A note on change leadership and historical study on a non-business management topic: for MBA students

A note on change leadership and historical study on a non-business management topic: for MBA students (information from perplexity.ai)

My question 1: "What is change leadership all about with reference to a historical study of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey) and Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore)?"

The reply: "Understanding Change Leadership

Change leadership is the ability to guide, influence, and inspire individuals or organizations through significant transformations. Unlike change management, which focuses on the operational aspects of implementing change, change leadership emphasizes vision, people, and the cultural shift required to make change sustainable. Effective change leaders are proactive, visionary, and skilled at motivating others to embrace new directions, especially during periods of uncertainty or disruption.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: Change Leadership in Turkey

Vision and Transformation

• Visionary Leadership: Atatürk envisioned a modern, secular, and progressive Turkey, moving away from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. He articulated a clear vision of aligning Turkey with Western civilization and modern values.

• Transformational Reforms: He led sweeping reforms in education, law, language, and governance. Examples include the adoption of the Latin alphabet, the introduction of secular laws, and the promotion of women's rights—each representing a radical break from tradition.

• Communication and Inspiration: Atatürk was known for his direct engagement with the public, using effective communication to explain the necessity of reforms and inspire collective action. He traveled extensively to gauge public sentiment and address concerns, ensuring reforms were understood and accepted.

• Cognitive and Strategic Skills: His leadership was marked by adaptability, strategic foresight, and the ability to respond to both internal and external threats, making him a model of transformational change leadership.

Lee Kuan Yew: Change Leadership in Singapore

Vision and Pragmatism

• Clarity of Vision: Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from a struggling post-colonial port into a prosperous, first-world city-state. His vision was rooted in survival, excellence, and global competitiveness, despite limited natural resources.

• Pragmatic and Authoritarian Approach: Lee’s leadership style was pragmatic and, at times, authoritarian. He prioritized stability, discipline, and efficiency, believing these were essential for rapid development and social cohesion.

• Combating Corruption and Building Institutions: Lee implemented strict anti-corruption measures, built a meritocratic civil service, and fostered interracial harmony. These changes were foundational in creating a trustworthy and effective government.

• Team Building and Accountability: He was adept at assembling strong teams, setting clear expectations, and holding people accountable. Lee’s attention to detail and insistence on high standards permeated all levels of government.

• Inspirational Motivation: Despite his tough approach, Lee inspired Singaporeans to believe in a better future, communicating the necessity of sacrifices for long-term national gain.

Comparative Table: Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew as Change Leaders

Aspect	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey)	Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore)
Vision	Modern, secular, Westernized nation	Survival, prosperity, global competitiveness
Leadership Style	Transformational, inspirational, participative	Pragmatic, authoritarian, meritocratic
Key Reforms	Language, law, education, women's rights	Anti-corruption, civil service, social harmony
Communication	Direct public engagement, persuasive rhetoric	Clear, direct, sometimes uncompromising
Legacy	Foundation of modern Turkey	Transformation to first-world city-state

 

Key Lessons in Change Leadership

• Vision is Essential: Both leaders articulated compelling visions that mobilized their nations.

• Courage to Break with Tradition: Atatürk and Lee were unafraid to challenge entrenched systems and norms.

• People-Centric Approach: Effective change leadership requires engaging, inspiring, and sometimes challenging the population to embrace new realities.

• Institutionalization of Change: Both leaders ensured that reforms were embedded in new institutions and practices, making change sustainable beyond their own tenure.

In summary: Change leadership, as exemplified by Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew, is about more than managing transitions—it is about inspiring, guiding, and institutionalizing transformation for lasting national progress."

My question 2: "What are prominent theories on change leadership?"

The reply: "Prominent theories on change leadership offer frameworks for guiding individuals and organizations through transformations . These models provide strategic visions and empower leaders to navigate complex change initiatives .

Key theories and models in change leadership include:

• Kotter's 8-Step Change Model Developed by John Kotter, this model focuses on organizational-level change and is widely recognized for its practical application . It identifies common obstacles to change and outlines an eight-step process to overcome them .

  • Obstacles: Allowing complacency, failing to create a powerful leadership team, underestimating vision, poor communication, blocking obstacles, neglecting short-term wins, declaring victory too soon, and failing to anchor changes in culture .

  • Steps: Establish urgency, create a guiding coalition, develop a vision and strategy, communicate the vision, empower broad-based action, generate short-term wins, consolidate gains, and anchor new approaches in the culture .

  • Application: This model is beneficial for businesses of any size undergoing significant changes like digital transformations or cultural shifts, offering a comprehensive roadmap . It emphasizes leadership, vision, and momentum .

• ADKAR Change Management Model Developed by Prosci founder Jeff Hiatt, this model centers on the individual's journey through change, outlining five key goals: 

  • Awareness: Ensuring understanding of the need for change .

  • Desire: Fostering willingness to support the change .

  • Knowledge: Providing information on how to enact the change .

  • Ability: Equipping individuals with the necessary skills and training .

  • Reinforcement: Sustaining new practices and behaviors long-term .

