Abstract:
Change within organisations has become a constant occurrence especially given
the increased rate of innovation that is required for organisations to remain
competitive. However, organisations are still experiencing change failure and
resistance to change from employees and departments within the organisation.
Organisations are making conscious efforts to improve change management for
successful change implementation. A key aspect in the change management
process is the change agent or change leader; as such, many studies have
investigated the role of leadership, mostly transformation and transactional
leadership, within change management to reduce resistance to change. This study,
however, looked specifically at empowering leadership as a driver for overcoming
resistance to change; through continuous practicing of empowering behaviours by
leaders, employees and accordingly the organisation should show a reduced
resistance to change.
This study conducted a survey to establish if a relationship was present between
empowering leadership and resistance to change. The findings suggested that
when empowering leadership was experienced, followers showed a reduced
resistance to change.
