Daniele Abbatelli

danab467
Aurlien Hautekiet Leadership and
aurha607
Nino Silvennoinen Organizational change
ninsi848 in McDonald Valla
Elena LoredanaTerzea
elete875

TEIO13 Leadership and Organizational Change

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Methods................................................................................................................................................. 2
3 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 3
4 Discussion ............................................................................................................................................. 5
4.1 General perspective ...................................................................................................................... 5
4.2 Characteristics, way of dealing with changes and role in the team environment ....................... 6
4.3 Ms. Idmyr s role in the team environment .................................................................................. 8
4. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 10
References ................................................................................................................................................... 12
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays we think that everything is about certainty having a good job requires to know your goal and
dealing with the daily requests while maintaining it is about good knowledge and continuous adaptation.
It is almost about being perfect: companies struggle to sell a perfect product, hire perfect persons,
making a perfect forecast. But times are changing and the speed of the change is so high that sometimes
we do not even perceive it. Changing times requires frequent adaptation, reinventing the products and
yourself. In big companies, with hundreds/thousands of employees, changes may be a reason of failure if
they are not correctly handled and implemented. Why so?

Lets think for a second: if a change is going to be implemented, how many of us will say I dont like
this change. Im feeling vulnerable, Im feeling unable to adapt it, and its too hard for me? How many
of our superiors will say: I know its hard for you, but implementing this change, is ten times harder for
me? Will most of us be so honest? We do not think so. Every each of us will try to highlight the
negatives parts of a change and will try to resist to the changes, either because we are afraid to lose our
job or maybe because we do not want to deal with the uncertainty that every little change brings along.
Not everything is black or
white, but when comes to
change it can be grey.

We can see changes like

mountains. You need to start
climbing it step by step,
sometimes with a lot of effort
(depends on its high, road
accessibility, your energy
resources, like in figure 1) but
you can reach the top. Even if
the landscape is breathtaking,

Figure 1 Change seen like a mountain you realize that in order to

reach your destination, you
need to go through some valleys and climb other mountains too. Nahavandi starts the 9th chapter of her
book with a quote from Benjamin Franklin When youre finished changing, youre finished. This article
tries to point out the personal reaction of McDonalds Valla manager when she faces changes, the reaction
or action of her employees and some tools used within restaurant to deal with changes. Writing this article
was a challenge for everyone in this group, because we faced a new side of what management means,
what is the leaders role and why it is so important to know how to manage change.

1
1 METHODS
The paper is centered on an interview with Ms. Evelina Idmyr, Restaurant Chief at McDonalds Valla,
Linkping. No previous knowledge existed between Ms. Idmyr and any of the group members, but a
telephonic contact was taken in advance to illustrate the purpose of the interview and to schedule a
suitable time.

The general guidelines for the interview as well as more specific questions were agreed in advance by the
project group. More specifically, each of the project members focused on specific areas in the field of
Leadership and Organizational Changes and proposed questions that were suitable for the situation we
expected to find at McDonalds Valla. All the group members had been customers of McDonalds Valla in
the past and had a general knowledge of the company activities, structure and values, which helped
directing the questions towards topics that were relevant for the specific case.

The interview itself took place in the common areas of the restaurant and was carried out by two of the
four members of the team. Originally, the group members planned to register the interview, but Ms.
Idmyr expressed discomfort upon this, so manual notes were taken instead. The interview was conducted
in a relatively quiet environment and without any interruption, since only few customers were present in
the restaurant. Ms. Idmyr extensively answered to all our questions and she sometimes touched some of
the relevant topics spontaneously. She provided several insights of her management job and also referred
details that she is not willing to divulgate, asking to keep them strictly reserved to the people directly
involved with the present paper. At the end of the interview, Ms. Idmyr was asked to complete the test
about Building credibility presented in Nahavandi (2009, p.324) and based on the concepts of Kouzes
and Posner (1993, 2003) that has been used to determine her leadership approach. The interview lasted
approximately 45 minutes, more than what was initially expected, but we didnt perceive her as being in a
hurry or impatient to terminate the interview, and there was time to discuss all the topics that were
initially planned.

