Leadership Lessons Blog

Change Management: A Leadership Imperative

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In order to succeed as a leader you must have change management skills.  You have to learn how translate what executives in the company are trying to do on behalf of employees who may not have all the details.  Organizational change can be easy to understand.  The leader must decrease objections to change and help to generate excitement and enthusiasm.  Although this may be a fairly easy activity to grasp, it can be incredibly difficult to execute and manage the change process within your organizations.  To do so, you must craft a well-organized plan. 

Take a look at these key management tips to help you to lay the foundation. 

1. Find the cheerleader:  Who is the person in the organization that is well-respected,a stakeholder that you need to work wih and ensure they are on the same page.  It may be that your cheerleaders change depending upon the stage of change you are in, but you must make an effort to find them. 
2. Justify the change  You might be tempted to skip this step.  You can't.  Even if the change is inevitable, you must be able to help employess understand why this is a good thing for them and for the company.  You need to work closely with your "cheerleaders"  so that they can help you create a sense of ownership and acountability. 
3. Create a plan:  So many companies make the mistakes of not sitting down and defining the plan for change.  You need to have a strategy for how you are going to deliver the major change elements, what type of communication tools you will need to have in place and the frequency of that communication.  You will need to determine who needs to be brought in to the change before the communication so that you can avoid any last minute objections.
4. Determine the change reasons:  Why does the change need to happen?  What activity or business condition is pushing the change?  Are you responding to competitor information, financial or economic pressures, or events completely out of you control, like work force reduction.  Whatever the reasons, make sure you integrate them as you determine your action pla for change. 

Finally, remember to give people enough time to absorb the change.  Don't underestimate how long it takes employees to internalize the change and respond to it.