  • Application: The ADKAR model is useful for technology implementations or process changes, as it helps leaders address individual barriers to change and ensures successful adoption . Its proactive approach to resistance sets it apart .

• Lewin's Change Management Model Developed by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s, this is a three-phase model that simplifies large changes into manageable stages: 

  • Unfreeze: Preparing for change by recognizing the need to shift the status quo and building readiness .

  • Change: Implementing new processes, behaviors, or technologies .

  • Refreeze: Integrating new practices into the organization's culture to ensure sustainability .

  • Application: This model's simplicity makes it widely applicable, especially for organization- or team-wide changes with strong senior management support . However, its linear nature may limit effectiveness in complex or iterative transformations."

My question 3: "Would a historical study of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey) and Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore) contribute to the enhancement of academic change leadership theories?"

The reply: "The Value of Historical Study for Change Leadership Theory

A historical study of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew offers significant contributions to the enhancement of academic change leadership theories. Their leadership journeys provide rich, real-world examples that both validate and challenge existing theoretical frameworks.

How Historical Analysis Enhances Change Leadership Theory

1. Empirical Validation of Transformational Leadership

• Both Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew exemplify transformational leadership, a theory emphasizing vision, inspiration, and the capacity to drive deep societal change.

• Atatürk’s reforms in Turkey—ranging from language modernization to legal and educational overhauls—demonstrate the practical application of transformational leadership principles, such as articulating a compelling vision and mobilizing followers for radical change.

• Lee Kuan Yew’s transformation of Singapore from a struggling colony to a global economic powerhouse illustrates the impact of visionary, pragmatic, and disciplined leadership on national development.

2. Contextualizing Leadership Theories

• Studying these leaders in their unique historical and cultural contexts helps scholars understand how change leadership theories operate beyond Western-centric models.

• Atatürk’s blend of nationalism, secularism, and modernization, and Lee’s meritocratic, pragmatic, and sometimes authoritarian approach, highlight the importance of adapting leadership styles to local realities.

3. Expanding Theoretical Boundaries

• Their leadership styles challenge the boundaries between transformational, transactional, and authoritarian leadership, suggesting that effective change leadership may require a dynamic blend of approaches depending on context and objectives.

• For example, Lee Kuan Yew’s insistence on discipline and accountability, while fostering innovation and resilience, demonstrates the value of integrating multiple leadership dimensions.

4. Inspiring New Research Questions

• The successes and controversies surrounding both leaders prompt critical questions about the ethical dimensions of change leadership, the role of charisma, and the sustainability of top-down reforms.

• Their legacies encourage scholars to explore the long-term effects of leadership on national identity, institutional resilience, and societal values.

Key Contributions to Academic Theory

• Bridging Theory and Practice: These case studies provide concrete examples that can be used to test, refine, or expand existing models such as transformational leadership, the ADKAR model, and Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model.

• Highlighting the Role of Culture and Context: They underscore the necessity of contextualizing leadership theories, moving beyond universal prescriptions to more nuanced, situational approaches.

• Encouraging Interdisciplinary Approaches: The intersection of history, politics, sociology, and leadership studies in these cases enriches academic discourse and broadens the analytical toolkit for scholars.

Conclusion

A historical study of Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew not only enriches the empirical foundation of change leadership theories but also challenges scholars to consider the complex interplay of vision, context, ethics, and execution in driving transformative change. Their legacies serve as powerful case studies for both validating and evolving the academic understanding of what it means to lead change on a national scale."

My question 4: "How does adopting the research philosophy of critical realism or poststructuralism in the historical study discussed here affect the research methods used?"

The reply: "Impact of Research Philosophy on Methods: Critical Realism vs. Poststructuralism

Overview

Adopting either critical realism or poststructuralism as a research philosophy in a historical study of leaders like Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew fundamentally shapes the research methods, data interpretation, and the kinds of questions asked. Each philosophy brings distinct ontological and epistemological assumptions that guide methodological choices.

Critical Realism: Methodological Implications

Critical realism posits that there is a reality independent of our perceptions, but our knowledge of it is always mediated by social, cultural, and historical contexts. In historical leadership studies, this leads to:

• Emphasis on Contextualized Explanation

  • Methods focus on uncovering underlying structures, mechanisms, and causal powers that shape historical events and leadership phenomena.

  • Researchers seek to explain how and why certain leadership outcomes occurred, not just describe them.

• Qualitative, Context-Rich Approaches

  • Use of methods like grounded theory, in-depth case studies, and process tracing to build explanations that resonate with the specific historical context.

  • Data collection may include archival research, document analysis, and interviews (if possible), with a focus on triangulating sources to understand deeper causal mechanisms.

• Theoretical Abstraction and Retroduction

  • Researchers move from empirical observations to higher-level abstractions, aiming to identify generative mechanisms behind observed events.

  • The process of retroduction—reasoning back from observed outcomes to possible causes—is central.

• Cautious Generalization

  • Findings are not assumed to be universally generalizable; instead, they are seen as context-dependent, with theoretical comparison across cases rather than statistical generalization.