We can therefore assume that the collected data is of good quality, even though we must also mention
some factors that may undermine their validity: none of the interviewer nor Ms. Idmyr are native English
speakers, while both the interviewers have only basic knowledge of Swedish. This was sometimes a
problem, and Ms. Idmyr repeatedly expressed her difficulties in expressing herself in English. To
overcome this issue, we encouraged her to also express the concept in Swedish, noting down the
keywords she used in order to obtain the best possible translation.

After the interview, the notes were reorganized by the two interviewers and divulgated to the rest of the
team. Even though we were confident that all the discussed topics were present in the notes and that the
interviewers placed a great effort in avoiding any personal interpretation, it exists the possibility that the
notes were biased by the interviewers perception and thus are not completely representative of what Ms.
Idmyr tried to express.

The data collected during the interview was then analyzed using a theoretical framework largely based on
the book by Nahavandi (2009), introducing also concepts presented by other authors in the literature.

2
2 RESULTS
Evelyna Idmyr has been working at McDonalds for 9 years now, since she started right before finishing
the secondary school. During her career, she first took courses held directly by McDonalds to become
chief leader, a managerial figure that in McDonalds is right below the Restaurant Manager. Three years
ago she also took a course in Stockholm to become Restaurant Chief and after that she started working
with that position at McDonalds Valla. Her main responsibilities are linked to the economy of the
restaurant, but she is also in charge of scheduling the working shifts and controlling that everything works
as it is supposed in the restaurant. Sometimes, she also helps out in the kitchen when the restaurant is
crowded. The typology of her workload varies with the period of the year: sometimes, she has a lot of
office work, while in other moments the office work is almost nothing and she spends a lot of time
dealing directly with her employees.

Her direct superior owns 3 other McDonalds restaurants and she has a meeting once a month with him
and the other restaurant chiefs, where she reports about her work. On the other hand, she is instead
directly leading 85 employees working at McDonalds Valla, and she uses the help of 8 chief leaders
which are her direct sub-managers to do that. She gathers with the chief leaders the first Monday of every
month, and she also tries to have a face-to-face meeting with each of them for about 1 hour every week.
She also tries to provide direct feedback to all the other employees in the restaurant, even if
communication with them is not as intense as with the chief leaders. Every year, the employees are also
asked to answer an anonymous computerized form evaluating their work conditions: this year, the results
were really positive, with over 90% of employees satisfaction and a large improvement over the past
year, when the results werent as good. The results from this poll are also discussed together with the top
manager and the other restaurant managers to find areas that may be improved, since they aim at
achieving 100% satisfaction. Also, to promote team spirit, once a year all the staff from the 4 restaurants
is reunited for one day and some team-building activities are carried out.

She also has the responsibility of directly training the 8 chief leaders, in a standard program formalized
directly by McDonalds. The main focus of the training is related to the economics of the restaurant. The
chief leader have instead the responsibility of the basic training of the rest of the employees, but she also
mentioned that she often provide direct
suggestions on basic tasks when she has
the chance.
I dont directly teach to the employees, but of
course when I am on the floor I give suggestions It is her belief that it is important to have
a direct contact with the employees, but it
is also important that they have a certain
degree of autonomy; also, when asked, she said that somehow the employees perceive her both as a team
member and a boss at the same time. She mentioned though that sometimes she needs to be authoritarian
to have people do their work. Also, the perception changes for different people: those who have been
working in McDonalds for longer time know her better and so they have a closer relation with her, while
she has a more formal relation with new employees. She made clear, though, that she doesnt have a
friendship relation with any of her employees, asserting that it is important to have a good balance
between personal relation and managerial duties.

