Informal leadership within large scale change
The interaction between external change agents, formal leaders and informal
leaders to deliberately develop and utilize informal leadership during
organizational changes.
University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business
MSc BA Change Management
Supervisor: I. Maris-de Bresser Co-assessor: J.F.J.Vos
Author:
Nick Robert Koolhof
Eemskanaal Noordzijde 23a 9934RD Delfzijl +31 6 46073962 N.R.koolhof@student.rug.nl
2 Abstract.
This study researched the development process of informal leadership during large scale organizational changes. The development process exist of three phases; identification,
mobilization and promotion. Moreover, it describes how organizations positively benefit from informal leaders through an optimized utilization process. A framework is presented whereby the development and utilization phases are presented. The role of external change agents and formal leaders is described in detail during the deliberately development of informal leadership. Theory is developed by using qualitative data, derived from twenty-two semi structured interviews. The results provide a more comprehensive understanding of the role, and its importance, of informal leaders during a change program.
Word Count: 14905 (excluding appendices and reference list)
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction ... 6
2 Theoretical background ... 9
2.1 Key actors in the process of deliberately developing informal leadership. ... 9
4
4.2 Phase 2 Promotion ... 28
4.3 Phase 3 Mobilization... 32
4.4 Phase 4 Utilization ... 34
5 Discussion and conclusion ... 36
5.1 Discussion and propositions ... 36
5.1.1 Phase 1 Identification ... 36
5.1.2 Phase 2 Promotion ... 38
5.1.3 Phase 3 Mobilization... 40
5.1.4 Phase 4 Utilization ... 41
5.2 Towards a new model: identifying, promoting, mobilizing and utilizing informal leaders in a change project ... 42
5.3 Research question ... 44
5.4 Theoretical Contributions ... 46
5.5 Practical recommendations ... 48
5.6 Limitations and suggestions for future research ... 49
5.4 Conclusion ... 50
References ... 52
Appendices ... 58
5
Appendix 2: Interview Protocol ... 59
Appendix 3: Task list informal leader ... 63
Appendix 4: Observation protocol for trainings and workshops ... 64
Appendix 5: Observation protocol for small groups sessions ... 65
Appendix 6: Deductive coding ... 66
6 1 INTRODUCTION
In most studies, organizational change has been studied, and managed, from a planned, top-down perspective with an emphasis on how managers and formal leaders drive change (Feagan, 2013). Nowadays, this perspective is reevaluated, and a new approach within organizations is identified. This new approach focuses on the deliberate development of informal leadership to accomplish successful change and is seen as an important factor in organizational behavior (Bass, 1990; Doloff, 1999; Peters & O'Conner, 2001; Sink, 1998). Besides that, the increasing complexity of organizational environment requires that leaders involve individuals from diverse functional areas throughout the organization in achieving successful change (Wilson, 2007). Nowadays, the employees at all levels of an organization share the responsibility of leadership (Stincelli & Baghurst, 2014). Formal (authoritative) leaders are no longer exclusively responsible for leading organizations, and the role of informal leaders is becoming increasingly important (Doyle, 2002). The relevance of informal leadership is growing because organizations are decreasing the
reliance on formal authority, and organizational success is becoming increasingly dependent upon the effective development of leadership skills throughout the organization (Dundon & Pattakos, 2001; Snipes, 2006).
John Kotter (1995) revealed that 70 percent of change programs fail. According to McKinsey’s research nothing has changed in 2010 and the failure rate still holds true today (Keller & Price, 2010). The main reason for this failure is related to individuals’ behavior and more specifically employees’ resistance that do not support the intended change (Blackburn, Ryerson, Weiss, Wilson, & Wood, 2011). A key insight to increase the support for a change program, and successfully implement and sustain change, is to build ownership for change among the
organization. However, the role of informal leaders in affecting organizational change is rarely discussed in leadership studies (Feagan, 2013). More specifically little research has focused primarily on the roles that informal leaders play within groups and the behaviors they enact (Pescosolido, 2002).
7 which organization can deliberately develop and utilize informal leadership during
organizational change (Avolio, 2007; Pescosolido, 2001; Pielstick, 2000; Stincelli & Baghurst, 2014). This is in line with the findings of Feagan (2013), who mentioned that the existing field of leadership studies could benefit from an increased focus on informal leaders and their
involvement in successful organizational change. Nowadays successful change tends to emerge due to the tenacity of one or more passionate individuals (informal leaders), rather than through a deliberate development process. Previous research showed that programs that do use informal leaders have shown to be more effective than those that do not. The challenge for companies is to find ways to deliberately develop informal leaders and quit relying on their emergence by
accident (Petty, 2011). Several sub-concepts of a deliberate development process regarding informal leadership are described in literature. Although there is not an overall framework of how organizations should deal with this process and utilize informal leadership during
organizational change. Besides that, there is considerable variation in how informal leaders are defined, selected and trained. This variation may affect the success of change programs (Pielstick, 2000). Available literature concepts can be grouped into different process phases:
Firstly, organizations need to identify informal leaders based on their qualities.
Secondly, they need to train and promote informal leaders in order to positively profit from them.
Thirdly, they need to cooperate with the informal leaders and mobilize them to enable them to diffuse the change program among their peers.
Finally, informal leaders perform actions to convince their peers about the change direction.
8 a case study is conducted, focused on the role of informal leadership during large scale
organizational change implemented within a Dutch company.
In line with above, the following main research question is developed:
How can external change agents and formal leaders deliberately develop and utilize informal leadership during large scale organizational change?
To answer this question in a structured way, the following sub-questions are developed to gain more insights:
1. How are informal leaders identified during organizational change?
2. How, and in which way, can external change agents and formal leaders promote and encourage informal leaders’ qualities?
3. How do external change agents and formal leaders mobilize informal leaders? 4. What is the role of informal leaders during organizational change and why are they
accepted by their peers in fulfilling this role?
This research paper is structured in several sections. Firstly, the theoretical background of the different concepts of the framework will be explained. Secondly, the methodolgy will be outlined in the thrid chapter. Thereafter, chapter four presents the results. The last chapter
provide the discussion, including propostions, practical and theoretical contributions, limitations, suggestions for future research and final conclusion.