Poststructuralism: Methodological Implications

Poststructuralism challenges the idea of fixed meanings, stable identities, and universal truths. It sees reality as constructed through discourse, power relations, and historical contingencies. In historical leadership studies, this leads to:

• Focus on Discourse and Power

  • Methods center on discourse analysis, deconstruction, and genealogical approaches to examine how leadership, identity, and power are constructed in historical texts and practices.

  • The study interrogates how narratives about leaders like Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew are produced, circulated, and contested.

• Attention to Identity, Materiality, and Multiplicity

  • Research explores the fragmented, contradictory, and context-dependent identities of leaders and followers, rather than seeking a singular, coherent narrative.

  • Analysis includes how gender, race, and other embodied aspects are represented and constructed in leadership discourses.

• Local, Situated Knowledge

  • Emphasis is placed on the specific, local, and temporal nature of leadership phenomena, resisting universal definitions or essentialist claims.

  • Methods are reflexive, often questioning the researcher's own position and the power dynamics involved in knowledge production.

• Critical and Deconstructive Orientation

  • The aim is to destabilize taken-for-granted assumptions, highlight silenced voices, and reveal the politics of meaning-making in historical accounts.

Comparative Table: Methodological Effects

Aspect	Critical Realism	Poststructuralism
Ontology	Reality exists, but is stratified and partly hidden	Reality is discursively constructed, fluid, plural
Focus	Causal mechanisms, structures, context	Discourse, identity, power, multiplicity
Methods	Grounded theory, case study, process tracing	Discourse analysis, deconstruction, genealogy
Data	Archival, documentary, interviews, triangulation	Texts, speeches, media, narratives, representations
Generalization	Theoretical, context-dependent	Local, situated, resists universal claims
Researcher Role	Explainer, theory-builder	Reflexive, critical, deconstructor

 

Application to Historical Leadership Studies

• Critical realism would guide the researcher to seek explanations for how Atatürk’s or Lee Kuan Yew’s reforms emerged from specific historical structures, social mechanisms, and contextual factors, using methods that allow for deep contextual analysis and theoretical abstraction.

• Poststructuralism would lead the researcher to interrogate how the very concepts of “leadership,” “modernization,” or “nation-building” are constructed in historical narratives, focusing on the multiplicity of meanings, the play of power, and the contestation of identities in the stories told about these leaders.

Conclusion

The choice between critical realism and poststructuralism profoundly shapes the research methods in historical leadership studies. Critical realism emphasizes explanation, causality, and context, favoring methods that uncover underlying mechanisms. Poststructuralism prioritizes discourse, identity, and power, favoring methods that deconstruct narratives and highlight multiplicity and contestation. Both approaches enrich the study of historical leadership, but they do so through fundamentally different methodological lenses."

My question 5: "Is this historical study, being non-business management in focus, a suitable research theme for an MBA student to investigate as an MBA dissertation project?"

The reply: "Yes, a historical study of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Lee Kuan Yew as change leaders is a suitable and valuable research theme for an MBA dissertation, even though it is non-business management focused. Here are key reasons supported by academic guidance and leadership research topics trends:

• Leadership and Change Management are Core MBA Themes: Leadership, particularly change leadership, is a central topic in MBA programs. Investigating how prominent historical leaders managed transformational change aligns well with MBA learning objectives around vision, strategy, and organizational transformation.

• Historical Leadership Case Studies Are Widely Accepted: Many MBA dissertations explore leadership through historical or political figures to draw lessons applicable to business contexts. Studies on leaders like Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, and other eminent figures are common and valued for their insights into leadership qualities and change management.

• Comparative and Cross-Sector Leadership Research is Encouraged: MBA research often benefits from cross-sector perspectives. Comparing Atatürk’s and Lee Kuan Yew’s leadership styles and strategies offers rich material for analyzing leadership theories, decision-making, and transformational impact beyond corporate settings.

• Relevance to Change Leadership Theory and Practice: Your study can contribute to understanding change leadership in complex environments, which is highly relevant for business leaders facing disruption and transformation.

• Opportunity for Theoretical and Practical Contribution: By linking historical insights to contemporary leadership theories (e.g., transformational leadership, Kotter’s change model), your dissertation can bridge theory and practice, a valued approach in MBA research.

• Flexibility in Research Methodology: The historical and qualitative nature of the study fits well with MBA dissertation expectations, which often include case study, qualitative analysis, and theory application.

Summary

Criteria	Suitability for MBA Dissertation
Alignment with MBA leadership themes	Strong alignment with leadership, change management focus
Use of historical case studies	Common and respected approach in MBA research
Cross-sector insights	Enhances understanding of leadership beyond business
Theoretical contribution	Supports development and testing of leadership theories
Methodological fit	Qualitative, case study methods are appropriate

 Conclusion

Your proposed historical study is not only suitable but also offers a distinctive and academically rigorous topic for an MBA dissertation. It enables exploration of leadership and change management from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, enriching both academic theory and practical leadership understanding."

Note: For my MBA students who are interested in doing such an unconventional dissertation project, please inform me beforehand as I need to also consult the school admin to find out whether the dissertation theme is acceptable to the university.

A collection of blog notes on using chatgpt for research purpose.