Leading Change: Part I

Change is inevitable. It is our responses to change that dictate happiness and success, but governing our personal responses to change may be easier said than done.  Many of the factors surrounding change may be outside of our control. Leaders, on the other hand, have a key role and responsibility to lead change in their organizations and teams in a way that sets everyone up for success. Effective leaders are aware that change is difficult and that intentional strategy for leading change is a necessary component of good leadership. This blog series will focus on perspectives and strategies that leaders can adopt to effectively manage change.

Why Change?

Impetus for change can come from external forces. External forces are beyond one’s control and the change must happen regardless of feelings about the change or resistance. Here are a few examples of external forces driving change:

• During the pandemic, the spread of the disease and laws enacted to decrease the impact of the pandemic affected people’s ability to congregate in person resulting in remote work and distance learning and required implementation of public safety protocols such as wearing masks and social distancing.
• Technology advances and deprecation of old technology requires people to learn and adjust to new technology. For example, most landline telephones have been replaced by voice over IP (VoIP) applications.
• Enactment or retraction of laws can affect policies and procedures. For example, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the legality of affirmative action policies in college admissions.
• Environmental concerns or events can drive change. After Hurricane Katrina, the government and many industries implemented reform to respond to the devastating natural disaster in hopes of improving future responses to natural disasters.

In contrast, internal forces that drive change stem from individuals or groups seeing a need for change and desiring to implement it. A CEO may have a new vision for their company that results in changes throughout the organization. Because this change is internal to the company and the changes are made at the behest of leadership, it is considered an internal change, even if employees of the company feel as if they have little to no control in respect to the change.

Strategy for Leading Change

Developing a strategy for leading change may look different depending on whether the driver of the change is internal or external. However, it is in a leader’s best interest to leverage models for change management to help facilitate changes in their teams or organization. There is no one-size-fits-all model for change management. Kotter’s 8-step change model is a great model for leading change from internal forces. The ADKAR model is a great addition for creating structure in the implementation of other change models.  A savvy leader will use a blend of models or leverage different models under different circumstances.
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In this blog series, common strategies among the various change models will be highlighted to help leaders identify areas of improvement and opportunities for increased strategy when leading change.