9 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter introduces and defines the main concepts of this research. These concepts are divided into different phases to explain the process of deliberately development of informal leadership during organizational change. Firstly, the different actors within this process are defined. Thereafter, the existing concepts are explained and grouped under the following phases; identification, promotion, mobilization and utilization.
2.1 Key actors in the process of deliberately developing informal leadership.
This paragraph introduces the key actors who play a role during the process of deliberately development of informal leadership. In the first place, the definition of leadership will be provided. Subsequently, the different actors, existing of formal leaders, informal leaders and external change agents, are introduced.
Overall leadership can be defined as “the process of influencing individuals to work jointly
toward common goals” (Stincelli & Baghurst, 2014). Leaders are often referred to as people who
occupy key positions in networks (Greenwald, 2008). More specifically, leadership can be defined as a social process that results in the attainment of shared goals and is often a function of the current situation (Van Vught, 2006). So leadership is based on a social exchange in the relationship between leader and followers (Chan & Chan, 2005).
10 organization, but can influence others based on respect and credibility they possess (Peters & O'Conner, 2001).
Another important actor during organizational change is the external change agent. An external change agent is a person, an expert and consultant, from outside the organization aiming to accomplish organizational change (Cawsey, Deszca & Ingols, 2012). External change agents are temporary employed at a specific location in the organization and remain employed until the end of the change program. These external change agents can be instrumental in helping to foster an atmosphere conducive to change by leveraging their reputations and skill sets through the way they manage the process. However, external change agents lack the deep knowledge of the political environment and culture of the organization which the internal change agents should have (Cawsey et al., 2012). Therefore, external change agents should cooperate with the internal change agents, who might possess at the same time the role of formal or informal leaders.
2.2 Identification
Although much research supports the utilization of informal leaders during organizational change, only a few studies suggest how the informal leaders should be identified (Valente & Pumpuang, 2007). Identification of informal leaders across the organization creates the
opportunity to leverage, as appropriate, their patterns of positive or negative influence (Smith, 2005). Through this identification process and ability to leverage informal leaders, an
organization will significantly enhance its change sharing capabilities, and accelerates the implementation of a change program (Smith, 2005). Besides that, when there is scarcity of informal leaders, and/or informal leaders are negative or apathetic to the content and diffusion of a change program then it’s still important that an organization is aware of its social network (Smith, 2005). Therefore, this paper also provides insights into the identification of informal leaders based on informal leaders’ qualities.
11 reveal complexities of how people communicate and interact in social networks. This reveals data regarding who influences whom (Smith, 2005). By executing a social network analysis, employees of the organization may be subjectively assessed to identify key formal and informal leaders. This enables the organization to undertake actions necessary to realize the desired change more effectively (Smith, 2005).
To deliberately develop and utilize informal leadership during organizational change, a crucial activity is to identify the informal leader. Informal leaders can act as gatekeepers for
interventions, help change social norms and accelerate behavioural change (Valente &
Pumpuang, 2007). Somewhere in the organization, groups or individuals are already doing things differently and better. To achieve sustained change, the change agents must find these areas of positive deviance and utilize their capabilities (Pascale & Sternin, 2005). Valente and Pumpuang (2007) describe several techniques to identify informal leaders. The technique based on staff selected informal leaders’ will now be further elaborated.
The staff selected technique identifies informal leaders based on community observations. These observations are performed by employees of the organization and these employees determine which individuals appear to be informal leaders. The technique is easy to implement, but can lead to staff misperceptions, which basically means that the wrong employee is selected (Valente & Pumpuang, 2007). Although there are other techniques described in the academic literature, none of themgives deeper insights into the identification process and what the staff is actually doing in order to identify the informal leaders. One key insight might be that the identifiers are focused on the qualities that characterize informal leaders. Therefore the following paragraph will provide a list of qualities and actions performed by informal leaders. This research aims to confirm, contradict and/or extend this list within a context of organizational change.
12 knowledge, ability to accomplish goals, being a good example, willingness to lead and
confidence. Similar qualities were found by Bolt and Hagemann (2009). From these qualities, the ability to influence others is seen as one of the most important characteristic of informal
leadership (Stincelli & Baghurst, 2014). Individual competences which contribute to the influence an informal leader can exert on others are: the amount of confidence, knowledge, ability to accomplish goals and skills. These individual competences were perceived as key qualities and contribute to the amount of influence an informal leader can exert over their peers. This research is partly focused on, but not limited by, the qualities that characterize informal leaders explored by Stincelli and Baghurst (2014). From here on, this research also and tries to find if those qualities are also present during a large scale organizational change.
Those qualities that characterize informal leaders lead to several actions which are visible within the organization. At the specific moment, when informal leaders perform their actions on the surface, they offer the organization the opportunity to identify them. Informal leaders need to have the willingness to demonstrate their competences to be recognized and identified as informal leaders (Stincelli & Baghurst, 2014). So simply possessing individual competences congruent with an informal leader is insufficient to be recognized as an informal leader. The density, frequency, content and engagement level of communication contributes to detecting informal leaders (Sudweeks & Simoff, 2005). Prior research also indicated that informal leaders are often identified due to their high participation rates in group discussions (Regula & Julian, 1973).
13 emotional response that best serves the needs of the group and then modeling that response (Pescosolido, 2002). At last,the network leadership is identified and defined as leaders who use their network to obtain information. These networks provide skills regarding jobs, business opportunities and hazards such as management changes, audits and layoffs.
2.3 Promotion
The second step, during a deliberate process of developing informal leadership, is promotion. Informal leaders gained their position within the organization based on well-developed qualities. The development of these qualities results in improved interpersonal influencing skills which can support the organization during organizational change (Butcher, Harvey & Atkinson, 1997). Promotion of informal leaders can be divided into two different themes: individual competence and organizational culture. Firstly, the training of individual competences will be described. Thereafter the encouragement for informal leaders from the organizational culture will be highlighted.
