The New Book “Change Insight” Book Introduction Chapter 3: Change Leadership

Leadership is about future, and future is full of changes, the speed of change is accelerating as well. This is where leadership must invoke great vision, good tactics and innovation comes into play.  Fundamentally leadership is about change and influencing people to change. Doing things differently is just part of everyday life for a leader who is always in the midst of change -envisioning it, planning it, or leading it.

Change Leadership vs. Change Management: There is a difference between change management and change leadership, and whether it’s just a matter of semantics, these terms are not interchangeable. The distinction between the two is quite significant. Change Leadership concerns the driving forces, visions, and processes that fuel large-scale transformation. Leadership is all about change management and also the ability to take initiative. Leadership is the ability to influence with or without authority. It is the power of example that frees people to do willingly and well that needs to be down. On the other hand, Change Management, which is the term most everyone uses, refers to a set of basic tools or structures intended to keep any change effort under control. The goal is often to minimize the distractions and impacts of the change. Change leaders need to focus on building a culture of change, and Change Management needs to be people-centric, shouldn’t just put emphasis on change tools.
Senior leaders need to gain an in-depth understanding of changes, especially at the strategic level: The weak support from senior leaders is the most common reason for failure of Change Management. Sometimes key leaders actually do not support a change and actively undermine that change. But more often than not, leaders do support the change, but radically underestimate the importance of their active and visible support for the change. Change is supposed to happen. Resistance is supposed to happen. Senior leaders need to understand that they most carry the brunt of the responsibility for communication within the organization. They must actively tear down barriers and secure necessary resources throughout the change processes.
The change objectives must be well defined, understood, and accepted through planning: Planning is a good way to achieve change if the planning effort in integrated with the normal management practices. A strategy for “change” should focus on betterment. Change for the sake of change doesn’t help anyone. The most important factor for positive change is flexibility in planning, decide to be prepared for inevitable change, clear roles and responsibilities, and authority to adapt and act as reality change plans. Invest in change before it happens. Change is not an event. Events can be managed top down, change can be supported top down, but change cannot be fully managed or controlled top down, it has to be proactively made bottom up. You have to define the change situation and the desired result before plowing into any effort, know what is an acceptable outcome, what resources the change and how urgently to act. Make change sustainable.
A changeable organization is to creating organizations where change is the norm and happens the whole time thereby delivering faster and increasing market share. Change can not be just another thing that needs to be accomplished, it has to be woven into communication, process, and action of the organization, and it is an ongoing business capabilities built throught the effectiveness of change leadership plus the efficiency of change management.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu