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The Responses to the Use of Power in Organization May Be Resistance, Compliance or Commitment. How Can Business Leaders Deal with Employee Resistance?

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According to Robbins et al (2004:208), most people hate any change that does not jingle in their pockets. This resistance to change is well documented. An individual is likely to resist change for three reasons which are uncertainty, concern over personal loss and the belief that the change is not in the organization’s best interests. The leadership styles also adopted by management may also lead to resistance.
According to the Harvard Business Review Magazine of 1969, one of the most baffling and recalcitrant of the problems which business executives’ face is employee resistance to change. Such resistance may take a number of forms persistent reduction in output, increase in the number of quits and requests for transfer, chronic quarrels, sullen hostility, wildcat or slowdown strikes, and, of course, the expression of a lot of pseudological reasons why the change will not work. Even the more petty forms of this resistance can be troublesome. All too often when executives encounter resistance to change, they explain it by quoting the cliché that people resist change and never look further. Yet changes must continually occur in industry. This applies with particular force to the all-important little changes that constantly take place changes in work methods, in routine office procedures, in the location of a machine or a desk, in personnel assignments and job titles.
A solution which has become increasingly popular for dealing with resistance to change is to get the people involved to participate in making the change. But as a practical matter participation as a device is not a good way for management to think about the problem. In fact, it may lead to trouble. The key to the problem is to understand the true nature of resistance. Actually, what employees resist is usually not technical change but social change the change in their human relationships that generally

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