Change Management and Leadership Development Have Essays

Change Management and Leadership Development Have Essays Change Management and Leadership Development Have to Mesh Ryan W. QuinnRobert E. Quinn JANUARY 07, 2016 Leadership development and change management tend to be top priorities for many organizations. In spite of this, a majority of organizations tend to fall far short of their goals for both. One major reason organizations struggle is because they treat both leadership development and change management as separate rather than interrelated challenges. Cultural changes cannot happen without leadership, and efforts to change culture are the crucible in which leadership is developed. For better results, organizations should coordinate their leadership development and change management efforts, approaching them as one and the same. True leadership involves deviating from cultural expectations in ways that inspire others to choose to follow. What's more, leadership is not the sole responsibility of the C-suite. Managers at all levels of an organization must overcome resistance if genuine cultural change is to occur. Thus, change initiativeswhich require a deviation from a dominant set of norms and behaviorsare the best learning environments for star managers to develop leadership skills, as well as a necessary component of a successful culture-change initiative. How then, should organizations go about integrating their change management and leadership development initiatives? We recommend an approach that is both top-down and bottom-up. The bottom-up part of the integrated development and change process requires potential leaders throughout the organization to engage in a process of learning how to enact a desired change in an organization's culture in the everyday experiences of organizational life. For example, one company suddenly found itself audited at the request of their largest client and were told that they needed to change their accounting procedures. In response, many employees insisted that the changes could not be made by the demanded deadline. They were impeded by cultural beliefs around how quickly the organization could mobilize and complete complex tasks. Janet, a member of the task force assigned to handle the requirements of the audit, was participating in leadership development training at the time. Using a leadership tool we developed called the fundamental state of leadership, she decided to reach out to employees who had a stake in the new requirements to understand their perspectives (rather than wait for others with more authority to tell her what to do). She gathered new information and discovered their fears, while simultaneously coming to the realization that the deadline could be met. With this new understanding, she was able to help other employees question their beliefs and come up with creative ways to streamline the accounting procedures so as to meet the deadlines. As part of a class assignment from her leadership training, she also reflected on the experience and used her own (and others') reflections to inform her subsequent plans and actions. Eventually, more and more of her colleagues began to accept the importance of the accounting changes and their accompanying deadlines, and were participating in creative action. Their actions led to bottom-up change: the emerging culture and accounting policies could not have been planned in advance, but came from the ideas and actions of motivated employees and were uniquely suited to the local challenges they faced. Janet, however, was more than just a change agent in this one situation. Her planning, acting, reflectingand planning againdemonstrated true leadership. Buta bottom-up process isunlikely to work unless it is also embedded in a top-down learning process. A top-down process creates structure and motivation for employees to maintain engagement in the change/leadership development process. If done well, it also provides emotional and social support potential leaders, because deviating from cultural expectations can be a lonely endeavor. A successful top-down process begins with executives clarifying desired results for change management/leadership programs. For example, executives may want to change accounting procedures or inspire creativity in order to become more efficient, as in Janet'scompany. Or they may want to lower barriers between departments or create financial stewardship throughout the organization. The goal depends on the organization and its situation, but what is important is that it is specific (ideally, with a measurable outcome) and accepted by all members of the executive team. Once the goal is clear and accepted, executives can identify potential leaders throughout the organization to engage in the leadership development/change management process. These may be