As we draw to the conclusion of our course,
let's recapitulate certain key points on what it takes to be an effective change leader.
Most of us start our careers as individual contributors,
and then we gradually move to leadership roles.
No matter what specific leadership role we take up,
we would most certainly be required to bring about changes, small and large.
All organizations notice change and the initiatives of change.
If we're able to bring about changes smoothly,
we'll gain recognition as high performers.
And this will help us grow in the organization.
Leading change effectively requires mastery of soft skills.
As the cliché goes, the actual practice of soft is not easy;
it is really hard.
What makes it hard to make change happen?
It is because change involves both the rational system and the social system.
For instance, it is through attention to the rational
system that we develop a strong value proposition,
choose right response to user pain points and make high-quality decisions.
To gain acceptance or buy-in, we need attention to the social system.
As we have seen, decision effectiveness is a product of quality of our decisions
and its acceptance by relevant stakeholders.
Let us begin with decision quality, or logic for change.
This is one of the two parameters of effectiveness.
It is quite obvious that there is little to be gained through good management
or leadership if we are pursuing a wrong change agenda.
In our role as agenda setters,
we have to first deal with the question of why change.
This task requires us to help change
recipients' look at the organization from outside-in.
Often, organizations are excessively internally-focused.
When we are successful,
we may suffer from success syndrome,
which makes us insular.
So, a key change leadership task is to promote a culture of awareness.
We cannot change what we do not even understand.
Once we understand the larger environment,
we develop clarity on what we want to achieve to change.
The vision describes where we want to go;
strategy describes how we will get there.
An effective leader makes the agenda-setting process
participative, rigorous, and open.
The idea is to ensure that we not only make the right choice to change agenda,
but also have it enthusiastically owned by people.
How do effective change leaders address the social system?
We will categorize the key skills and mindsets under three teams:
leader as individual, leader as relationship builder,
and leader as influencer and collaborator.
First, leader as individual.
Effective leaders approach change from a want-to rather than have-to mode.
When the locus of focus is external, you experience pressure.
When it is internal focus, you experience excitement.
Leadership is a choice and a calling;
it is related to the self-image of wanting to make a positive difference.
The mindsets of seeing, caring,
and socially-conscious behavior follow from the want-to mindset.
Effective leaders exhibit solution mindset.
Instead of throwing up problems,
they draw on their domain knowledge,
skills and willpower to create compelling proposals with careful attention
to benefits, costs, and risk elements.
Even as they focus on larger change goals,
they don't lose sight of the current reality.
When they suggest ideas, they consider both intended
and unintended consequences and develop appropriate monitoring mechanisms
and backup plans.
Finally, through their emotional intelligence,
they remain focused and energetic,
and also create a positive climate for others.
Next, let us examine leader as relationship-builder.
Experience shows that many fine ideas have been killed by leaders who got
so preoccupied with content issues that they ignored trust and relationship issues.
Change evokes feelings of loss, anxiety, and even fear.
These emotions have to be effectively dealt with.
To effectively deal with emotional reactions,
leaders do several things.
Listening and openness to other's perspectives,
attention to including and involving relevant others,
openness and positivity, calmness to choose the right response,
patience and persistence to stay engaged,
and remaining focused on key change goals
and intentions, even if there is turbulence around.
They deal with trust and relationship concerns through their commitment to conversations,
willingness to start small with experimental mindset,
self-confidence to deal with occasional setbacks,
and continually working on building positive relationships.
Finally, the role of leader as influencer
and collaborator is very important for being an effective change agent.
Change involves multiple stakeholders,
and effective change leaders develop a mental map of where the different stakeholders
currently are and where they should be in terms of support or resistance.
They invest in understanding the stakeholder
concerns and proactively consider options for addressing issues.
In a social system, since bystanders constitute a large majority,
effective leaders proactively reach out to them,
and, rather than adopting the broadcast mode of just making presentations,
they approach communication from a brokering mode to get people
to want to change and to make it easier for them to change.
Effective leaders recognize that influencing
without authority is quite central to being a change agent.
They appreciate that people change for their reasons,
and so the right mindset would be to approach them as customers.
What works with one customer may be totally inappropriate for another.
Effective leaders, therefore, build a wide repertoire of influence methods.
These include use of logic and reason, persuasion through persistence,
personal qualities of humility, faith and self-belief,
effective communication and storytelling, creating ownership, shared vision,
and building personal and professional credibility.
Our discussions in this video present a summary of change leadership competencies.
It serves as a useful checklist to examine
where we are strong and what are our improvement priorities.
On the basis of self-reflection,
we could choose a couple of focus areas for leadership development
and pursue our learning agenda with a strong commitment.
We live in a knowledge society;
and knowledge represents the head of an organization.
We have talked about several values and mindsets,
and these represent the heart.
As we bring our discussion to a close, let us ponder over the following words:
"What is greater than knowledge?"
asked the mind. "A heart that can see and care," whispered the soul.
Ramnarayan SubramaniamClinical Professor
