Leadership During Change: How To Be a Great Change Leader

Successful change initiatives are challenging for many businesses to implement, and it takes an effective leader to help a team adjust to new circumstances.

Change leadership is the practice of approaching changes across an organization with positivity, enthusiasm and a growth mindset. By practicing change leadership, you can adapt your business practices to market changes, prepare for unexpected scenarios and learn about exciting new technologies. 

In this article, we explain what change leadership is, discuss several benefits of this management style and share tips and skills for being a successful change leader.

What is change leadership?

Change leadership is a style of management that emphasizes the importance of improvement and adaptability in an organization. Change leaders excite interested parties about the benefits of changes in a business.

They also guide groups of people through changes in a productive manner, ensuring a company can make strategic, smart and successful adjustments to how it operates. This type of leadership helps companies keep up with an ever-changing world by building resources, using new technologies and responding to crises.

Change leaders can be in charge of the implementation of the following types of changes:

  • Mergers and acquisitions: When businesses usurp or merge with other companies, leadership works to blend the teams' cultures and address employees' lingering confusion. Establishing new processes and embracing the company's new identity can help ease concerns internally and externally.

  • Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives: Many businesses aim to build a more inclusive work environment, recruiting talent from various backgrounds and promoting cultural competency. Change leaders may help employees understand the mission and strategize to improve recruitment practices and minimize implicit bias across the organization.

  • Health crisis response plans: A successful change leader has a response plan for health crises to ensure the health and safety of their team and customers. For example, during flu season, a company's management may implement more sick leave and safety protocols and allow employees to work from home.

  • Technology: Technology and digital platforms can enable a company to reach customers, improve productivity, track information, keep systems organized and decrease errors. A change leader finds helpful technological software or tools, trains employees on how to use them and pushes a business to use new technologies to reach their goals.

  • Natural disaster response plans: Change leaders typically have business continuity plans for how the business may respond in a natural disaster, such as a storm or hurricane. This may involve allocating resources, developing a plan to stay in communication, informing clients of plans and securing company property to the best of their ability to minimize risk.

  • Training: Managers can use change leadership to improve employee training methods. This includes developing training manuals and resources, preparing senior employees to train junior employees and budgeting time for training programs.

  • Remote work capabilities: Remote work has grown in popularity, leading many businesses to develop new management styles to oversee remote teams. Leaders may adjust their approach to technology, performance management and communication to adapt to these new circumstances.

What is the role of leadership during change?

Change leadership is essential to an organization's success, as change is inevitable in business. Embracing a culture of resilience and adaptability could enable a team to weather unexpected crises, organizational changes, evolving market conditions and cultural shifts. 

Organization-wide changes are increasingly common across businesses, but only some meet their goals and qualify as successful. Change leadership is often the key to successful organizational transformations.

In research on social change for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Julie Battliana and Marissa Kimsey coined three key types of leaders that arise during periods of change. These three types of leaders are agitators, innovators and orchestrators.

Understanding the purpose of each role could help you understand how your leadership team can work together to address change and usher in new ideas effectively. Here's an explanation of each role:

  • Agitators: Agitators share the group's opinions, even if challenging, noting the problems and helping the team move toward a solution. These individuals are comfortable with conflict and understand the importance of speaking honestly about issues to enable growth.

  • Innovators: Innovators devise creative solutions to address the problems brought forward by agitators. They're often clever, forward-thinking and ambitious, developing clear and realistic strategies to solve organizational problems.

  • Orchestrators: Orchestrators bring the innovators' plans to fruition and coordinate their implementation across the team. These individuals are expert communicators, know how to utilize resources and help unite and motivate the team during change.

Change leadership models

Here are some of the most popular models for change leadership:

  • McKinsey 7-S model: The McKinsey 7-S model by consultants Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. emphasizes shared values, structure, style, skills, staff, systems and strategy as the seven keys to effective change.

  • Kotter's 8-step model: Coined by Harvard's John Kotter, this approach designates eight actions for leaders to take, including developing a clear vision, addressing obstacles and solidifying the changes within the company's culture.

  • Bacharach Approach: Cornell University's Samuel Bacharach developed this method of change leadership, which encourages leaders to become change agents by thoughtfully crafting an agenda and slowly allowing it to permeate the team organically.

What are the benefits of change leadership?

Implementing change leadership can make many positive impacts on your business and aid you in reaching your business goals. Here are some benefits of employing this leadership style:

Solves problems

If issues arise in a business, a manager can use change leadership to solve them. This can help improve productivity and employee satisfaction. For example, if productivity is low, a change leader can revise the training process so that employees have all the tools to succeed.

