"Change waits for no leader. All leadership is about change and improvement."
In today's rapidly evolving landscape, leading organisational change has become an essential capability for effective leadership. The stakes are high: failure to manage change can lead to significant financial losses, diminished employee morale, and a loss of competitive edge. Organisations that do not embrace change risk stagnation and obsolescence, as well as the erosion of trust among employees and stakeholders. The consequences of these failures ripple beyond the workplace, affecting communities and economies at large. Job losses can devastate families, leading to financial strain and emotional turmoil across entire regions. As disruptive forces such as technological advancements and shifting customer demands continue to reshape industries, leaders must adopt a proactive and committed approach to change. Only by cultivating true leadership of change excellence can organisations navigate the complexities of transformation and thrive in a competitive environment, ensuring their long-term sustainability and success.
An organisation and its leaders cannot delegate change to a different and isolated internal change team or even experienced external consultants, expecting change implementation to supersede current normal day-to-day operations to become the new way of working. How can the new way of working be adopted by the employees, provide the return on investment, improve operational performance, create the organisation’s future revenue, and deliver competitive advantage without effective and proactive leadership involvement? Worse still, with continued leadership focus on normal day-to-day operations, the change team will not get quality resources or organisation agenda time, which are inherent parts of successful organisational change implementation. There are three critical leadership of change responsibilities:
Articulate the Change Vision:
The first responsibility of change leadership is about creating and ‘Articulating the change vision’. This vision should succinctly describe how the organisation, product, or service will look after the change is successfully implemented. It should be bold but realistic; it should paint a vivid picture of the future state that appeals to the employee’s hearts and minds, especially their purpose.
Model the New Way:
The second responsibility for the leadership team in implementing their organisation’s change is to ‘Model the new way’. This is about making the leader’s change vision a reality by modelling the new way of working. The organisation and employees will adopt change when leaders show and model the new way.
Intervene to Ensure Sustainable Change:
The final responsibility for the leadership team in fully implementing their organisation’s change is ‘Intervene to ensure sustainable change’. Now that the leader’s change vision has been implemented, this is about making it sustainable and normal day-to-day operations. Without intervention from leaders, the change will not be adopted or sustained.
"Organisational change leadership is about effectively and proactively articulating the vision, modelling the new way, and intervening to ensure sustainable change. These are crucial leadership skills."
This blog is based on my book:
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Peter consults, speaks, and writes on the Leadership of Change®.
He works exclusively with boards, CEOs, and senior leadership teams to prepare and align them to effectively and proactively lead their organisations through change and transformation.
For insights on navigating organisational change, feel free to reach out at Peter.gallagher@a2B.consulting or schedule a free consultation
Peter F. Gallagher is a leadership guru, change management global thought leader, organisational change authority, international corporate conference speaker, 15X author, and C-level change leadership.
Listed #1 by leadersHum Top 40 Change Management Gurus You Should Follow in 2022 (Mar 2022).
Ranked #1 Change Management Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Change Management (2024-2023-2022-2021-2020) by Thinkers360.
Listed #15 in the “Top 30” for Global Gurus Leadership (2024) by Global Gurus.
Ranked #1 Business Strategy Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Business Strategy (2022) by Thinkers360.
Ranked #6 Leadership Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Leadership (April 2024) by Thinkers360.
Business Book Ranking
Change Management Behaviour - Leadership of Change® Volume 6, listed among the 50 Books from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders to read in 2022.
Change Management Adoption - Leadership of Change® Volume 5, listed among year-to-date’s (Jul 2021) most popular books on business and technology from Thinkers360 member thought leaders.
Change Management Handbook - Leadership of Change® Volume 3, listed among the 50 Business and Technology Books from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders to read in 2021.
Change Management Pocket Guide - Leadership of Change® Volume 2, ranked within the top 50 Business and Technology Books (Jan 2020) from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders.
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