Change Leadership

Two change leadership skills you can apply today

Markus Amanto — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:00:48 +0000

It is with change leadership skills as it is with other qualities of a good leader. Certainly some are born into environments that support the development of these skills, but in general they can learned and applied at any age for effective change leadership.

The basic change leadership competencies

To be utilize effective change leadership skills one should be familiar with concepts of pain and pleasure, which are the drivers of human behavior. Whenever we resist change, it is because on some level of our psychee we associate more pain to changing a behavior or situation than to not changing it.

An important aspect for a leader to manage change is therefore to facilitate the process of associating more pain to not changing and to associate pleasure to changing. This might require an assortment of different leadership skills, but the main being to have own experience of how these two drivers play out in life. As well as how they can be used as assisting change skills.

Change leadership skills include painting the picture

To assist the process of associating pain to not changing and pleasure to changing, traditional communication competencies are needed. Being able to communicate a clear picture and help people to see those images so they can feel and experience what you do. At the same time allowing them to find their own individual associations to pain and pleasure.

As mentioned elsewhere, good change leadership skills start with managing change well in your won persona. Change leadership competencies are born from own experiences.

Checklist for good change leadership

Markus Amanto — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:54:45 +0000

Become as comfortable as possible with uncertainty. The way you handle it in yourself will reflect in how you handle it in your leadership and there fore reflect itself in your group or team.
Remember that information is power. Empower your team members by providing them information. Even the information that there is no new information can be very useful.
Become familiar with some basic leadership and change models such as FIRO, Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation, and SOC, Sense Of Coherence.
Use the fact that you have two ears and one mouth to your advantage. Become a truly interested listener with the intention of improving the life of your team members.
Find out what you can about why this change is happening, make that reason as clear and meaningful as you can and then communicate it in your change leadership.
Arrange so that your team members know where to find support and training to be able to handle the change in a good way.
Admit your mistakes when you make them. Your team will not do as you say, but rather as you do. Daring to make mistakes without being ashamed is key, especially when it comes to organizational change.

A change leadership model

Markus Amanto — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:43:46 +0000

This model around change leadership came to be when a man named Aaron Antonowsky was doing a health study. He study women and menopause in Israel and part of his study group were women who had been confined to concentration camps during the second world war.

He found that several of these women were in good physical shape, surprisingly good shape considering what they would have had to endure. He became so intrigued that he studied this fact further a from his findings created a thesis about how we handle change.

He called it SOC, or Sense Of Coherence, and my view is that this model has several applications for change leadership.

About Sense of Coherence

SOC is built up of three different parts; meaningfulness, manageability and comprehensiveness. The higher and stronger the level of an individuals Sense of Coherence, the better the individuals ability to cope with change.

Meaningfulness

The first part in this change leadership model means to what degree the individual finds a meaning in what is happening. Does this make sense? If it is a terrible thing happening can I still create some meaning that makes sense out of it?

Comprehensiveness

Can I understand what is going on? Am I getting the kind of information I need to understand what is happening? And is it delivered in such a way to fit my preference of communication?

Manageability

Do I feel I have the tools, internal and external, do deal with the change? Do I feel I have access to the resources needed?

The applications of this change leadership model

So how is this of use in your skillful change leadership? Well, it might be obvious in some ways but here are a few suggestions for you as a leader that I can think of right off the bat:

Make sure you communicate the reasons behind the change (if they are available to you, otherwise find them or discuss them with your group at least)
When you communicate them make sure they are communicated in a way that is easy to understand for each member of your group. Ultimately adapt the information to each style of learning but least make it so a child could understand it if needed.
Help members of your group get their questions answered and have the knowledge where they can get more information, help och support. Provide trainings if needed or suitable

Secrets of Organizational Change Leadership

Markus Amanto — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:33:43 +0000

Are there really secrets to organizational change leadership? Actually I do not think they are hidden in the true meaning of the word but in the years I have working with organizational leadership and change it is easy to think so.

There are some basic skills that I think any leader would benefit from in this arena, but many times these leadership skills are lost along the way. Either we do not get the proper chance to learn them or we learn them and forget them in the everyday rush of business life.

The fundamentals of organizational leadership and change

One of the key aspects when it come to leading your group or organization through the changing times is to know where the group is at in its growth or development as a group.

If the change is already happening most likely the group retreats to its early developmental stages and has need for a direct leadership that provides direction, information and clear frameworks.

At the same time, once you have provided that type of leadership to a satisfying degree, then with a more mature group you need to be aware that you need to change your leadership style. This is key in terms of efficiency when it comes to organizational leadership and change.

In the latter case you need to be more of a facilitator of the things that need to happen, giving more responsibility to the individual and to the group. With an even more mature group yet, you become more of a coach and somebody who provides a vision of what the world could look like at the end of the change process.

Leading with style and you better make it flexible

To be able to adapt your style of leading is as vital as ever when it comes to organizational change leadership.

About Change Leadership

Markus Amanto — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:16:52 +0000

That things are changing is pretty much a given and therefore change leadership should also be a part of any leaders essential skills. A succesful change leadership most often stems from the persons own ability to handle change. In any sound leader personal experience should be the foundation of any attempts to lead others.

When to use change leadership

Changing circumstances come in many different forms at many different times. Somebody once told me that around 90 percent of the cells in our body are exchanged during a regular year. I always thought that to be an interesting fact for people who are afraid of change.

Good change leadership should start long before the change itself happens. By building trusting and respectful relationships the leader is so much more well prepared to handle situations of change with those he or she is set to lead.

How to apply leadership in times of change

Being a good listener is to me the foremost skill of any leader and on the topic of change leadership this no different. Being able to understand different peoples needs, to make them feel seen and heard is essential.

Ask questions and be ready to listen. Questions like; how are you doing? How do you experience this? What do you think of the situation provide useful information for you to lead more effectively.

More about leadership and change

The intention is to continually build this site out with more information about change leadership. Please be more than welcome to read through the different pages on this site to find more information hopefully useful for your with leadership and change including practical tips and advice.