3
When asked more specifically about changes in the organization, she said that people do not like changes:
they want to have always the same and that every little change takes months to be fully implemented.
To have the changes more easily accepted, her strategy consists in proposing a trial of one month,
adopting a spirit of lets try it first and then we see. This creates acceptance about the change: after one
month, even those who were skeptical in the beginning can usually recognize an improvement, so the
changes introduced this way are usually
implemented in a definitive way.

She also always receives a lot of People want to have always the same, and every
suggestions from the employees, but little change takes months to be fully implemented
these suggestions usually take into scarce
consideration the economic perspective,
so they have to be mediated by her. When the change is proposed by the employees, its easier to get
acceptance for it, while this is more difficult when the changes come from her directly. On the other hand,
when the change is required by the headquarter; the staff has fewer difficulties in accepting it. Her
explanation for this is that the staff is afraid of losing their job if they do not comply with the request.

Given the characteristics of the job and the employees in the restaurant, the turnover of the employees can
sometimes be a challenge: indeed, the workers in the restaurant have an age that varies from 16 to 50
years old, but most of them are in their twenties. Some people just stay 6 months, while some others stay
5 years. This generates a turnover of about 2 persons per months which can sometimes be a problem: it
often happens that new employees show a lot of enthusiasm and are very motivated, ending up doing their
job better than senior employees, that may have hard time accepting the new situation. According to Ms.
Idmyr, attitude is everything and she supports people who show enthusiasm: at the same time, though,
she recognizes that older employees have a lot of knowledge that is also important. However, in its
personal scale, the knowledge comes after the attitude, since its much easier to train and help someone
who shows enthusiasm. With those employees, she is very supportive and tries to encourage them to
develop towards a managerial position. Indeed, some of her sub-managers only have limited experience
(6 months).

When she was asked to mention the most difficult change that she had to implement as restaurant
manager, she brought up a change in the shift composition: earlier on, there was only one chief leader for
each shift, and this sometimes resulted in difficulties for him to handle the employees when problems
arise. Now there are two chief leaders for every shift and this composition works much better, because the
two managers can back up each other.

Another consequences of working in shifts is that a lot of smaller groups with their own informal leader
are created: indeed, it is usually easier to collaborate with a colleague that sometimes knows the process
better or shows that he is open to help the others: this is normal to Ms. Idmyr, but sometimes the different
groups have conflicts between each other. It may also happen that some of the informal leaders do not
show commitment to their work and have a bad influence on their followers, encouraging them to operate
in a different way from what McDonalds want. In these cases, the strategy adopted is to transfer the
person with a bad influence to another restaurant. This case is however an exception, and usually Ms.
Idmyr tries to support the informal leaders, sending cards to the top management to praise the employees
that are doing a good job. In this regard, she specifically mentioned one of the chief leaders who she
considers being her personal assistant and that she continuously praise.

4
To conclude the interview, Ms. Idmir was asked to complete the test about Building credibility
presented in Nahavandi (2009, p.324) and based on the concepts of Kouzes and Posner (1993, 2003). She
scored 46 points out of 48, which means that her behaviors are highly directed towards building
credibility. In particular, ironically asked if she could give a rating of 5 (even if the maximum for the test
is 4) in a question about providing frequent positive feedbacks and encouragement, indicating that that
was an aspect that she considered to be particularly relevant.

3 DISCUSSION

3.1 GENERAL PERSPECTIVE

McDonalds is a worldwide company with many traditions. The basic principle is that every restaurant
works as a franchise company. So basically, McDonalds provides the restaurant owner/manager strict,
detailed and clear rules and behavioral models to follow and the organization is highly standardized and
bureaucratic with strong back ground culture. As a result, the managers of the restaurant are not able to
express individuality or show their own individual characteristics as a leader. It is not appropriate to make
own changes to the concept (Barrick and Mount, 1993; Mischel, 1973; Weiss and Adler, 1984; in
Nahavandi, 2009, p.113). Individual characteristics, like demographic characteristics, values, abilities,
skills and personality traits, do not determine how effective a leader is, but they have an impact on the
way the leader thinks, behaves and approaches problems. Every person is a unique combination of these
factors. (Navahandi, 2009, p.111)

