How Smart Leaders Effectively Lead and Manage Change

Innovation calls for disruption. Disruption leads to change, and sometimes, uncertainty. That’s why smart leaders develop the skills and behaviors necessary to effectively lead and manage change.

Evaluations of corporate change reveal that the major factor in successful change management is internal to the company, not an influence from the outside. This applies to the organization, as well as the top leader.

According to a Harvard Business Review article by organizational change expert Edith Onderick-Harvey, the leader’s behavior is the most critical distinguishing element determining success or failure.  The way that change is managed can ruin the most passionate dreams of accomplishing it.

Studies show that a vast majority of projects involving change don’t succeed. The estimates vary between 60 and 80 percent. Failures in the change process result in large wastes of capital and time, and may send a company backwards from the position it started in.

Effective Communication

In the organizations where I consult, some necessary changes are minor, while others are major. Mergers or acquisitions rank in the major-change category, as does rebranding or downsizing. Regardless of the size of the initiative, the most important aspect of organizational change is keeping everyone involved and informed. That requires meaningful and continuous communication.

Leaders who want to achieve successful change must have strong communication skills that are people-oriented. Employees who comment on their organization’s inability to implement change point to how they were not properly informed, directed or trained regarding the change process. Their leaders attempted to implement change from behind the scenes, hoping everyone would fall in line. This doesn’t happen naturally.

Generally, most people like a predictable and reliable environment, where personal comfort and familiarity provide a sense of safety. For many, change presents risks that take them out of their comfort zones. Risks threaten positions of influence, authority, competency or rewards. Change poses a potential for failure, or the possibility of being worse off than before. That’s why change is resisted.

Feeling connected to leadership can help staff overcome fear of change. Leaders must reach out to their people to convey the need for change with rationale and reasons. They need to set the vision, tout the benefits and lay out the course in a way that compels people to buy into the program. Leaders who effectively implement change are focused on their people as much as the change itself.

Communicative Behavior to Lead and Manage Change

Effective change agents understand the perceptions and impacts of change. They care about people and engage them from beginning to end, involving them in every step. This includes the following, all calling for communicative behavior:

• Introduction with compelling presentations that lay out the need for change and how it will be accomplished
• Assurance that the needs of the employees are vitally important, and their roles will be enhanced or improved
• Continuous updates on how things are going and what the timeline looks like
• Encouragement for people to stay positive and enthused
• Requests for feedback and opportunities to answer questions, address concerns and revise the plan if needed
• Empowerment of others to engage in and contribute to the process

What do you think? What is your approach to lead and manage change? You can call me at 561-582-6060, let’s talk. And as always, I can be reached here, or on LinkedIn.