthlight Israel and corporate matching gifts. Donations are targeted to private individuals either from their savings or through their employers programs on employee’s donations. Besides that, the organization has traditionally targeted sponsors who as identified in the organization’s website includes; Glantz and Glantz, P.A., Greenberg, Traurig, Maroone, Charitable Foundation, waste Pro, Pension Investors |corporation, GPG, Berkowitz Dick Pollack & Brant, Action Video, TD bank, bank of America, Seitlin Insurance among others. These sponsors are categorized into two; the $50,000 and $25,000 sponsors (JewishBroward, 2010). Considering that the deficit in budget started in 2008 and identified as a consequence of the global financial crisis, the leaders ought to brainstorm mechanisms that they can continually partner with their corporate and individual sponsors even in lean financial times. Essentially, the role of the leaders starts at examining their sponsors, both in regard to their potentials as well as their corporate social responsibility missions. It is easier to get long term sponsors who value the ideals that JF aspires to achieve. The leaders have a role in examining the 2008 financial crisis with an aim of identifying sponsors in sectors that were not greatly affected by the financial crisis. This is because continued reliance on sponsors who lost significantly in the crisis may prove futile in the long term since the organizations are first concerned with recovering their financial positions before venturing towards eternal expenditure. In his book, ‘Real Change leaders’, Katzenbach (1996) identifies seven characteristics that should be evident in effective leaders. In a sense, these characteristics should be evident in the Federation’s leaders in such a time when a major paradigm shift in strategies is desired. These include;
• Commitment to a better way- at a time when the organization is performing minimally, it is desirable that an evaluation on the leader’s personal opinion of the situation is. Leaders who show a desire to adopt a better way in the organizational operational approach would be more defective when new approaches to fundraising are suggested. Besides, it is easy for such leaders to brainstorm and identify new techniques due to their open mindedness and their general approach to change.
• Audacity to challenge organizational norms and power bases- A critical hindrance to adopting effective changes is the history of an organization. An organization that has traditionally relied on a particular approach for success may find it hard to adopt new styles of operations. In diagnosing leader’s therefore, it would be important to assess their courage and entrepreneurship. In JF organization for instance, an entrepreneurial leader, who would be critical in the organizational search for new fundraising initiatives would be one who portrays; open-minded philosophy (not restricting thought to organizational limits), strong sense of self accountability, sense of organizational discipline, personal confidence, desire to achieve and willingness to learn new strategies. If leaders in the organization are well oriented in these characteristics, it would be easy for them to both innovate new approaches as well as implement the new changes.
• Personal Initiative- Do the leaders in the organization have a personal drive and ideas for coming up with a solution? Solutions generated internally by the leaders are likely to be more effective because the leaders easily understand the organizational demands.
• Personal motivation and ability to motivate others- as identified above, dimension of change involve the teams working within an organization. In an ideal organization, empowering the team serves a great deal in setting the right environment for innovative thinking that is desirable at a time of change.
• Concern about people-their treatment and empowerment to perform- In this organization, it is critical for all the teams to work together to achieve the fundraising initiatives. Diagnosis should be done on how much the leadership creates an enabling environment for this.
• Focus and team orientation- effective leadership in this organization should reflect a focus on the organizational goal as opposed to individual’s accomplishments.
• Problem solving skills- this should be characterized by the ability to dig deep into an issue and suggest solutions. In achieving this, effective leadership should portray resilience and an easy-going attitude. In an effort to come up with new tactics for the organization to raise funds, it is crucial how the leader’s in the organization conveys the message to juniors. If the issue is discussed jovially, all the members in the organization will take it lightly which would serve to boost their productivity.

Diagnosis and Assessment of Change efforts
Attempts to initiate change can be fruitful if a number of factors are taken into consideration. To start with, the cause of situation that demands change needs to be understood. The achievement of this can be successful if a proper diagnosis of the situation is first done, internalized and brainstormed so that when desirable solutions are adopted, they would reflect an informed analysis. Although there are no universally accepted models of diagnosis, the Booz Allen framework of change identifies two dimensions as very crucial in the preparation for change (Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., 2004). The first dimension is the people/ team. In this dimension, important aspects include leadership, organizational culture and behavior.

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