This can of course be also seen in McDonalds Valla. The restaurant looks the same as any other
restaurant and you can order the same food as any restaurant all around the world. Ms. Idmyrs
responsibilities are defined beforehand by McDonalds Corporation. Ms. Idmyr has in her team 8 sub-
managers and her direct boss owns 4 restaurants excluding the one in Valla campus. She could be
associated with the concept of Micro Leadership. Indeed, several elements from Nahavandi (2009,
p.226-227) are linked to the type of management used by McDonald Valla restaurant manager.

First, the manager we consider is clearly the leader and is the person in charge of the restaurant team.
Secondly, as micro leader, she has impact on a specific group, almost 85 people. But she is depending on
a manager who is leading 4 restaurants which implies 4 managers in total. Thirdly, she is focusing on
internal issues that affect her team. In opposition to that, a strategic leader requires attention on the one
hand to internal issues and on the other hand on external issues, which is not the case here. Finally, the
effectiveness criteria is different from strategic leaders. As micro leader, she is focusing on the
productivity of her team, the quality of the products sold and the services, and the motivation or morale
of her team. (Nahavandi, 2009, p.226-227)

She took courses in Stockholm where she has been thought her role as a manager and her main
responsibilities as handling the economy, budgeting and scheduling of the restaurant. She is also bounded
to share her knowledge about the economics of the restaurant forward to the eight sub-managers and
teaching changes to them as they occur. She can make some changes considering the staffing and
budgeting but she cant change the concept or her role as a leader.

5
3.2 CHARACTERISTICS, WAY OF DEALING WITH CHANGES AND ROLE IN THE TEAM ENVIRONMENT
Ms. Idmyr can be characterized as a driver according to the framework provided by Tonnquist (2012)
and represented in figure 2, and thus she is strongly results oriented. She is also provided with self-
confidence: she was young and she didnt have developed
yet managerial skills, but still she wanted to have a higher
position in the hierarchy and she took courses in order to
become a manager.

Figure 2 - Drive characteristics, (Tonnquist, 2012,
p.176)
This way she also got the knowledge of the business. She has
also the desire to lead her employees. Besides her formal
duties, she also likes spend time on the floor to check what is
going on and give direct suggestions how to make the
sandwiches or any other product, even though it is her sub-
managers responsibility.
I don't directly teach them to employees, but of course when
I am on the floor I give suggestions.

She is practicing empowerment leadership and one of the reasons is because McDonalds restaurants
work is based on standardized processes. Other actions that shows the fact that she is practicing
empowerment management are related with delegating the jobs and decisions to the sub-managers, things
that helps in making them self-motivated, present a lot of information regarding the work environment.
Ms. Idmyr takes the time to recognize the individual differences of her employees and use them in a
constructive way (Truskie, 1999). She is giving her employees the full-control of their own operations,
using the sub-managers to train their co-workers.

Involving the employees in the management process, offering them control on their operations can
minimize the resistance when changes occur. In McDonald Valla forces of changes can be seen from
two points of view: external influences as social ones (different types of clients, various flows of clients),
internal influences as low performance (in average a new employee stays in McDonald Valla for 6
months, and this can reach a turnover of two new employees per month it is hard to maintain a high
performance in this conditions), low satisfaction (linked directly from Ms. Idmyr points of view with a
low performance and conflicts).

