Shalamon Duke | How Can an Individual Become A Successful Change Leader.

1. How Can an Individual Become A Successful Change Leader? The core of creative leadership in any modern organization lies in its willingness to do things differently. A company is unlikely to succeed in today’s ever-evolving time if it cannot put its resources into an effective change management process. This process commands the necessity of a Change Leader for the team to envisage a great vision that goes beyond traditional practices and coping with existing challenges.

2. In order to become a successful change leader, an individual must have first and foremost clear know-how of the business. Managing change involves several factors – purpose, communication strategy, participation, implementation planning, stakeholder management, resourcing, training… so on and so forth.

3. The critical Change Leadership Competencies are mainly categorized in 3 C’s of Change; namely, Communication, Collaboration, and Commitment. • An effective Change Leader should be able to communicate a compelling business case especially in the initiating period of the process ensuring a strategic awareness among the team regarding the purpose, objectives, responsibilities, and accountabilities. A change leader must first hold the deference of the team members to be able to sell his/her vision and reason the expected outcomes and generate support from his organization for long-term success.

4. Coalition building is another imperative aspect to the flair of an individual as a change leader for no change can be brought about on its own. Collaborations include demonstrating strong facilitation, influence and collaboration skills necessary to build support, remove barriers and reduce resistance to change. The change leader must be able to enhance/ build the systems and structures necessary to drive the required change, reward desired behaviors and prevent organizational backsliding. It means having senior members on board that can liaise with different departments and bring different skills and talents on one platform. A collective effort, with accountability distributed throughout the organizations, raises the profile of the task strategy and eases the effort of the team overall.

5. A commitment at the end of the change leader himself ensures exemplifying the expected discipline from the team. To be a successful change leader, you must make sure that your own beliefs and behaviors support change, too. Change is difficult more than different, but leaders who negotiated it successfully were resilient and persistent, and willing to step outside their comfort zone. This commitment shows in the better devotion of their time to the change effort and single-minded focus on the big picture.

6. The effective change leader must be able to marshal the resources and competencies necessary to support the change, adapt to challenges, and keep the change project on schedule and in the budget. The change leader should follow a formalized change strategy or framework incorporating the methods, tools and technical assistance necessary to lead the process and coach the people through change.

7. Finally, a successful change leader must be in favor of continuous learning and never stopping at a success. Every true change leader holds a non-assumption attitude. They never assume they have all the answers. They asked lots of questions and gathered formal and informal feedback. The input and feedback allowed them to make continual adjustments during the change.