Are you a change driver?
Change can be seen as positive or negative, exciting or daunting, necessary or unnecessary, easy or difficult, and often all at once.
Change Leadership is something we have to learn about, as is as complex as driving a company, but small or big the organization I have to lead, I’m always exercising my Change leadership style and the people in my team is observing how I perform in many ways, they will buy in the change if they buy in on my leadership.
In a team, or in a project or department the leaders are in a unique and prestigious position. They are the leaders who must convey the change vision to others, help their employees to manage the emotions associated with change and transition, and influence new change agents for coordination and commitment that allow the change effort to come to fruition.
Change leadership requires leaders, and the organization as a whole, to address beliefs and mental attitudes and develop practices and behaviors that help people adapt to change. To be a good change leader, you have to develop certain areas, certain attributes that are very important to the success of your people and the change you want to drive.
Change starts with understanding the situation and listening a lot. To achieve positive results in a change process, someone who leads typically has to develop the following attributes:
- It is essential to persevere in conditions of uncertainty. This is the common ground of change, it is uncertainty and in today's VUCA world it is even more important, it is one of the main attributes to achieve the necessary transformation that a change process requires.
- Maintains confidence in ambiguous situations. The driver of change is the one who brings confidence, especially at a time when everything seems to be in chaos, because we are starting or just at the beginning of the change process, where many people are still in the denial room or the confusion room, as I explained in one of my previous posts.
- On many occasions it happens that you cannot get to certain information, simply because it is not available or there are no instructions at all, and you have to build it anyway by making certain decisions to go ahead and work comfortably in an environment where information and instructions are clear and available to the team.
- If you want to be a change driver, support change initiatives as soon as possible and get out of negative rooms as quickly as you can. Build your early adopters and get it done, if your people understand that you are in standby or sitting mode they will not easily follow you when you want to start as they want to see you head on by being first and even more innovative than the coming change.
- A change driver is a teacher, helps others understand the need for change and is positive about it. He/she moves quickly, adapts and improves the original idea without asking for anything, only for the benefit of the people.
To promote change, I recommend Mindfulness and the practice of meditation, since that is where we learn on our own to observe, identify and manage the process of change that is happening to us while we are meditating. Every time my mind wonders and wants to interrupt that moment, a process of change is taking place in my mind and to train the ability to keep the mind calm I have to develop most of the attributes that I mentioned before.
Do you think you have the necessary attributes to lead a change or do you consider that you need to work on one in particular? Do you agree with me that mediation practice helps you to better drive change processes?
I will read your comments and remember to share this information with whoever you think may be useful.