Ms. Idmyr mentioned that is relevant that people do not like changes and this because they want to have
always the same and because every little change takes a month to get fully implemented. So, the
main cause of resistance in McDonald Valla can clearly be individuated in organizational inertia.
Another cause of resistance that may contribute to this reluctance in accepting changes may be related to
the group norms: indeed, McDonalds organization tends to be highly regulated, and norms are well
established in the everyday work: as described by Judson (1991) in Nahavandi (2009, p.307) strong
norms present many advantages, but can also become an obstacle to changes. Individual characteristics,
such as fear of failure also play a role. According to the model of change elaborated by Lewin (1951),
we can recognize here two components of the model, the inevitable presence of resistance to change and
the need to support new behaviors. Nahavandi (2009) sustains that the process of change which is driven
bottom-up meets less resistance, more involvement and is essential to success. Ms. Idmyr knows the
importance of her employees suggestions, but they tend not to take into consideration the economical

6
aspects, so these suggestions must be transformed by her. Nahavandi (2009, p.307) also speaks about
changes that take place top-down and this type tends to force a rapid change and of course can meet more
resistance. This situation can be identified in Ms. Idmyrs words, since she said that changes that are
proposed directly by her tend to meet more resistance. On the other hand, when the change is requested
by the headquarter, the staff accept it better and doesnt seem to be a problem related to resistance. Which
can be the explanation? Well, employees are afraid of losing their job if they do not comply with the
request of the headquarter. Indeed, Nahavandi (2009, p.307) also mentions the job security as cause of
resistance to change: in our case, this factor plays instead in favor of the change when this is proposed by
the headquarter, while it is not present in case of changes proposed by Ms. Idmyr.

The solution that Ms. Idmyr found, in order to make the employees deal better with change, was to
propose a trial of one month of the new processes that are going to be implemented. According to
Nahavandi, this is related with manipulation and cooptation. So, she proposes lets try it, and then we
will see how it works, but after this trial period, she said that the changes are usually implemented in a
definitive way because the employees get used with this. This creates acceptance about the change and
after one month of trial even those who were skeptical in the beginning can usually recognize an
improvement and finally agree with the change. So, she focuses employees attention on other factors and
gets them on-board in time.

If we take a look at Lewins model of

Figure 3 Lewins Model of Change. (Nahavandi, 2009, p.302)
Nahavandi, 2009, p.302)
change, we can identify the three steps in
getting employees acceptance of change -
unfreezing (preparing people and get them
to understand the need for change) - the one
month trial period; changing (implement
the actual change) after the trial the
change is recognized and refreezing (when
Ms. Idmyr stays near the employees, receive
daily feedback from sub-managers, in order
to assure that the change is becoming a
permanent one). (Lewin, 1951; in

Lewins model of change presents four characteristics that leaders like Ms. Idmyr must consider. One of
the most important one and which was specified for several times during the interview is focus on people
as the source for learning and change. During the interview Ms. Idmyr spoke a lot about how she has a
special relation with her employees that is based on trust and recognition. She mentioned of
personalized cards that she makes and gives it to employees after they are doing a good job, like good
managing of a crises situation created by some clients. According to Nahavandi this a way for motivating
and inspiring the followers by offering them personalize recognition. Another way of an exemplary
leadership is to pay attention by being present, walking around. Ms. Idmyr specified about the
importance of her presence. She doesnt wait for crises period to occur for being present, she is in the
restaurant every day, and after she finishes the bureaucratic work, she stays on the floor. (Lewin, 1951;
Brazil, 2007; Hindo, 2007; in Nahavandi, 2009, p.303-304).

7
Ms. Idmyr knows also how much importance has the participation of her employees in the process of
management for keeping people focusing on the organization needs and policy. Haley (2004) was cited in
Nahavandi (2009, p.270) with the following issue: If you want employees to be productive, you have to
create a nurturing environment and let them to be creative. In a workplace like McDonald creativity
may seem something useless, if you think just on following up the processes. But when you are dealing
with clients then the creativity becomes a MUST. To involve 85 people in the process of managing isnt
easy and this is why Ms. Idmyr has a close professional relation with the 8 sub-managers, who take care
not just about the good working of the processes and reporting, but also of scheduling and be in touch
with the rest of the employees. If we take a look in Nahavandis (2009, p.270) criteria of participation we
can identify that the tasks developed by the employees within McDonald Valla are multifaceted and
quality important and this is why Ms. Idmyr respects the point of view of all the 8 sub-managers, in
order to reach a qualitative decisions. All of this shows that Ms. Idmyr way of decision making is more
consultative or based in delegation. (Haley, 2009; in Nahavandi, 2009, p.270)

