1500 Words Reflection Essay
1500 Words Reflection Essay
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Personal Reflection........................................................................................................................3
Key Skills for Effective Change Leadership................................................................................4
a. Communication......................................................................................................................4
b. Strategic Thinking.................................................................................................................4
c. Conflict Resolution.................................................................................................................5
a. Integrity..................................................................................................................................5
b. Collaboration.........................................................................................................................6
c. Empowerment........................................................................................................................6
Conclusion......................................................................................................................................7
References.......................................................................................................................................8
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Introduction
The key to the successful development of any company, particularly in volatile and changing
market conditions, is leadership in change. Chief factor of success is the transformation
leadership. This sort of leadership is what moves companies forward, seeking the solutions and
needed results with all complicated issues, such as globalization, new technologies, and changing
consumers' expectations (Kotter, 1995).
The main goal of this essay is to critically look into fundamental leadership skills and individual
attributes of the weather change agent, focusing on educational lessons from the Amazonian
ecosystem. The below essay explores critical skills for leading organizational change together
with their importance as well as provides with practical guidance for those on the journey of
becoming change agents. It will achieve this through the use of memories from the author's life,
learning from the observation opportunities, and selected relevant texts.
Personal Reflection
I suppose now myself of being lucky for having the privilege to witness the complexity of
change leadership in a fast-paced environment because I have worked at Amazon. Visiting
different change projects as well as learning about various leadership styles has revealed
important lessons about the key strengths and characteristics that you can find in successful
change leaders. Being a witness of huge changes inside the company that took place in its
logistics branch was definitely one epic event. During this time, I realized consequently how
important teamwork among employees, the top management, and communication among various
levels was. They would need to be able to guide teams through the changeover with minimal
breakup of operations.
As these experiences are reviewed the importance of certain qualities to the change leaders when
they were in the situation of Amazon and other companies are discovered. One of the biggest
skills likely to stand out is the ability to give a clear direction for change, foster teamwork among
diverse people, and constantly modify approaches to changing conditions.
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Key Skills for Effective Change Leadership
For the change leadership to be able to overcome struggles of the organizational transformation,
a wide range of capabilities is expected because it demands extra skills. How to use strategic
thinking, conflict resolution, and communication as the perceptional pillars for change leadership
will be discussed under this paragraph.
a. Communication
The basis for the success of change leadership lies in effective communication, which in turn,
helps employees understand the goal of the organization and how they will participate in
realizing it (Kotter, 1996). To use an illustration of what Amazon does inwardly, I have come to
understand that straightforwardness and openness in communication can be tremendously
compelling in the involvement of groups towards their common goals. To exemplify, winning
employer strategy was their acknowledgment, feedback and explanation reaching to the very
core of auxiliary forces' concerns.
The communication survey suggests that good communication is more than the sharing of
information, and that it has to involve empathy, active listening, and adapting messages to the
differences of audiences. But it is the effective communication which becomes the leading factor
of the change initiatives successfulness and the change leaders at Amazon can do it by creating
open, confident and cooperating culture that is based on the use of this power.
b. Strategic Thinking
In order to have change agents successfully deal with complex contexts, anticipate obstacles in
the future, and ensure that the change initiatives align with corporate strategy, they must develop
a strategic mindset (Mintzberg, 1994). Amazon CEOs have demonstrated intellectual powers,
which are based on a factual knowledge of the market situation. By being able to see the future
and take advantage of innovation opportunities, leaders are able to stay ahead of the curve in an
ever-changing tech environment. Strategic thinking becomes manifested in course of time with
different activities, e.g. product diversification and market penetration.
Through the use of supporting Strategy, magic (1994) defends the idea that the strategic
thought is a combination of the analysis precision with foresight imagination in order to guide
the leaders to the sustainable growth in the face of uncertainty. A reminder of the experiences in
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the past highlights strategic thinking as the pillar for the success of change projects, risk
mitigation, and optimal value creation for all the partners involved.
c. Conflict Resolution
Change agents must take the conflict resolution abilities in place to handle opposition, use it to
resolve interpersonal disputes, and form agreement between the stakeholders (Blanchard, et al.,
2008). I know situations when things got stuck in Amazon when different viewpoints and stakes
were observed, so the change projects were set up and became more complicated. Through active
listening, empathy, and principled bargaining, we enrich the toolkit of applicable methods to
address the conflicts and prevent the tensions that can lead to a crisis.