The first theme is focused on informal leaders’ individual competences. When considering to deliberately developing informal leadership, at least one factor should be considered: the training of the informal leader. During this process creating ‘buy-in’ from the informal leaders is very important. This means that informal leaders must believe in the change program that is diffused and must be willing to be active in the change process (Valente & Davis, 1999). Developing informal leadership characteristics leads to a sustained behavioral change, which occurs when people in the organization understand, accept and act supportively in a changing situation (Marion, 2008). Next to that, the informal leaders’ improved influence skills contribute to them being more insightful and astute, to being able to make better judgments and execute alternative actions. Thereby they are better able to navigate the typically complex and dynamic
organizational reality and influence effectively within it (Smith, 2005).
The second theme is focused on the encouragement of informal leadership through
14 emphasize the importance of employee empowerment. Empowering employees demonstrates to followers that leaders view them as competent team members, with meaningful and impactful roles (Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003). According to Stincelli and Baghurst (2014), an organization may promote informal leadership by offering organizational support and an organizational climate in which individuals have the opportunity to show leadership.
2.4 Mobilization
During the identification and promotion of informal leaders, the formal leaders and external change agents ascertained their views regarding the possible utilization of informal leadership. After the first two phases, informal leaders may be more formally organized. Therefore the third step is to mobilize an informal leader. Mobilization can encourage interpersonal communication, which in turn reinforces the adoption process and accelerates the diffusion of the change program (Valente & Davis, 1999). While most informal leaders appreciate the acknowledgement that comes from being recognized as such, some feel the extra weight on their shoulders or may be resistant to the proposed change program (Valente & Davis, 1999). This acknowledgement validates their position in the organization, however the extra time invested by informal leaders must be appreciated, which eventually will lead to an increased participation from the informal leaders.
“The ability of formal and informal leaders to pull together in the support of organizational goals makes the difference in organizational change success” – Pasmore (2014: 4)
While informal leaders have been found to be significant contributors to organizational leadership, the formal leaders often fail to leverage the power of informal leadership (Yukl & Becker, 2007). This is also recognized by formal leaders, they often realize that their informal counterparts exercise significant influence. However, to make use of informal leadership, formal leaders need to cooperate and start relationships with those who have attained leadership outside the formal hierarchy (Greenwald, 2008). This process is also refered to as co-optation.
Co-15
optation may take the form of merely convincing the informal leader of management’s perspective.” – Greenwald (2008: 234)
The second part of the citation refers to one of the most important goals during the promotion phase. Through the actions of formal and informal leaders, the new change vision or change strategy becomes real (Miles, 1997). The mobilization phase is in line with the definition of Greenwald (2008) and the objective is to find out how external change agents and formal leaders collaborate with informal leaders and mobilize them.
2.5 Utilization
This paragraph starts with the relevance of the actual role which organization wants to accomplish with the deliberately development of informal leadership during organizational change. After that, the actions, which informal leaders perform, to build ownership among peers are described. Next to that the expectations of several authors how informal leaders can help in the diffusion and implementation of change programs are also described. Finally, this paragraph describes why informal leaders are accepted by their peers.
Instead of waiting for informal leaders to embrace organizational change, efforts have now been directed at identifying informal leaders and utilizing them as change agents (Valente, Hoffman, Ritt-Olson, Lichtman & Johnson, 2003). Informal leaders will act as role models for their peers and can be important determinants of rapid and sustained behavior change (Valente & Davis, 1999). Informal leadership already proved usefulness within health programs and the diffusion of innovations. However, the utilization of informal leadership in organizational change is under developed and therefore this research aims to clarify the role of informal leadership in
implementing change. Therefore this paragraph introduces the concepts of what informal leaders actually do in organizations to diffuse and convince their peers of the imposed change.
16 from the shop floor back to change agents that implement programs, (3) Informal leaders act as role models for behavior change within the organization, (4) Informal leaders can be conveyers of change messages and (5) they may act as change agents after the implementation team has left the organization. Furthermore, informal leaders are able to remove barriers to change and
increase the diffusion process (Valente & Davis, 1999).
Although many scholars agree on the importance of interpersonal communication during diffusion processes, only a few studies have successfully followed such a diffusion process through a network of social contacts (Valente & Davis, 1999). The primary role of informal leaders building ownership over the change program under their peers is based on the framework for innovation diffusion, progressed by Rogers (1995). According to Rice (1993), building ownership among the organization over the change program occurs most efficiently when individuals are trained by their “near peers” whom they have chosen as their models. Because informal leaders are near colleagues, they may deliver change messages using appropriate language and expressions, thus making the message more effective and accelerate the diffusion process (Valente & Pumpuang, 2007). Thereby informal leaders diffuse a change message through sharing information which results into a greater understanding of the imposed change (Warner, 2003). The basic diffusion network model uses informal leaders to initiate the diffusion of a new idea or practice and accelerate the diffusion process (Katz, 1957; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Valente, 1996). This diffusion process stands for the distribution of an idea or change more widely into the organization. This process of diffusion is similar to building ownership over a change program under peers and follows therefore the diffusion model and incorporates this within a context of change. Within this research the diffusion framework has been used as a starting point to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the role of informal leaders during organizational change. Rogers (1995) proposes that a diffusion process takes place in five stages which are now applied to change programs and might be influenced by informal leaders:
1. Knowledge is the stage where a potential adopter learns about the existence of a change program and gains understanding of it.
17 3. Decision is the stage where activities are undertaken which lead to adoption or rejection
of the change program.
4. Implementation is the stage where a change program is actually put to use.
5. Confirmation is the stage of reinforcement for an adoption decision which has already been taken.
When the change message to be shared is congruent with the beliefs of the informal leaders, then acceptance of the change among their peers is more readily assured. This acceptance results into an accelerated diffusion of a change program. According to Leanard-Barton (1985), informal leaders influence the rate of acceptance by serving as positive or negative informal leader.
The amount of ownership can only be affected by informal leaders when these informal leaders are accepted in the organization. Informal leaders gradually emerge as leaders through the support and acceptance of their team members (Guestello, 2011). Acceptance and support of informal leaders is a result of informal leaders’ individual actions and communication behaviour (Fisher & Ellis, 1980). This is clarified by Valente and Davis (1999) as they mentioned that the amount of influence an informal leader can exert depends on the assessment of his or her credibility and trustworthiness by their colleagues. Informal leaders’ acceptance partly depends on the needs of the group at a specific moment in time. Four factors are related to this acceptance: there is need to build a cohesive group, informal leaders need to demonstrate their competences in order to be accepted, focus on the communication quality as well as quantity, early and often participation (Myers, Slavin, & Southern, 1990).
