"Assessment of Leadership Practices in Change Management": Insights from Bank of Abyssinia
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Date
2025-09
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study explores the leadership strategies applied during organizational change initiatives at the Bank of Abyssinia’s Bole Sub-City branches in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Adopting a descriptive mixed-method approach, the research aims to provide a practical and context-based understanding of how five core leadership practices clear communication, creating a sense of urgency, empowering employees, leading by example, and aligning organizational culture with change are perceived and implemented in a real-world banking environment. Quantitative data were collected through structured questionnaires administered to 208 clerical employees, while qualitative insights were obtained from semi-structured interviews with five branch-level managers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze survey data, complemented by thematic analysis of interview responses. To enhance internal comparison without compromising the descriptive focus, a Friedman test was conducted to identify statistically significant differences in how the five leadership practices were perceived by employees. Findings indicate that while leadership practices are generally present, clear communication and empowerment were perceived as significantly less emphasized compared to culture alignment, urgency creation, and role modeling. Qualitative data reinforced these patterns and revealed systemic challenges such as delayed communication, limited managerial autonomy, and inconsistent leadership behaviors. The study highlights the importance of contextualized leadership practices in shaping effective change and provides practical recommendations for improving leadership engagement at the operational level. The research contributes to the limited body of empirical literature on leadership and change management in Ethiopia’s financial sector and offers a methodological approach that blends descriptive analysis with non-parametric inference to deepen insight without assuming causality.
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Keywords
Leadership strategies, change management, Friedman test, organizational culture, communication, empowerment.