With the rapid pace and evolving business world, the significance of leadership in steering organisational change is of paramount importance. Effective and disciplined change leadership is not just about guiding day-to-day operations; it’s about envisioning, motivating and progression of change. Leaders are the catalysts of business transformation – shaping strategies, processes and cultures to navigate their organisations through the complexities of change.
At its essential core, leadership in Change Management is about setting a vision and direction for the future. Leaders must identify the need for organisation change, articulate a clear and compelling case for change, and develop a Strategic Roadmap to achieve progressive change. Executive Management Teams are tasked with mobilising the entire organisation towards this new direction, balancing the often-competing demands of both managing current operations but simultaneously while driving transformation projects.
However, the effectiveness of a Leader during periods of change directly impacts organisational success with capitalising on new opportunities and maintaining its competitive edge. This crucial role is played out by overcoming resistance to change, by engaging (and empowering) their cross-functional teams. Navigating the complexities of change helps determine the organisation’s capacity for survival but continue to scale in new and often challenging environments.
How to lead Change by focusing on people and process?
Lead and influence others, including peers and other leaders.
Successful change transitions are one of the biggest problems that modern organisations face. The strategic imperative to change is often clear but without doing things differently, your organisation is unlikely to succeed in the current market environment.
At its core, change leadership is about working cross-functionally to create a shared and committed understanding of change required to execute the strategy, and how to make it happen. But Change Management research has clearly demonstrated that organisational change initiatives have a high failure rate (about 70%) and this is despite all the key resources put into place, with creating Change Management processes.
Change leadership encourages internal assessment
Effective change leadership skills do not develop overnight. They require an iterative process of assessing strengths and weaknesses to further cultivate the skillset, develop and enhance the capabilities of change leadership. For CEOs, Board Members and C-Suite Executives, adopting new leadership approaches is crucial.
Change Leaders must recognise that guiding people through complex change is not easy. Every kind of change is different but even positive ones come with challenges. Successful change leadership requires resilience and commitment to manage setbacks, uncertainty and pressure.
What are “the 3 C’s of Change” for effective Change Leadership?
Identifying and overcoming barriers to change, with a focus on the “big picture”.
Effective leadership in guiding organisational change is both a multifaceted and dynamic role. It involves shaping the entire trajectory of an organisation’s evolution and to ensure successful adaptation and growth, not just guiding teams. Leader’s roles are crucial with enabling the longevity and resilience of any organisation.
The critical leadership competencies of successful change efforts and Change Leaders can be divided into (3) main categories – what are known as “The 3 C’s of Change”. These are complimented by (3) main skills – which provide the necessary connection between the process part of change and the people part of change.
“The 3 C’s of Change” unite effective change leadership and are the critical key in how to lead change transformations across the organisation:
Leading requires Core Skills for Change
Change Leaders develop a multi-disciplinary skill set that comprises a unique blend of business discipline, interpersonal skills, and genuine creativity to manage all the moving parts of an organisation.
There are three (3) key competencies for identifying the core skills with leading change processes:
1. Communicate
Focus on both the “What” and “Why” to increase stakeholders buy-in.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders solely focus on the “What” behind the change. But successful Change Leaders effectively communicate a shared understanding of both the “What” and the “Why” behind the change. The purpose in leadership is so very important!
The creation of stronger buy-in with key stakeholders, employees, and the urgency for new change initiatives is driven by Change Leaders. They intrinsically explain the purpose and benefits of the change and its connection to organisation’s values.
2. Collaborate
Break down departmental silos and encourage boundary spanning.
Bringing your team together to plan and execute change is critical. Successful Change Leaders collaborate across the boundaries of Business Units, encouraging their employees to break out of their silos, and refuse to tolerate the friction from internal competition. That is because early on, they also include employees in the decision-making and building on their total commitment to change.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders fail to engage employees early on (and often) during the change process and this loss of visibility becomes more apparent. Their actions directly contribute to employee disengagement and increased resistance to change.
3. Commit
Model the behavioural persistence and adapt to challenges.
Successful Change Leaders align their own beliefs and behaviours with supporting the change. Change is difficult to navigate, but leaders who negotiated it successfully were resilient and persistent, and driven to step outside their comfort zone. They devote more of their own time to the change effort, support the teams undertaking change, and staying focused on the “big picture”.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders fail to adapt to new challenges, express negativity due to disruption, and become impatient with a lack of quick results. They fold at the first sign of trouble when, in fact, the rest of the organisation believed in the course and actions. It’s all about the planning.
Leading through the Process of Change
Strategic change is a transitional journey for both the organisation and its people. It simply doesn’t happen on its own! The sustained effort requires Change Leaders to guide the entire process from start to finish.
There are three (3) key competencies for leading change processes:
1. Initiate
Plan and evaluate carefully with implementing necessary Change.
Successful Change Leaders understand the need for change and commence the change process by planning the reasons for the change they seek. This can include evaluating the business context, understanding the purpose of the change, developing a clear vision (and desired outcome), and identifying the common organisation goal.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders are distracted by the change, its purpose, and with the lack of focus on these tasks. This means they are unable to reach a common understanding of the change initiative and the importance of the organisation goal.
2. Strategise
Set the vision, direction, and bring others onboard.