The experience from first hand observation outlines why proactive problem solving is not only
an option but necessary for making the push through transformation initiatives.
The core of proper change leadership lies in a combination of characteristic traits that help a
leader to encourage, stir up, and move forward in the process of shaping an organization. The
three main leadership skills—integrity, empowerment and collaboration—that apply during
the change leadership will be in a focus in this part.
a. Integrity
Honesty is the basis of leadership credibility and trust; and it is very crucial towards inviting and
retaining stakeholder participation and commitment (Brown & Treviño, 2006). Leaders of
Amazon exhibit engagement in ethical behavior by never failing to stick to core values they
share, and it's also connected with transparency in decision making and consequent consistent
actions. For instance, having transition periods, Amazon managers emphasize a lot on open and
straightforward communication, they address concerns and resolve problems boldly, and they
surely honor all the previous promises they made both to their staff and even to the consumers.
Review of the studies concluded that values of integrity made the leaders ideal and also helped
them to believe themselves and the organization's effectiveness till the stakeholders trust in them,
employees' morale, and organizational performance is achieved (Brown & Treviño, 2006). The
summation of the lesson of the role being played by integrity as one of the qualities that affect
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change in reflective learning stresses the point that sincerity, honesty, responsibility and moral
behavior facilitates sustainable change.
b. Collaboration
Successful change is dedicated to the collaboration, which provides leaders with multiple
viewpoints, dependence on a group intelligence, and making a team-based culture (Katzenbach
& Smith, 1993). Collaboration is part of the corporate culture at Amazon, where executives
strive for the employees to work alongside others from different functional teams, tear traditional
walls between departments down, and exchange information freely. The executives of Amazon
can overcome a hesitation to change, come forward with a consensus, and create an alignment by
promoting collaboration.
The literature advocates for teamwork benefits by highlighting issues of enhanced agility,
innovation, and profound decision making processes (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). The
implementation of teamwork in the Amazon case underlines how powerful this tool is to
stimulate organizational flexibility, the client orientation and an aim to continuous improvement.
c. Empowerment
Enabling, ensuring participation, and accountability are the different components of
empowerment (Conger & Kanungo, 1988). Managers in Amazon grant access to the employees
to make up their mind on what they think is the best, encourage innovation, and award for
creativity. An Amazon leader is someone who generates a community of ownership, excitement,
and responsibility by granting independence to the teams wishing to use it and being creative,
responsive to change, and achieving the company’s goals.
The insights of an individual appear to reshape the creation of empowerment that causes a
movement across workers where a wave of increased output, engagement, and motivation is
instigated. However, situation assessment mostly highlights that promotion of empowerment
yields to team members’ sense commitment and ownership, self -control, and grounds for long
term transformation which is sustainable.
Conclusion
At the end, successful change management leadership at Amazon necessitates an integral
strategy that encompasses critical traits and key attributes. Having mentioned such characteristics
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of good leaders as being honest and a team player, it is also important to develop essential skills
like communication, strategic thinking and conflict resolution. Such abilities, attributes, skills,
and competencies are crucial aspects for steering the corporate change which is successful,
promotes change adaptability, resilience, and creativity in a volatile business setting.
For Amazon leaders to react appropriately to tough situations and spot opportunities, they have
to act creative and customer-centric as the key features of their leadership. Indeed, from revision
of the Amazon leadership experience in change management, one discovers that the
organizational change is an ever-changing, iterative and process fundamentally human. The
ultimate test is the leader’s adaptability, ability to learn, and the use of empathy, integrity, and
vision. Indeed, these abilities and qualities serve as a template for evaluation of success in a
change management role.
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References
1. Kotter, J. P. (1995). Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail. Harvard Business
Review, 73(2), 59-67.
2. Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Harvard Business Press.
3. Mintzberg, H. (1994). The rise and fall of strategic planning. Free Press.
4. Blanchard, K., Randolph, A., & Grazier, P. (2008). Empowerment takes more than a
minute. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
5. Brown, M. E., & Treviño, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future
directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 595-616.
6. Katzenbach, J. R., & Smith, D. K. (1993). The discipline of teams. Harvard Business
Review, 71(2), 111-120.
7. Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1988). The empowerment process: Integrating theory
and practice. Academy of Management Review, 13(3), 471-482.
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