18 2.6 Theoretical framework
This research aims to explore the deliberately development and utilization of informal leadership during organizational change. Following the concept of the theoretical background a theoretical framework is developed to explore this process of informal leadership (Figure 1). This
framework visualizes the development and utilization from an organizational perspective. During the first three phases the organizations deliberately develops informal leadership in order to positively benefit from their strengths during the utilization phase. The utilization phase
describes the role of informal leaders and how the organization will benefit from the actions they perform.
19 3 METHODOLOGY
This methodology section aims to introduce the research approach, case selection, context of the study, data collection and method of analysis.
3.1 Research approach
There is a certain/limited/decent amount of literature available about how to deliberately develop and utilize informal leadership. However, the literature is not very extensive or elaborate about these concepts (e.g. identification, qualities, promotion, cooperation, mobilization and the role of informal leaders). Therefore the aim of this research is to provide a contribution to the literature gap by providing a more comprehensive understanding of informal leaders during organizational change. To accomplish this generating a process of theory development fits best and is used to formulate a number of propositions for future research. A qualitative, real-time, case-based research approach has been selected in order to gain deeper insights from different perspectives. This research builds theory from a case study because of its ability to bridge rich qualitative evidence to mainstream deductive research (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). The focus in this research is at one department within the larger organization. The unit of analysis is based on groups of individuals, which covers different perspectives of external change agents, formal leaders, informal leaders and a team member. These different perspectives might lead to the discovery of new information contributing to the current body of literature (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).
3.2. Case Selection
20 possible. The final criterion is focused on an organization which empowers their employees and creates an opportunity for passionate individuals wanting to develop themselves.To meet the criteria, a case study approach was executed and the data was collected during an internship within AkzoNobel, which is a Dutch company operating worldwide in the chemical industry. During the internship the researcher cooperated within a group of international external change agents, who were implementing an organizational change. To generate an overall view on informal leadership from different perspectives, interviewees were selected from four different functional areas within the organization:
Perspective one – ten external change agents
Perspective two – seven formal leaders
Perspective three – four informal leaders
Perspective four – one team member 3.3 Case description
The research site is a company named AkzoNobel, which has become a worldwide leading paints and coatings company. The company currently consists of eleven business units, which are organized in three business groups, namely specialty chemicals, decorative paintings and performance coatings (AkzoNobel, 2013). This research is focused on the specialty chemicals business group which employs 9800 people.
21 Rotterdam which employs 120 employees, the Netherlands, which is subject of this change program, meets the three case selection criteria.
The purpose of the ALPS-project is “Building capabilities within ALPS to effectively manage and influence stakeholders in order to bring a fundamental change to the way they work in integrated supply chain” (AkzoNobel, 2014). In other words, the current way of working is changed through several standard processes and tools to drive targeted improvements (Appendix 1 shows different process steps). The main objective is to standardize the processes and build ownership over the change through all levels of the organization. In practice this program means that a group of international external change agents visits a site for thirteen weeks for
implementation of the ALPS program. These external change agents want to profit from informal leadership within this change project and restrict their own formal role to a minimum. Thereby handing over responsibilities to the change recipients
3.4 Data collection
While conducting a case research it is particularly important to pay attention to the aspects of reliability, controllability and validity of the study (Karlsson, 2009; Yin, 1994). According to Van Aken, Berends and Van der Bij (2012) controllability is a prerequisite for the evaluation of validity and reliability. The researcher paid attention to these concepts by using multiple sources of evidence (triangulation), which ensures validity. Data collection was mainly done by
conducting semi-structured interviews. The interview protocols were partly based on literature, which strengthen the construct validity. Next to that, data was collected through documentation analysis (e.g. Year Report 2014, workshop material) and observations based on a protocol. The researcher ensured reliability and reduced biases by using interview protocols, to ask in general the same questions to the interviewees. Controllability is possible due to the fact that a detailed explanation of the research is provided.
3.4.1 Interviews
22 conversations occurred as part of ongoing researcher observation during fieldwork. Based on the concepts described in the literature and the conversations, a theoretical framework was
developed which divided the process of informal leadership into different phases. These
conversations are held with people from different functional areas, such as the lead of the ALPS team, external change agents or formal leaders.
The main source of data is retrieved by conducting twenty two semi-structured in-depth interviews. The in-depth interviews in this research involve asking open-ended questions, listening to and recording the answers, and then following up with additional relevant questions (Patton, 1987). Four interview protocols, based on different functions and perspectives, were developed to guide the interviews (Appendix 2). However, there was sufficient room to collect additional information as well (Van Aken et al., 2012). As already mentioned, these four interviewee groups selected from a larger population exist of formal leaders, external change agents, informal leaders and group members. Prior to the interviews, the formal leaders and external change agents selected five focal points (informal leaders) within the plant. These focal points are jointly responsible for the diffusion of the change program under their peers. During the initial informal conversations the researcher found out that the focal points were seen as informal leaders by other people as well. Therefore the researcher selected three of these focal points seen as informal leaders to participate in this research.
The interviews were structured trough the main concepts described in literature and visualized in the theoretical framework (Table 1).
Phases Subject Objective Interviewees
Phase 1 Identification Objective 1: To understand the identification process of informal leaders, discover characteristics and different types of informal leadership.
23
Phase 2 Promotion Objective 2: To understand how external change agents and formal leaders promote informal leaders’ qualities informal leadership.
External change agents, formal leaders & informal leaders.
Phase 3 Mobilization Objective 3: To understand how external change agents and formal leaders mobilize informal leaders.
External change agents, formal leaders & informal leaders.
Phase 4 Utilization Objective 4: Obtain more insights into the role of informal leaders during organizational change.
External change agents, formal leaders, informal leaders and a team member
Table 1: Objectives
All the interviews took place in an isolated office on the plant and only the researcher and interviewee were attendant, to create an open environment and contribute to the circumstances reliability. To preserve data richness all interviews are recorded. The interviews took roughly five quarters. During the interviews, the researcher also discussed concepts, which were found in earlier interviews during this research, in order to reject, adjust or confirm previous findings.
