In an increasingly competitive and changing business environment, your organisation needs a champion for change. Someone who will drive and manage change, anticipate and respond effectively to roadblocks, understand cultural dynamics and engage your team.
Could it be you? Contrary to popular opinion a change leader doesn’t need to be at the top of the company or even within the management team (though it certainly does help!). Here are six signs that you – or someone on your team could be a change leader.
1. Strong desire to improve
A change leader is not interested in business as usual; they’re interested in business as unusual. They look for ways to continually improve to stay ahead of the game. Their focus is to build capacity and capability, improve efficiency and increase profit to create a better, higher performing organisation.
2. Adaptable
Change leaders understand that change is the key to staying relevant and competitive in the marketplace. They can identify needs, capitalise on new markets and make moves to stay ahead of trends to help an organisation change before they need to. Change leaders don’t just respond to change; they are responsible for it.
3. Communicates openly
While change leaders are champions of change, they are also aware and sensitive to the effects it has on the team and minimise it through unreserved and straightforward communication.
A real change leader wants to share the benefits, risks and potential problems of change in a positive light for collaborative problem-solving, and ensure that the concerns of their team are addressed quickly to build a culture of transparency.
4. Persuasive
Being a charismatic and persuasive leader can certainly help to win the confidence of your team and make the process of staff and management buy-in a little easier. Putting forward strong and persuasive arguments can also help when facing obstacles, roadblocks or employees who are becoming disengaged from the change process.
5. Process-Orientated
A change leader will often have a very methodical approach to change seeing it as a process and not an occurrence. This approach only deepens the confidence of the change leader and provides a greater sense of calm across the organisation, bringing an element of known to the unknown. This process-orientated style can also help the change leader ensure that team members rule with their head instead of their emotions.
6. Willingness to make hard and unpopular decisions
While a change leader will listen to and value the different perspectives, thoughts, concerns and ideas of others during the decision-making process, they are also able to make the hard and sometimes unpopular decisions needed to move the organisation forward, and will hold the team accountable to them without hesitation to maintain momentum.
Need help finding or developing a change leader for your organisation? Call us today on (07) 3838 1388.
