Managing Change in Leadership

2144 Words5 Pages

Managing Change in Leadership

Every organization will experience a change of leadership at some point or another. CEO’s of organizations will move on to take on different challenges in their lives or many of them will retire. There are few changes that can occur in an organization that could have a larger impact than a change at the top of the management chain. According to Firoozmand (2014) resistance from employees is an occurrence that is a part of the natural process of change. This is no different in the event of a change of leadership. New leaders will bring in a new vision, culture, and expectations that employees may not be ready or willing to accept.

The Loveland Fire Rescue and Authority (LFRA) is getting ready to go through a change in leadership. Our current Fire Chief, Randy Mirowski, is getting ready to take the next step of his life into retirement. This paper is going to define why this change in leadership could potentially be a problem, provide a background of the culture at LFRA, suggest an alternative solution to the problem and then suggest how LFRA can manage the potential resistance that could be experienced in this change process.

The Problem

This change in leadership is going to have a major impact on the LFRA organization. First, LFRA is losing a great and award winning leader. Chief Mirowski was named the 2013 Career Fire Chief of the year by Fire Chief Magazine. This is a prestigious award that is given out to the career and volunteer Fire Chiefs who demonstrate a high level of leadership and dedication to not only their organizations but also the fire service as a whole (Fire Engineering, 2013). This is going to be a big loss of a proven leader for the organization.

Secondly, ...

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...13 Fire Chiefs of the Year. Retrieved from http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/2013/08/pierce-manufacturing-honors-2013-fire-chiefs-of-the-year.html

Firoozmand, N. (2014) Managing resistance to change. Training Journal, 27-31.

Ford, J., Ford, L. (2009). Leading change & managing resistance. Executive Leadership, 24(12), 1-2.

Karpluk, L. (2014). Leadership Styles for Your Fire Department. Retrieved from website http://www.firehouse.com/blog/11304341/fire-chief-les-karpluk-pygmalion-or-golem-leadership

Kotter, J. (1998). Winning at change. Leader to Leader, (10), 27-33.

McDonagh, K., Prybil, L., Totten, M. (2013). Leadership Succession Planning: A Governance Imperative. Trustee, 66(4), 15.

Valentine, D. (2011) Maintaining organizational culture through leadership succession planning. Franklin Business & Law, 2011(4), 103-109.

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