3.3.2 Observations
Three types of observations are used during this research: general, detailed and document observations. Together with the initial informal conversations are general observations used to get a general understanding of the research site and the change program. This means attending workshops, town hall information meetings and doing workload analysis. By active participation the researcher was able to experience life from an insider’s perspective. The more detailed observations came after the start-up phase and the first interviews. The researcher was allowed to follow two informal leaders during two days of training and several other workshops (an
24 3.5 Method of analysis
After data collection the interviews were analyzed based on a continuous comparison method. This entails that there is continuous communication between data collection and data analyzes (Mortelmans, 2009). This ensures that the data gathering methods are optimized and the
information needed to answer the research question are collected. Thereafter, the collected data was transcribed in exact words which increased the instrument reliability (Van Aken et al., 2012). The transcript enables the researcher to code the text in both deductive and inductive manner (Appendix 5 and Appendix 6). Deductive codes were extracted from the literature and inductive codes emerged through the method described below. The first interviews were coded in detail and all sentences were described in the coding schema. Thereafter, interviews were coded in a way to confirm, contradict or extend previous codes. Finally, the researcher combined the codes which could be grouped into overarching codes to create a clear overview. To ensure code validity, literature is reviewed for deductive codes with clear definitions. Furthermore, inductive codes are discussed with co-students and participants to make sure that codes accurately reflect what is being researched. Detailed analyzes and discussion about the codes should ensure that codes are distinct from each other and that all relevant information fits into the code.
25 4 RESULTS
In this section, the data derived from twenty-two interviews and observations will be analyzed. The findings are structured according to the theoretical framework. This theoretical framework is viewed from different functional perspectives; external change agents, formal leaders, informal leaders and a team member. If there is a collective finding then the researcher will refer to all different functional perspectives, as ‘the participants’. All the interviewees had a clear view on informal leadership and were able to give a clear definition: “Informal leaders are convincing
people to go into a certain direction and informal leaders need the ability to influence others, otherwise they will not be an informal leader.” (ECA01).
4.1 Phase 1 Identification
The participants mentioned that a process of deliberately development of informal leadership starts with identification of those individuals. The external change agents and formal leaders mentioned that they collaborate with each other to identify informal leaders. Due to their
permanent appointment, formal leaders have more knowledge of the processes and people within the organization. However, external change agents have experience in observing groups and, because they are external, they can evaluate the social network without previous preconceptions. This difference between informal leaders and external change agents did not led to power tension, they collaborated with each other to utilize their qualities.
To be able to identify informal leaders, the external change agents and formal leaders need to possess a set of skills. These skills are gained during their life, “I would say that it is a natural
process based on experience from work and outside work, and I do it by gut feeling based on experiences and intuitive feeling.”(ECA01). They mentioned that they are able to identify them
because of their experiences, “Experience is something you get to know: the way how you react
on people, how you go into a team and how the team members behave.” (ECA01). Besides their
experiences, they mentioned observation skills and ability to listen to people, “Need to be a
26 As mentioned before, most external change agents and formal leaders identify informal leaders based on their gut feeling and see it as a natural process. However, they were also able to
substantiate their choice and expressed this in terms of qualities, which informal leaders possess. Qualities that characterize informal leaders are: (1) self-confidence, (2) knowledge and skills, (3) willingness to change, “Informal leaders are open for changes and see them as a positive step to
get ahead.” (ECA01), (4) being a role model, (5) influence power, (6) experience, (7)
commitment, (8) being a reliable person, (9) communicator, “Person needs to interact with the
shop floor and understand them.” (ECA03), (10) Psychological (social) person, “From the characteristics this person is a good psychological guy, has a lot of knowledge about the soft skill and the people in his group.” (ECA01). Within complex organizations, where difficult tasks
have to be accomplished and employees are highly dependent on each other, knowledge and experiences are the main qualities which drive informal leaders.
External change agents and formal leaders identified several actions of informal leaders. These actions were also noticed during the observations. These actions are related to informal leaders’ qualities. To identify informal leaders, they focused on several visible actions of informal leaders. However, the visibility of their actions differs per informal leader. For instance, less confident informal leaders operate more on the background, e.g. individual communication methods, while actions of more confident informal leaders are more visible. To visualize these actions, and to control the effects of informal leaders, an organization should execute a proper social network analysis. One of the visible actions is that informal leaders are verbally present during the group sessions, where they ask critical questions. However, external change agents and formal leaders ensured that just being verbally present is not enough, it is also about listening to others and setting directions, “The informal leader will take the lead and show commitment with
management and the shop floor” (FL01). To collect information, informal leaders need to listen
and understand the needs of their teams, “Listens to people and has a feeling for people and what
is important for them” (ECA01). Another visible action is the demonstration of informal leaders’
individual competences, “In a workshop you see that they present themselves based on
27 informal leaders on the group members was mentioned a lot by participants as an action. This influence might be visible or invisible, e.g. informal leaders’ body language.
Different types of informal leaders can be distinguished, based on different qualities and actions. Most informal leaders possess same qualities and execute same actions, although some
differences are present. Some qualities are more present at one informal leader, and others qualities are more suitable to another informal leader. An overall distinction can be made between positive and negative informal leaders, “Both ask critical questions and make critical
comments, but the positive informal leader also brings forward solutions and that`s the real difference” (ECA10) and “Positive informal leaders are constructive and negative are not”
(ECA03). Some participants elaborated on the behavior of negative informal leaders, “Very
critical and most of the time without foundation, only kicking against the way of working.”
(ECA02). This negative behavior is explained by the majority of the participants, “Negative
informal leaders have a greater history, therefore they have more habits and are less open for new change programs” (IL1). External change agents and formal leaders are focused on
identifying positive informal leader, or informal leaders with the potential to become a positive change conveyor.