Helps you grow a reputation for innovation

Executing changes successfully can build a business's brand and fulfill its mission. Businesses that respond to change effectively may earn a reputation in their industry for being adaptable and resilient, which could grant them a competitive edge.

Leaders who make themselves known as change agents within their departments, organizations and industries might also build trust with peers for their active role in change leadership.

Increases sales

Making certain changes can enable a business to increase sales. For example, if a business builds an e-commerce system on its website to sell products online, it increases the accessibility of products for potential customers.

Improves efficiency

Implementing strategic changes across an organization could lead to increased efficiency. For example, online software that tracks metrics can make employee performance reviews faster and easier for everyone involved.

Fosters a positive work environment

Since one part of change leadership is optimism, this style can lead to a more positive work environment that successfully overcomes obstacles and promotes job satisfaction. A manager can show employees that they care about their welfare by being willing to improve their business and work methods.

Maintain inclusivity

Sometimes, change leadership helps remove barriers to employee success. Change leaders can provide language support, health accommodations and time off for their employees to ensure their workplace is a place that feels welcoming for all employees of any background.

Provides stability

Change leadership can encourage a team to become comfortable with unexpected interruptions to business, increasing employees' adaptability. When management provides clear-headed leadership and approaches change with transparency and confidence, it can equip the team to handle unanticipated challenges.

For example, teams with effective change leaders may be able to respond to a crisis such as the global pandemic with grace.

Tips for being a successful change leader

Here are several things you can do to be a successful change leader:

Think long-term

Change leaders evaluate business circumstances and activate changes to help them meet their business goals. Leaders can trigger change by creating powerful visions of opportunities for improvement that excite employees and interested parties.

They establish their definition of success and budget time for employees to adjust to new protocols/environments.

Make change part of your company culture

Successful change leadership invites change to be an ongoing initiative by implementing continuous improvement practices, refining internal processes and policies and promoting a growth mindset. Rather than viewing change as a singular process with an end date, focus on making each department across the organization resilient to change.

Delegate tasks

Change leaders use the talents and skills of the employees they're leading to help them make effective changes. Successful change leaders resist traditional methods of giving instructions and making decisions and invite all employees to involve themselves in change processes.

Celebrate small victories

Celebrating minor accomplishments and offering positive, specific feedback to team members can motivate them to succeed. Celebrations can include snacks, friendly competitions, prizes and team-building activities.

Request feedback

Asking supervisors, coworkers, employees and clients for feedback about your leadership performance can help you become a better change leader. These leaders welcome constructive criticism, as it contributes to the growth mindset that change leadership demands.

Study your industry

Research other top businesses in your industry to see what changes they make to optimize their operations. You can also study industry leaders to learn leadership skills. Make sure to stay up to date on advanced technologies and helpful products that can be beneficial and give you a competitive edge.

View change as an opportunity for growth

While change can be an obstacle to overcome, effective change leaders allow change to excite and motivate them. Try to become comfortable with change and replace fear with inspiration. Implementing small changes to drive innovation and growth, like new training programs or technologies, could help you reframe how you think about change.

Change leadership skills

Managers can use the following skills to practice successful change leadership:

Communication

Change leaders communicate with their teams about what a change entails and why the company is making it. Explaining reasons for certain actions and connecting them with the business's mission can help employees understand the purpose and impact of their work.

Change leaders can also explain the direct benefits a change may have for employees to persuade them of its importance and value.

Collaboration

A change leader guides a group of people through planning and implementing changes. This means they're experts at promoting cross-functional collaboration and uniting teams with a shared vision. Change leaders engage employees in decision-making and encourage them to help each other.

Determination

Change leaders prepare themselves to meet and overcome obstacles to change. They approach difficulties with a positive attitude, a problem-solving mentality, confidence and persistence. They dedicate time and effort to making changes, assist their employees with any confusion due to change and focus on long-term goals to maintain motivation.

Positivity

Positivity is important for a change leader to inspire employees and achieve desired results. A positive, confident attitude can increase productivity and the quality of products and services. If leaders believe that the desired outcome is possible and likely, such an outlook can motivate employees to try their best.

Curiosity

A change leader is curious and always seeks to learn new information. They ask plenty of questions to learn the best way of working, and they perform research using reputable sources.

They also carefully consider any feedback from supervisors, coworkers, employees and clients to ensure they manage everyone's expectations and needs.

Christina Metcalf

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