Leading change: what are the critical leader behaviours?

Higgs, M. and Rowland, D. (2007) Leading change: what are the critical leader behaviours? (Henley Working Paper Series, HWP 0711) University of Reading

Abstract

There is a widespread view (in part supported by empirical research) that a significant proportion of organisational changes fail to meet their goals and objectives. There have been many attempts to understand the reasons for this endemic failure. This paper reviews the extensive change literature and suggests that approaches to change, which recognise the phenomenon as a more complex one, have a higher probability of success. Within this complex view of change the role of the leader is explored.

Building from the review of the literature the paper reports a qualitative study in which leaders from 33 organisations were asked to recount stories of organisational change and their behaviour as leaders within the change. In all 61 such stories were generated. Analyses of this data provided evidence that leader-centric behaviours tended to impede change success whereas more enabling behaviours tended to facilitate effective change implementation.

These findings are discussed in the light of the extant change and change leadership literature. They are further explored in the light of the merging literatures on positive psychology and on complexity in organisations.

The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the limitations of the study together with proposals for further research.

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Contributors

Author: M. Higgs

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