As an addition to the above distinction, other categories of informal leadership can be identified as well. Firstly, the informal task leaders are identified by the majority of the formal leaders and the external change agents, “They have the knowledge and assign tasks to co-workers” (FL3) and “They support the change by activating others by assigning tasks, which are needed to
accomplish the change program” (FL1). The participants mentioned knowledge and skills as
most important characteristic for informal task leaders. Secondly, socio-emotional informal
leaders are identified by half of formal leaders and by the majority of external change agents,
“The informal leader has social skills and a feeling for people” (ECA1) and “The informal
leader adjusts himself to the needs of the group” (FL1). More than fifty percent of the formal
28
able to build a group and is also able to transfer a message into other groups” (ECA1) and
“Some informal leaders have limited knowledge, but they know the right lines within the
organization to accomplish their goal” (FL1). The formal leaders explained that this informal
leader is connected to a lot of people within the organization and is therefore able to accomplish change related tasks faster than others. The participants mentioned communication skills as most important characteristic for network informal leaders. It is remarkably that the informal task leadership was identified the most. Thereafter the participants were able to identify the socio-emotional leadership. Network informal leadership was noticed only by fifty percent of the participants.
4.2 Phase 2 Promotion
“Informal leaders need knowledge about the new processes we implement” (ECA04)
The participants mentioned that they want to promote informal leadership in order to positively profit from their individual competences. Most important competences to promote are informal leaders’ knowledge, self-confidence and willingness to change. According to them, these
competences are highly related to each other, which entails that influencing one competence will likely results in a positive effect on the other competences. It is important to provide informal leaders with the right knowledge level, so that they become able to support the change process appropriately, “Everybody needs information about the change process, but informing the
informal leader is of special importance.” (ECA02). The amount of knowledge has a positive
effect on self-confidence, which can lead to the expression of informal leadership.
While spreading knowledge and having self-confidence remains highly important to utilize informal leadership, willingness to change determines how informal leaders will convey a change message under their peers. By developing informal leaders’ individual competences, the organization aims to increase the amount of willingness to change and thereby positively
29 negative informal leaders towards change are expressed differently. It is crucial from which perspective an informal leader is labeled positively or negatively, “From an organizational
perspective it is positive if informal leaders are in line with the new vision of the company”
(FL2). On the other hand the negative informal leaders’ attitude is characterized by actions which are not in line with change vision. The informal leader influences others though his/her beliefs and his/her perceptions of the change. This indicates that an informal leader is operating in the best for the organization, at least from his or her perspective. Therefore, the differences between positive or negative informal leaders are based on the judgment of the actions, which are viewed from the organizational perspective. The promotion phase aims to generate a positive attitude towards change.
To positively utilize informal leadership, it is important to convince informal leaders of the organizational change perspective and vision. The external change agents and the formal leaders mentioned that a negative informal leader does not have to remain negative. Furthermore, they mentioned that an informal leader’s influence power can grow or decrease over time. There is a certain amount of power within a team possible; increase of one informal leader’s power might lead to a decrease of another one’s power, “When the positive informal leader gains influence
power, then the influence power of the negative will likely decrease” (IL1). Through sharing
knowledge and showing recognition, the external change agents and formal leaders aim to shift informal leaders` negative attitude towards a more positive attitude towards change. This is especially important when the negative informal leaders exert a large amount of influence among their peers.
The external change agents and formal leaders provided deeper insights in how they exactly deal with positive and negative informal leaders in order to utilize them in a positive manner from the organizational point of view, “At the starting point of an implementation everybody gets the
same chances” (ECA09). How they promote and deal with positive versus negative highly
depends on the characteristics of the external change agent. The majority of the external change agents mentioned: “I put more energy in the positive, that`s where I see chances and they are
easy to get on board of the change train.”(ECA02). How external change agents and formal
30 influence power, “You should take action on strong negative informal leaders and find out what
is really the root cause for being negative, it could be that he is insecure about what is coming next” (ECA01). The last sentence of the citation unfolds an important remark on negative
informal leaders which is explained by another change agent: “There is a reason why people are
negative, if we are able to detect that reason than we might shift him to the positive side. I do not believe that people are negative on purpose.” (ECA09). So, external change agents and formal
leaders have the intention to get all the faces into the right direction, but when the negative informal leaders take too much energy and time then, “Who remains negative does not deserve
energy and at a certain point you move them aside, so that he/she loses influence” (ECA7).
Previous paragraphs described which individual qualities need to be promoted and this paragraph will describe how organizations can promote those qualities. To improve informal leaders` competences several methods are utilized. External change agents and formal leaders mentioned that the methods used are dependent on the situation and the characteristics of an informal leader. The main methods used are trainings and workshop session. Furthermore, they support the informal leader on the job and provide them with feedback along the change journey. Through these methods they aim to build up competences and capabilities. By selecting an informal leader for the training the external change agents and formal leaders show recognition and thereby build on informal leaders’ self-confidence. Informal leaders need recognition to perform as desired, “I
don’t need much money […], so expressed appreciation is what will drive me” (IL1). The
trainings and workshop should provide the informal leaders with the right knowledge level, “Train them to get them at the right knowledge level, and help to overlook the change” (ECA06). A remark is made by the minority of the change agents: “Trainings are not necessary for them to
perform actions, but it is needed to let them perform actions in the direction you want” (ECA02).
This implies that informal leaders will perform actions without promotion, however to ensure that their actions and vision are congruent with new organizational direction, training and knowledge sharing is desired.
31 them on the job, keep communicating and repeating the change direction, “The external change
agents really listened to us, and forced the organization to listen to us as well” (IL03).
During the promotion phase several challenges occurred where the external change agents and formal leaders had to deal with. Firstly, they mentioned the speed of the promotion and
implementing process. The informal leaders need time to progress all the new information in order to follow the change program. Another challenge, indicated by fifty percent of the
participants, is about balancing their attention between the whole group and the informal leader. Losing this balance can result in frustration in the group and decrease of influence power of the informal leader.
The promotion methods are based on an interaction between persons, actions, characteristics and mindsets. The external change agents and formal leaders want to increase the influence power of those informal leaders in line with the organizational vision and decrease the informal leaders with a negative attitude towards change. Furthermore, they stressed the importance of self-confidence which, according to them, leads to proactive behavior and the braveness to speak to others about the change project. If external change agents are able to understand this interplay between factors, then they might be able to optimize the utilization of informal leaders during a change program.
