Discuss and evaluate the leadership of change
Describe how change was led
Regardless of Brazilian Embraer being the fourth largest commercial aircraft manufacturer in the whole world from year 2000, the management did not have the best leadership of change. For close to thirty years, John p. Kotter a Harvard professor, has been in the process of change and believes that there are differences between the leadership of change that have previously succeeded and those that failed. It is for this case that the Brazilian aircraft has not been constant in leadership especially when it comes to maximization of profits. The organization did have a dramatic change, something that interests Kotter most (James, 2010).
Regarding how they led to their change, which is a difference from the status quo, they followed planned change. The managers led efforts to create a difference triggering to a problem as well as opportunities. This helped the company get more knowledge, skills and opportunities. The behavior of the employees changed leaving the structure, policies, rewards and culture unchanged.
The Brazilian airline has tried to remake itself into a better competitor globally but Kotter believes that there are steps that a company should follow to make successful changes. For close to two decades, John Kotter observed more than one hundred companies including Embraer trying to remake themselves into leading competitors. From the results of the change in the airline company, change was not led how it should be and they must have skipped some steps while implementing change. There is no clear evidence showing that they skipped some steps but the fact that it is a big company with full capabilities of being the best, leaders must have chosen the wrong ways of implementing leading change (Edward, 2008).
The company must have undergone many burners in their efforts including reengineering, total quality management, restructuring, cultural change, right sizing and turnaround. They must have had a similar goal with their competitors, which is to make good changes to conduct their business for the purposes of coping with new but more challenging market environment. Their market environment is airways but some of their corporate changes became successful and that is why they are where they are today. Nevertheless, some of their changes led to total failure (Roberto, 2009).
Through out the journey, the Brazilian company has at times fallen in between failure and success translating to their lower end of scale. The lessons they learnt regarding how they led to their changes are interesting and other companies can draw them to enable them become more competitive in the business market. The main reason as to why Embraer and Bombardier were in dire need to have leadership of change was to prepare them for an equity offering and foreign listing on the stock exchange of New York, which was to complete in the year 2000 (James, 2010).
How effective was the leadership of change
Going by the list that Kotter developed for the factors leading to successful change and those leading to failure, the Brazilian airline company did not have effective leadership of change. The leaders within the company did not follow the devised eight-step method. In the eight-step method, the first four defreeze the organization, which they followed effectively. They failed in the next three steps that follow which make the change happen. Change took time to take place and this is where other organizations overtook them. As for the last step, which was supposed to refreeze the company with a new culture, they effectively followed it but the fact that they did not follow the steps in order made it inappropriate (Roberto, 2009).
Kotter says that for big companies to have effective leadership of change the eight steps must happen in order and rearranging them could change the meaning. There are several lessons learnt from the steps they skipped. Failure to remove the obstacles to the new vision is one of them where obstacles included the structure of the organization and narrowly defined categories of job. The reason as to why organizations change culture is to reverse the situation when it does not support the existing performance and strategy. Most companies however change the culture when strategy shifts which most refer to as strategic shift (James, 2010).
Changing of cultures can be through various ways but the Brazilian airline uses founders, critical events, and hiring and top management team to change their culture. Stories and rituals as well as rewards in terms of monetary, benefits and promotions terms to change their culture. The steps that the Brazilian airline skipped made their leadership of change ineffective.
References
James E. (2010). Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica S.A. Teaching Note. New York: New York Times.
Roberto B. (2009). The Embraer Case, Privatization and Management Change from Technological Imperative to Market Focus. New York: McGraw Hill.
Edward, M. (2008). The Transportation Giant up North. New York: Black well.
Michael, S. (1999). Aircraft Builder Embraer Flies the Flag for Brazil. New York: Financial Times.
