cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

The underpinning theorySUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS• Different metaphors of change lead to different assumptions aboutwhat good leaders do. We believe that the most effective ideas aboutchange combine a number of metaphors, bringing the maximumbenefits and avoiding the pitfalls of blinkered thinking.• A popular notion of leadership is of the hero-leader who leads fromthe front with determination, great vision and independence of mind.– Bennis places visionary leadership high on the agenda, andmakes a point of distinguishing leadership from management.Kotter echoes this view.– Studies that compared the effects of ‘transformational leadership’with those of ‘transactional leadership’ at the end of the20th century indicated that charismatic and inspirational leadershipwere the elements that led most reliably to team success.– Howard Gardner’s research into the minds of significant 20thcentury leaders indicated that leaders who had great influenceembodied stories and took care to connect well withtheir audiences.– Heifetz and Laurie and Jean Lipman-Blumen all argue againstthe need for visionary leadership. Heifetz and Laurie advocateadaptive leadership which is about taking people out of theircomfort zones, letting people feel external pressure and exposingconflict. Jean Lipman-Blumen instead emphasizes the need forleaders to ensure connectivity. She says leaders need to be able toperceive connections among diverse people, ideas and institutionseven when the parties themselves do not.• 21st century organizations are different, and the pace of change is evenfaster. This has given rise to new ideas about where leaders need to puttheir energies. Perhaps this means less vision and more connectivity.• Different metaphors of the change process imply different leadershiproles. Senge advocates dispersed leadership, identifying three keytypes of leader in an organizational system. If these three roles are inplace and are well connected, then change will happen naturally. MaryBeth O’Neill names four key leadership roles in any change process.178