Next to the above described promotion methods, an organizations’ culture also affects the development of informal leadership. This culture can possibly encourage informal leaders to exert their power. Formal leaders and external change agents mentioned the importance of an open culture, “If the culture is open, offering opportunities, stimulating teamwork and counting
everybody’s opinion, than informal leadership is really important” (ECA01). To realize this
open culture they emphasized on the span of control, “A bigger group leads to a lower span of
control and more freedom for an informal leader” (ECA08). An informal leader explained that
32 The organizational culture is an important factor which encourages informal leadership, however the situations which occur within the organization describe how much an organization allows informal leaders to exert their power. The majority of the participants mentioned that unclear situation (such as change programs, reorganizations, absence of clear hierarchy) within the company will encourage informal leadership. Furthermore, another situation is the high replacement rate among management employees, this can cause an unclear vision or direction and encourages the development of informal leadership.
Although the participants saw many advantages in a more deliberate development process of informal leadership, a remark was also made. Twenty percent of the external change agents doubt if an organization wants to promote and encourage informal leadership, “I cannot imagine
that an organization wants to encourage informal leadership. [….] If you encourage informal leadership than you give them the opportunity to go in a different direction” (ECA02). These
external change agents mentioned that informal leaders have strong personalities with their own ideas and the organization needs to be careful that informal leaders operate within the
organizational vision. However, these external change agents saw a major contribution in promoting these individuals to control how they operate during organizational change.
4.3 Phase 3 Mobilization
“When informal leaders manage the new stuff then I make them owners” (ECA04)
After the promotion of informal leaders` individual competences, formal leaders and external change agents select informal leaders to help them and collaborate with them during the
implementation of change. External change agents and formal leaders hand over responsibilities at a certain moment to the informal leader. Trust was indicated as an important factor to hand over responsibilities, “I spread extra information under informal leaders and test their
trustfulness” (ECA03). Some informal leaders have, due to their personal characteristics, enough
33 role and stage. This will enable them to diffuse the change program under their peers.
Furthermore, the external change agents and formal leaders emphasized that a clear role is not enough, they also need to announce their role within the organization or the group. This results in: “A more active role in meetings and recognition in the team” (ECA02).
Several challenges occur for the organization during the mobilization phase. Firstly, there is a grey area between being an informal leader and having some formal appointments. The participants mentioned that while informal leaders need a clear role and responsibilities, they need to be perceived as informal as well. So informal leaders need to operate at the edge between formal and informal behavior, but need to ‘stay’ at the informal side. Secondly, during this phase external change agents and formal leader must be careful with infecting the informal leader with too much formal information, “Be careful that they do not propagate the message of the
management too much” (ECA08) and “He must balance between those two different views on reality” (ECA08). Furthermore, external change agents and formal leaders indicated that they
need to balance the amount of freedom and control, “Create trust by examining less control over
informal leaders” (ECA5) and “Control over informal leader will lead to less expression of informal leadership” (ECA8). They mentioned that too much control will decrease the amount of
power an informal leader exerts within a team.
As mentioned shortly in the first paragraph, a distinction can be made between established informal leaders and potential informal leaders. Established informal leaders are characterized by a higher amount of self-confidence and take more initiative to express themselves among their team members. Potential informal leaders have the qualities and skills to become an established informal leader, but are not yet able to express themselves in this role. Those potential informal leaders are still surpassed by their team members. Through mobilization, the organization offers informal leaders a stage and a clear role to become an established informal leader. On the other hand, the established informal leaders mentioned, “Our role is not totally clear, however I’m
willing to change and therefore pro-active in building ownership. I don’t need a task list to know what’s expected from me” (IL2). The organization recognized this difference between potential
34 needed for the potential informal leader, it will also help in better utilizing the established
informal leader. This perspective resulted in a task list for the informal leader (Appendix 7).
4.4 Phase 4 Utilization
A right execution of the first three phases will possibly lead to a positive attitude of the informal leaders during organizational change. During the final phase, the organization is utilizing
individual competences of the informal leaders to successfully accomplish the change. The informal leaders use their power to influence others, thereby helping the organization to successfully implement change. The majority of the participants mentioned that the role of informal leaders is to convince others about the change program, “If you always rely on the same
way of working for years, than it will become your routine and routine that’s hard to break through. […] It is a challenge to convince those team members rooted in their habits.” (IL2).
The importance of the role of informal leaders during change differs from crucial to helpful.
Utilizing the role of informal leaders has several advantages for the organization. Firstly, informal leaders play a significant role in generating a group attitude through their influence power, “They are kind of adhesive in the team and bound everybody together and then they
follow the change vision” (ECA06). Secondly, informal leaders are capable of convincing their
team members because they operate on the same hierarchical level. Therefore they are able to transfer the change message into shop floor language. Thirdly, formal leaders initiate the change, however informal leaders possess explicit knowledge about the processes and the team, and are therefore crucial to successful support these change initiatives among their team members. Furthermore, informal leaders have significant knowledge to evaluate the change program from a broader context. They have the ability and knowledge to understand the management
perspectives, but also understand the problems which occur on the shop floor. Informal leaders actively participate during the change program and offer new insights and ideas to optimize the change program. Another advantage is regarding formal leaders’ reachability. Formal leaders mentioned that they are not able to be aware of all activities in their team, therefore they
cooperate with informal leaders, “Informal leaders extend my reachability, they spent more time
35 Informal leaders perform several actions to diffuse a change message and convince their peers to implement a change program. One of the informal leaders’ actions, especially at the beginning of a change program, is to “…take care of concerns and take away skepticism within a team” (FL5). For example, if team members have dealt with previous failed change programs, than the role of informal leaders is to convince their peers that this change program will be different. Another informal leaders’ action is to create willingness to change. Informal leaders can accomplish willingness to change by supporting others and keep motivating them. According to 70% of the participants another action is how the informal leader behave, he or she behaves like a role model for the change program, “Informal leader follows the new direction of the organization” (ECA03). Being a role model means that they are the driving force for implementing a change program, “They are in the team to solve issues regarding the change program and support their
team members with the new tools” (ECA08). From an informal leader’s perspective: “I have to give them insights, so that they believe in the value of the program. To accomplish that, I need to plant some seeds and my goal is to reach that under the employees, I`m happy to be a gardener”
(IL1).
