Engineering Leadership and Change Resistance- myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theEngineering Leadership and Change Resistance for Customers. Answer: Engineering is an important field because it helps the engineers to build and design items or structures that meet the expectations of the beneficiaries and customers. The engineers should use relevant leadership skills to persuade the team to adopt the changes. Based on the case study, engineering projects remain challenging [1]. In fact, even a simple project may need new technical approaches and creativity to achieve the results. Importantly, the engineering leaders are at the center of these projects so that the projects can run smoothly. The team and end-users expect quality work thus meet their expectations. Nonetheless, it is critical to differentiate between management and leadership. According to Leopold and Kaltenecker [1], management is a reactive behavior because it involves addressing the daily issues through coordinating, organizing, and planning. The manager must understand the context and constraints associated with the project. On the hand, a scholar Monson [2] found that leadership is a proactive development and innovation. The leader rarely values the limited resources but focuses on improving the available and assumed resources. Importantly, the leader must communicate the expected potential, ethics, and behaviors. This implies leaders do the right thing while managers do things right. Therefore, leadership is essential in creating a culture that maintains stability and predictability. Background Based on the case, change will improve the effectiveness and life of the organization. Since change is never an easy task, the leaders have the personality that can shape the culture. It is important to identify the challenges that have affected the change process. These could include the internal integration and external adaptation [3]. The engineering leadership must respond to the external environment related to demands. The leadership should also blend the individual efforts to create coherent behaviors among the team members. The anticipated change can occur when the engineering leadership identifies the catalysts [4]. For instance, the new technologies and aggressive market competition could be pushing the firm to seek new avenues. The failure by an organization to respond can lead to losses or poor productivity. Indisputably, if the management fails to consider change, the organization would be exposed to different dangers including going out of business, lose connections, mar ket share, and experience restrictive and barriers to its operations. The company will also experience the personal impact such as losing influence and images [5]. The leaders need to inform the employees that stand to lose their jobs for failing to adopt the changes. Roles of the Engineer The engineer is a technical manager whose work revolves around humans. As a leader, the manager needs to understand that shaping the experience of others would be prudent because this will help them to meet their needs and goals. This involves the use of transactional and democratic leadership qualities [6]. The leadership approach will ensure everyone remains happy, engaged, and productive. The leader should organize regular meetings with members to review their performance and address any roadblocks or issues affecting their operations. Monson [2] demonstrates that the project leader has to simplify the project to make it understandable. The leader needs to must be experts who behaviors are actionable. The engineers must establish a strong relationship with team members because they have relevant skills and experience to address the situation. Overcoming resistance to change The leader should consider creating a clear vision of the change as the first step. Upon determining the reason for these changes, the project can be effective. In fact, this step can involve risk analysis, because even the team are risks as they work against the success of the project [6]. The engineer or team leader should be persuasive in allowing others to buy-in the idea. Resistance to change requires the input of transactional and transformational leaders who have the skills to reduce uncertainty and fear among the employees thus boosting their morale [7]. Transformational and transactional leaders are expected to embrace participative and collaborative leadership skills [8]. Therefore, designing a vision for this project will promote understanding thus visualize the impact. Additionally, the leader should consider getting feedback always. For instance, before the leader makes any drastic announcement regarding the change, it is important to consult experts and get the relevant feedback. This involves the use of strategic thinkers among the team members so that their inputs can be considered. The conversation and feedback should continue throughout the project [9]. The leader needs to consider conducting audits and post-mortem sessions to highlight the problems. The third stage involves making the announcement about the change and plan. Importantly, scholars Radzi and Othman [10] affirmed that changes must be motivational-driven. Based on the vision, the leader must focus on communicating thus make it meaningful and help people to accept change. Although the employee will go through the stages of grief, the team will accept it at last. In the first stage, the employees were in denial of the change [6]. However, upon realizing the reality of these changes, they gained anger to resist because of misunderstanding. With the transactional and democratic leadership, it is possible to persuade them thus allowing them to bargain. The signs of depression will be evident as they slowly accept the reality. In conclusion, resistance to change appears to be the anticipated response of human beings. Employees and teams always try to translate these changes to personal feelings or context leading to fear. The leaders must address these fears to win the confidence of the followers. Importantly, it is prudent for the leader to involve the workforce in finding solutions to the issues. Continued engagement helps the workforce to generate new ideas and prevent bad ideas. Therefore, the company should establish communication plan and coach to ensure that every stakeholder is brought on board thus reduce their resistance. The managers need to use the best leadership approach including transactional and democratic where the team members are involved in the decision-making. Works Cited Leopold S. Kaltenecker, Kanban Change Leadership: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley Sons, 2015. J. Monson, Engineering Leadership: How to Create an Effective Engineering Organization. Golden Valley, Minn.: RJM, 2017. E. McCleary, G.M. Crow, and J. L. Matthews, Leadership: A Relevant and Realistic Role for Principals. New York: Routledge, 2014.. T. S. Harvey, The best leaders take calculated risks, learning from failure as they go, The Telegraph, May 12, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/connect/better-business/leadership/best-leaders-take-risks-learning-from-failure/ Berube, Are your employees resisting change? It may be a good thing, Life Cycle Engineering, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.lce.com/Are-Your-Employees-Resisting-Change-It-May-Be-a-Good-Thing-1291.html 6. McCauley, Essentials of Engineering Leadership and Innovation. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 2017. Thuijsman, Leadership styles and their influence on employees regarding the acceptance of organizational change, IBA Bach. thesis, Fucul. of Behav., Mgnt, and Soc. Sci. July 2, 2015. [Online]. Available: https://essay.utwente.nl/67385/1/Thuijsman_BA_BMS.pdf R. Mills, This is what impactful engineering leadership looks like, First-round, n.d. [Online]. Available: https://firstround.com/review/this-is-what-impactful-engineering-leadership-looks-like/ Matsudaira and K. Stull, Combating resistance to change: how to get other people on board with new ideas, Safari, July 1, 2014. [Online]. Available: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/blog/2014/07/01/resistance-to-change/ I. M. Radzi and R. Othman, Resistance to change: The moderating effects of leader-member exchange and role breadth self-efficacy, Journal of Advanced Management Science, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 72-76, Jan. 2016.