Successful change leaders develop their Strategic Roadmap and a clear action plan, including priorities, timelines, tasks, structures, behaviours, and resources. They identified what areas need to change, but also what would stay the same.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders fail due to “active listening” with questions, concerns, and constructive feedback from stakeholders and their teams. They simply fail to define success from the beginning of the outline for the new change initiative.
3. Execute
Build and sustain the momentum but remain focused amid disruption.
Translating the vision into strategy and then execution is one (1) of the most important factors involving change that Leaders can do. Successful Change Leaders focus on segmenting key people into key stakeholder positions (or removing them, in some cases!). They break down large projects into small wins as achieving early victories helps with building momentum – developing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) metrics and monitoring systems to measure progress.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders begin with micromanaging, get stuck on implementation details, and fail to consider the bigger picture, including the people element of change. As organisations continue to evolve over time, stability and change must coexist to achieve its full potential. Change Leaders must acknowledge both simultaneously.
Leading People through Change
While formal change methodology and processes deliver the required framework with navigating change, too often Change Leaders neglect the critically important aspect – the human side of the change equation.
Effective Change Leaders understand how to lead change with devoting their efforts to engagement by a holistic approach and involving everyone in the change initiative. But ensuring that people also need time to adapt to change — no matter how fast-moving the change initiative may be – with assistance in combating change fatigue and encouragement for embracing change.
Change Leaders exhibit three (3) crucial leadership qualities for leading people:
1. Support
Build and leverage the team and colleagues to feel motivated and empowered.
Successful change projects are characterised by Change Leaders removing barriers. These include personal barriers (e.g., sense of loss, constrained egos) and professional barriers (e.g., time, structure, resources) that are necessary to carry out the Change Management Plan.
Leaders of unsuccessful change focused exclusively on results and unwillingness to support the direction of the change. If employees feel that they don’t get the support they need for the change, they undermine decisions once the destination is determined and combat resistance on all levels.
2. Influence
Embracing experimentation and view failure as a path to success.
Influencing people is about gaining commitment necessary to drive change. With mapping out, the critical change agents and defining what “buy-in” looks like from each stakeholder, this determines your approach that leads to a successful outcome. Change Leaders identify who are the key stakeholders – including Board Members, C-Suite Executives, Clients, and others – and effectively communicate their vision of successful change to them.
Unsuccessful leaders engage with a passive approach to their people and more likely to avoid certain stakeholders, rather than try to influence them. The mindset is ingrained with reducing negative influence and retracting to what they feel comfortable.
3. Learn
Anticipate and respond to change with agility and confidence.
Successful Change Leaders ask lots of questions, gather formal and informal feedback, so they never assume that they have all the answers. After all, learning (with assumptions) about your people’s input and feedback allows them to adapt by making continual adjustments during the change initiative.
Unsuccessful Change Leaders don’t ask as many questions, listen to constructive feedback or gather accurate information. This leaves them without the knowledge they need to make appropriate adjustments along the way and when roadblocks occur.
How can a Change Leader make a difference to organisation success?
Change leadership is essential for organisational success. Change Leaders guide and engage stakeholders through the change process and navigate their organisations through significant change. To drive successful transformations and achieve sustainable growth, Leaders must possess qualities such as – a visionary mindset, high emotional intelligence, adaptability, strong communication and listening skills, strategic thinking, decisiveness, resilience and accountability.
Approaching Change through a broader, more ‘Strategic Lens’
Change Leaders understand that inspiring, encouraging, communicating, and supporting people in changing environments is vital to their role. By fostering an environment of trust and collaboration, these leaders can inspire their teams to embrace change and work towards a shared vision, ensuring long-term success and sustainability. Creating an environment where change is seen as an opportunity and not a threat will enable their organisation to pivot and adapt, and ultimately survive in an unrelenting change environment.
Linkages to strategy and market insights
Change Leaders connect the Executive Management’s vision and strategic intent with market insights, which allows to convert them into responsive workforce actions. New change initiatives are recommended, and internal collaboration sets the scene for cross-functional teams to work together on change projects.
Holistic impact and influence
Change Leaders aim to create a holistic impact on their Executive Management team, direct reports, and peers, instead of following the conventional “top-down” approach. They influence people through change initiatives with a changed mindset and use several motivational tools to achieve this objective.
Multiple (but different) approaches
Change Leaders use various approaches or a combination of leadership models and change methodology for effectively solving problems. If their methods cannot adapt to the situation or initiative, Change Leaders delegate others to help lead the current vision and to lead their team to complete the task.
Summary
Building resilience not only navigate challenges more effectively but also creates an environment that promotes innovation and growth. As organisations continue to navigate the complexities of change transformation, the message for Leaders is clear – to continuously develop and refine their skills, ensuring they can effectively lead through change and guide their organisations towards a prosperous and sustainable future.
The need for adaptable, insightful, and resilient leadership has never been greater than it is today. Leadership is undeniably central to the successful implementation and management of organisational change. Change Leaders should recognise that leading people through complex change is difficult, and that all changes (even positive ones) come at a cumulative cost. Change can drain employees and Leaders, too.
Successful change leadership also requires resilience. Resilience enables people to manage change’s inherent pressure, uncertainty, and setbacks. Leaders need to build their own reserves in support of their mental and physical health and can guide others to face change (in healthy and sustainable ways) by learning and sharing practices for resilient leadership.
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