One crucial part to deliberately profit from informal leadership is informal leaders’ acceptance,
“The most important is that he is accepted by the group as an informal leader” (ECA01). The
majority of the participants stressed that acceptance of an informal leader is a complex interactive process and without this acceptance, there is no foundation for informal leaders’ existence. Informal leaders’ acceptance is mainly based on their individual competences, their personality and the demonstration of these competences, “Demonstrating knowledge and
experience will lead to acceptance of the informal leader” (FL2). This acceptance enables them
36 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The purpose of this study was to gain deeper insights into the process of deliberately developing and utilizing informal leadership during large scale organizational change. Therefore, this research aimed to answer the following research question:
How can external change agents and formal leaders deliberately develop and utilize informal leadership during large scale organizational change?
The discussion follows the linear phases of the theoretical framework. This section starts to explain the findings and compare them to the existing body of literature. Thereafter, the theoretical framework is re-evaluated. Furthermore, theoretical contributions and practical implications will be provided together with the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research. Finally, this section provides a conclusion.
5.1 Discussion and propositions
5.1.1 Phase 1 Identification
How are informal leaders identified based on the qualities that characterize informal leadership during organizational change?
Participants described an informal leader as: a person who is able to influence others without formal authority. This supports the existing body of literature (Avolio, 2007; Stincelli &
Baghurst, 2014; Peters & O'Conner, 2001). The identification process is in line with the findings of Valente and Pumpuang (2007). This research elaborated on the staff selected method
37 to listen. The formal leaders and external change agents execute a social network analysis to identify informal leaders, which is in line with the method described by Smith (2005). A distinction can be made between factors which influence the identification process of formal leaders and external change agents. External change agents gained more experiences than formal leaders because of the diversity of their work. However, the formal leaders have deeper
understanding of the employees within the organization. This led to collaboration between these two parties, the external change agents and formal leaders, in identifying informal leaders.
Proposition 1: External change agents and formal leaders need to collaborate to execute a proper social network analysis to identify informal leaders.
To identify informal leaders, with help of a social network analysis, the formal leaders and external change agents focused on several qualities that characterize informal leaders. Results indicate that external change agents, formal leaders and informal leaders perceive knowledge, skills, having confidence, being a role model, having the ability to influence and being strong in verbal communication as qualities that characterize informal leadership. These findings support therefore research of Stincelli and Baghurst (2014) and Bolt and Hagemann (2009), who mentioned similar qualities that characterize informal leaders. Furthermore, this research expands the list of qualities with willingness to change, commitment, ability to handle from a broader context, braveness and ability to listen to team members.
Within a complex organization, the history within the company and amount of experience and knowledge of an informal leader plays a major role. A complex organizatation can be described as an organization where task are not simple and straighforward. Therefore the employees need lots of education to perform those tasks. Especially people longer within the organization gained power over the years. Next to that, the employees are highly dependent on each other and have to trust each other.
38 By conducting a social network analysis the formal leaders and external change agents
identified different informal leadership styles. This research confirms three existing types of informal leadership: task, socio-emotional and network informal leaders (Greenwald, 2008). Furthermore, this research contributes to the existing body of literature (Leanard-Barton, 1985) by providing deeper insights into positive and negative informal leaders. Finally, it distinguished informal leaders operating at the back ground and fore ground. This research found that the visibility of their informal leaders’ actions differs per informal leader. This research stresses that it is important for an organization to be aware of those less visible communication patterns which possibly lead to negative influence on group attitudes.
5.1.2 Phase 2 Promotion
How, and in which way, can external change agents and formal leaders promote and encourage informal leaders’ qualities?
The participants mentioned that if they want to benefit from informal leaders that they need to promote their individual competences. Furthermore, they highlighted the role of the organization in encouragement of informal leadership through the use of the organizational culture.
Important qualities which need to be promoted are knowledge, self-confidence and willingness to change. This research elaborated on the methods used by formal leaders and external change agents to promote those qualities. The methods are trainings and workshops, showing
39 increase or decrease in time and or situation, which was also mentioned by Butcher et al (1997). Therefore the promotion phase is focused on generating positive attitudes towards change under informal leaders. This is in line with the findings of Greenwald (2008), who mentioned that collaboration between formal leaders and informal leaders is mainly focused on convincing the informal leader of management perspectives and utilizing this relationship in order to
successfully implement change. Collaboration and promotion should enable informal leaders to positively diffuse the change program and convince their peers. If the organization does not succeed in convincing an informal leader of management perspectives, then those particular informal leaders will not be mobilized and formal leaders and external change agents aim to decrease that informal leader’s influence power. So this is a turning point if the organization selects a particular informal leader or not. External change agents are able to mostly focus on the positive informal leaders, while formal leaders need to co-operate with all their employees.
Proposition 3: External change agents are able to focus on the positive informal leaders, while formal leaders need to deal with positive and negative informal leaders.
Proposition 4: Promotion increases the amount of knowledge, which positively affects informal leader’s self-confidence and contributes to the amount of influence informal leadership can exert within the organization.
40 organization offers to negative informal leaders. This research found that informal leaders have strong opinions and own will in which direction they are moving. When an organization offers too much freedom, than it offers an informal leader the possibility to move in the opposite direction as desired by the organization.
Proposition 5: Organizations should balance the amount of freedom and control over informal leaders to positively optimize the utilization of informal leadership
5.1.3 Phase 3 Mobilization
How do external change agents and formal leaders mobilize informal leaders?
To benefit from informal leaders’ qualities, an organization needs to mobilize informal
leadership. These findings contribute to the existing body of literature through providing deeper insight into the mobilization phase of informal leaders. An organization should engage, show recognition to the informal leaders and collaborate with them, which is in line with the findings of Valente and Davis (1999) and Pasmore (2014). Furthermore, it supports the findings of Greenwald (2008), formal leaders may offer resources to establish collaboration between them and informal leaders.
During the mobilization phase the formal leaders and external leaders build a trust relationship with informal leaders and hand over responsibilities during this phase. According to the
participants, this phase basically means that the informal leader is more formally organized and gained responsibilities within the change program. A distinction is made between established and potential informal leaders. Especially potential informal leaders, as well established ones, need a clear role description and a stage to diffuse this change project and convince their peers. This role needs to be announced within the organization to gain publicity. However, formal leaders and external change agents need to balance formality versus informality, and amount of freedom versus control, to optimize the role of the informal leader.