Ms. Idmyr believes that handing off tasks is the best way to provide for employees the possibility to
learn and develop, to be involve, to increase their motivation, but just after they show interest in the work
field. It doesnt matter for her if its a new employee, if he/she is young and without experience. The most
important thing in sustaining their careers is to show that they have attitude. Attitude is everything, this
is why she supports people who show enthusiasm. Of course that it is also important not to forget about
the older employees actions who have a lot of knowledge about the processes. She also mentioned that
knowledge comes after the attitude, since its easier to teach and help the people who show enthusiasm
and to support them to develop towards a managerial position. Some of her sub-managers only have
limited experience (6 months). This is one of the four characteristics that leaders must show in a process
of change the need to support new behaviors and allowing them to take hold (Nahavandi, 2009, p.304).

If we look closer to the sub-managers responsibilities, control over the staff, doing the schedule, monitor
the quality of the process, implement decisions, seems more like self-managed team, but the point is
that Ms. Idmyr selected them carefully for their skills and provided them with the resources that they
need.

3.3 MS. IDMYR S ROLE IN THE TEAM ENVIRONMENT

She could be compare to an orchestra conductor. She facilitates and coaches, takes care of her team,
provides them instructions, manages conflicts, encourages when needed, offers resources. Ms. Idmyr
assists the team by obtaining the resources needed to solve problems and to implement solutions, and only
interfere when needed. (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; In Nahavandi, 2009, p.284)

She is continually coaching her sub-managers when comes of economical parts, share the power with
them and tries to make them be passionate about their work, like she is. Education and
communication is one of the practical ways of dealing with change that Nahavandi (2009, 284) was
speaking about in his book. Those are some characteristics of visionary leadership and Nahavandi (2009,
p.308) states that it provides guideline for managing change. Ms. Idmyr also thinks that sharing the
power and providing continual training for sub-managers helped a lot in the past and still does now,
when comes of decreasing the resistance when changes are happening. (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993;
Nahavandi, 2009, p.284)

8
 Continually coaching means that she is also
supporting the informal leaders and the way of
doing this is offering them some rewards when they
are doing a good job as card rewards. She also takes
care to present to the top manager the good job that
has been done by the employee. This type of
management, by contingent rewards, is beneficial to
the leader and the followers, and also the organization
(Nahavandi, 2009, p.205). But having informal
leaders doesnt necessary mean that they have the
right skills and that they provide for the rest of the
employees a clear vision of the McDonald Valla
policy. For example, when she needs to handle a
Figure 4: New Roles for Leaders in a team environment.
(Nahavandi, 2009, p.281) problem with an informal leader who doesnt want to
work according to McDonalds values and rules and
encourage others to not do so also. Transferring him to another restaurant will solve the problem, because
he will be the new guy there, and he wont be able to influence people in the same way.

Moreover, Nahavandi (2009, p.205) explained why is good to provide contingent rewards, reinforce
appropriate behavior, and discourage inappropriate behavior (characteristics of reward and punishment
leadership style). This type of management is also a good way to increase motivation within her staff.
She mentioned one of the sub-managers that she uses as personal assistant. In parallel to that she still
writes cards to show her appreciation about his good results. Nahavandi (2009, p.205) explained that
transactional leadership can provide structure and lead to positive outcomes.

If we sum up the parts from the interview, we see that Ms. Idmyr insisted in telling us that she is the one
who communicates what is important for McDonald Valla, she repeats over and over again about the
importance of satisfying the client. Another important aspect that came up was about the fact that she is
trying to show to the sub-managers, and also to the other employees, that she can let behind the
bureaucratic work and do the daily work when she feels that the employees need a push for doing a better
job. Even so, for her the most important thing, for a good way of working, is the allocation of the sub-
managers for the shifts.

