Leading Change

Abstract

Change efforts don’t happen by themselves; they must be led to completion. Change Leadership is one of the four keys to successful organizational change, and it can have a big impact on creating and sustaining the momentum of any change effort.

How Successful Leaders Champion Change in Today’s Organizations

Although change has become a standard feature of today’s business environment, change leadership still remains elusive and difficult for many leaders to effectively promote and encourage within their organization.

One key reason for this is the fact that many leaders continue to operate from the vantage point of being reactive instead of being responsive to the inevitable changes that are a part of today’s leadership. Add to this the increasing demands on our time, energy, and resources—and the increasing number of distractions in today’s workplaces—and it becomes understandable why change leadership remains a major challenge for many leaders.

However, despite the fast pace of today’s global business environment, we can be successful in leading change in our organization by employing the following steps:

• 1. Don’t Just Tell, But Show Why These Change Initiatives Matter

When it comes to promoting any change initiative, it’s often helpful to remember something we were told by our mothers: don’t forget to eat your vegetables. Now for most of us, this was something that was often repeated to us because our parents wanted to make sure that we developed healthy eating habits. And yet, despite our parents’ best efforts and after hearing about all the studies showing the importance of vegetables to our long-term health, many of us still struggle to get our daily servings of vegetables in our diet.

Why is that? Why is there such a struggle to eat more vegetables despite what we now know and what our mothers told us growing up? The reason is simple; although we might understand the health benefits, what was missing in all of these messages is something that’s critical to our eating habits: we like to eat food that appeals to our taste buds.

What this reveals is a very important point about how to successfully lead change in your organization. Specifically, to promote any change initiative among your employees, you can’t operate from the vantage point that you know what’s best for your organization and that consequently your employees should simply fall in line with your plans.

Rather, what’s required to be successful at change leadership is to ensure that your employees understand why this initiative matters in terms of their ability to be successful in achieving your organization’s shared purpose.

We have to remember that it’s only when we connect our change initiative to what matters to our employees that they’ll get on board with making it a reality. Otherwise, just like the vegetables we had on our plates as kids, your change initiatives will simply end up being pushed aside in favor of focusing on the things that really matter to those you lead.

• 2. Don’t Confuse Conviction with Inflexibility

One characteristic that’s critical to successful change leadership is demonstrating an unwavering commitment and resolve to making this change work. However, the danger we need to be mindful of is not falling into the trap of becoming inflexible in how we address the needs and concerns of those we serve.

As much as our employees will be reassured by our sense of confidence and assuredness in the vision that’s driving our change leadership, we also need to demonstrate a willingness to listen and understand what our employees have to say about it, especially as the process moves forward and unexpected issues or challenges surface.

To ensure the full commitment of our employees to this change, we have to show them that we’re not walking into these conversations thinking we have all the answers. Instead, our employees need to see that we’re interested in listening to what they have to say so we can identify course corrections we might need to make to ensure the employees’ effectiveness in guiding this change forward.

Again, it is important that leaders show a strong conviction and belief in their change leadership. But it’s equally important that our employees get the message that we’re more interested in empowering them to become full participants in making this change our new reality.

• 3. Clarify Expectations for What This Initiative Will Look Like

When it comes to change leadership, the common focus tends to be on creating grand visions of what these initiatives will create, of the new opportunities for the organization they will open up, and on what key steps need to be taken to get this process started.

Unfortunately, it’s at this point in the process where many leaders pull back on their active participation, thinking that once tasks are delegated, there’s no need for elaboration or follow-up as things progress.

In order to understand the challenge this presents in terms of being successful in our change leadership, we have to recognize something that’s a part of human nature. Specifically, all of us have natural apprehensions regarding change because of the inherent uncertainty accompanying change, uncertainty about what we’ll experience going forward.

That’s why when you’re communicating your change initiative to your employees, you need to provide clarity as to what the change will look like in practice. You need to explain what your employees should expect from you as things progress and, in particular, how you’ll respond to potential obstacles they might come across as the process continues.

Such efforts will help to encourage a sense of belonging, inclusion, and shared ownership among your employees because the clarity you provide will remind them that their contributions are directly tied to transforming this idea into reality.

The undeniable truth about today’s leadership is that the increasing demands and distractions we face will not lessen over time, but will continue to grow for many years to come. That’s why it’s critical that we ensure the initiatives we guide through our change leadership help move us closer to achieving our shared purpose.