ATTN: Ultimate GEEK

Trimble 7

David Harrison-Trimble

HRM-587

Professor Derek Crews

Week 2- Images of Change

Change Analysis

Management and leadership in an organization is very crucial and in most cases, the way a company is managed will in a huge way dictate the extent to which the company will be successful and how the company will generally run. Management is vital when achieving group goals, in the establishment and continuation of an organization and in establishing a sound organization. ("Importance Of Management"). The culture of an organization is usually developed from the kind of management that exists. When current leadership of the organization is not working as expected, people embrace change in leadership positions in a bid to improve the organization. Taking a look at two American global aerospace and defense technology companies, that is Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, an analysis of the changes in leadership and how those changes have impacted the company will be analyzed to better understand the concept of change in leadership. ("Importance Of Management")

Lockheed Martin has changed some of its policies in leadership. They have effected new requirements to help better select their leaders.

They abolished their old way of selecting leaders which was looking for the person with the best academic qualifications. With the new changes, leaders are chosen under four more stringent leadership imperatives. The four new imperatives include;

Capability of the leader to energize their teams into working while motivated

The ability of the leader to develop successful relationships that may help the organization. The relationships are both outside and within the company.

The ability of the leader to focus on the future and develop plans for the future

The ability of the leader to model integrity, personal excellence and accountability. ("Lockheed Martin: Changing The Culture Of Leadership")

The company has ensured that the new imperatives are met by their leaders through several methods including; providing classes to teach the leaders and offering training to these potential leaders. The new program for selecting leaders has greatly helped the organization as it has successfully provided potential leaders with the required training and skills that will guide them to be successful in their endeavors in leadership. The program has also helped the company prune out the personnel that lack adequate skills to run the company and lead the workforce of the organization to work as a collective team rather than as individuals. ("Lockheed Martin: Changing The Culture Of Leadership")

When we look at Northrop Grumman, it has also undergone some leadership changes just not in the same ways as Lockheed. At the end of 2015 they announced that they were undergoing some major organization and leadership changes. ("Northrop Grumman Corporation: News And Events - News Release")

Some of the changes include; streamlining 4 sectors to 3 and hiring of a new chief operating officer. Two new sectors were generated. That was done by integration of the elements of the company's current Information Systems, Electronic Systems and Technical Services sectors ("Northrop Grumman Corporation: News And Events - News Release")

Currently, Northrop takes its business and leadership positions very seriously. As part of its responsibility report they include business, environmental, governance, leadership, innovation, people and culture. Northrop Grumman's leadership is set up on employees that are talented and ones who effectively apply innovative technology, advanced manufacturing and sound business management ("Northrop Grumman Corporation: News And Events - News Release")

The changes were mainly structural and were aimed to better align the organizations business with the ever evolving needs of the business’s customers. The changes were also aimed at improving the levels of innovation across the organization.

The changes employed by both companies had some things in common, for example, they were aimed at bettering the companies. Both changes were aimed at leadership positions and both concentrated on specific traits for their leaders and ach trait was required for a specific reason.

Lockheed Martin made its changes in selecting new leaders by introducing more imperatives to ensure it gets leaders that can motivate and energize their teams, get leaders that can build successful relationships, get leaders that can develop plans for the future and get leaders that have integrity, personal excellence and accountability. Northrop Grumman on the other hand had a different target when making their changes, their aim was to get leaders who could better align the business of the company to the ever changing needs of the customers and to get people who were innovative. Both changes are aimed at helping their respective companies, just at different levels and angles.

When we look at the 6 different images of managing change which are director, navigator, caretaker, coach, interpreter and nurturer, the change embraced by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman closely relate to coach, navigator and nurturer. (B.V.)

The change by the two companies can be considered a coach image since, the resulting kind of leadership was a result of a successful change in the imperatives used to select the leaders.

The change by Northrop Grumman can be viewed as a navigator kind of change since the change in leadership was designed in order to best fit the conditions the company was facing which is the ever changing needs of the customers.

The change by Lockheed Martin can be considered a nurturer kind of change since the new leader went through training in order for them to be shaped to the standards required by the company.

The three images would have best facilitated the changes in leadership in the companies because;

As a navigator, there were modifications being experienced by both companies therefore a change in leadership was made to enable the new leaders of the company cope with the changes. If that were not done, the company would have ended up being outdated or would have lost its market share. (B.V.)

As a coach, the companies experienced success and achieved their intended outcomes due to their action of coming up with and applying successful changes. The companies would have not succeeded if the changes were not made. If wrong changes would have been made, the intended outcome would not have been achieved. (B.V.)

As a nurturer, the changes to Lockheed Martin were done through training and ensuring the new leaders have the required skills to be able to cope with what the company wanted. If they had not gone through training, they would have probably lacked some skills that are required to run the company as initially intended. (B.V.)

Work cited

B.V., Copyright. "6 Images Of Managing Change (Palmer, Dunford And Akin) - Forum". 12manage.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

"Importance Of Management". Managementstudyguide.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

"Lockheed Martin: Changing The Culture Of Leadership". Bloomberg.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

"Northrop Grumman Corporation: News And Events - News Release". Investor.northropgrumman.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.