Figure 5 FIRO Model, (Tonnquist 2012,
p. 119)
She said that the most difficult change she faced was when she
implemented a new shift composition. Earlier on, there was only
one sub-manager for each shift that sometimes, created conflicts
between the employees and the sub-manager, since the sub-
manager had difficulties to handle the employees who were too
many. She created a schedule with two sub-managers per shift
and this works much better, because the two managers can back
up each other. Also, in McDonald Valla exits almost a
continually change - the turnover of two employees per month.
This requires being Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship
Orientated (FIRO) model. This is really energy demanding and
consists in assuring the development of her team through conflict

9
(easily to come up when you have two new person that need to be integrated in the team for each month)
(Tonnquist, 2012, p. 119). This sum up shows the role of Ms. Idmyr in McDonald Valla as a leader:
communicating priorities, be a role model, allocate resources that Nahavandi also founded as ones of the
roles that a leader has in changing organizational culture.

Her way of managing changes shows emotional intelligence. Self-awareness, self-regulation, self-
motivation, empathy for others and interpersonal and social skills are considered as emotional intelligence
and all this were presented in Ms. Idmyrs behavior. (Goleman, 2004; Goleman et al, 2002; in Nahavandi,
2009, p.122-123) For example, she can form close relationships with workers but she prefers to keep it on
a professional level. She has the authority over others which is power related to a specific position. Ms.
Idmyr holds legitimate power in her position at McDonalds Valla but she has also the power to reward or
to punish. This is the reason why changes are implemented with small resistance or compliance rather
than accepted right away. (French & Raven, 1968; Yukl & Fable, 1991; in Nahavandi, 2009, p.163-165).
Employees can see her as authority. Anyhow, she feels herself as a member of the group or as a leader
rather than an authority.

It is important to have a good balance between personal relation and managerial duties.

4. CONCLUSION
A leader who deals with changes like turnover of two employees per month, with new processes almost
every year, who has to take care of awareness of the change among 85 employees, is a leader who needs
to be trust and who needs to have a clear vision. Asking Ms. Idmyr to make the Building credibility test
helped us to understand more about her approach to leadership. Rating yourself is a good way for a better
understanding of your own way of working. Ms. Idmyr took the self assessment test of Nahavandi very
seriously and when she reached the 10th (I provide frequent positive feedback and encouragement)
question she asked: Can I rate myself with a five here, even if the maximum is just a 4?. At that
particularly moment it seemed more like a joke and we laughed, but indeed this made us to understand
what is truly important for her. She realized that when comes to deal with changes which involves new
co-workers, new processes, it is really important to stay in touch with your people and to understand their
needs. A clever way to do this is to practice empowerment, thing that Ms. Idmyr is doing with
responsibility, because she knows the importance of making the others feeling important when a change is
going to be implemented.
Being a manager in a McDonald restaurant isnt easy. Ms. Idmyr begun to work there in a period when
the fast food era was really successful and nobody complain about the lack of vegetables in the meals.
The idea of organic food exploded and McDonald trust needed to reinvent most of their meals. Ms. Idmyr
understood what people new needs are and she adapted to this change. The first step in being a leader who
successfully leads through change is to accept the change and have a vision about it. Even if now she is
caught in bureaucratic work, she has the advantage of being educated to see everything from an
economical perspective, thing that can represent an advantage when dealing with change, and this is:
adopt the changes just when they are truly needed and when they are made according to the McDonalds
policy.
We understood that involving theory when comes of practical work isnt so easy. You need experience, a
clear approach, and a really good understanding of the theories. An interview like this one made, can
show you ways of a better understanding, or the need of a better knowledge. Even so, the way of dealing

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with change, is related with the kind of leadership that one practice, but because there are several types of
leadership, there are for sure different ways of dealing with change. It is all about adapt to the situation
and take the best decision, based on your own experience, others experience, your opinion, and of course,
your followers opinion, when there is time to do so.

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