Manager to Leader: Promoting Change

As you move from manager to leader a big part of the role becomes promoting and managing change. In order to be effective as a leader you have to be able to have your team or organization buy into the change that you are promoting (such as a new strategy, process, or technology), engage them in the effort and guide them through to accepting the change. What are the key avenues for promoting change as a leader?

• Understanding the transition that employees will be going through - anyone experiencing a change typically goes through three phases (as described by William Bridges in his book "Transitions"). He says that there is a letting go phase where people are fearful, uncomfortable, and questioning the change, a neutral zone phase where there is time for creativity and innovation as the past is gone and the new is not quite here yet, and a begin the new phase where employees begin to accept the change, and perform to their initial levels again.
• Get feedback - as your are going through a change it is important to solicit and listen to feedback from your employees. There may be things that you need to change or tweak as a result of their input. Also you can understand whey they may be resisting a change and take actions to help them move through that resistance.
• Model the new behavior - as you are initiating change in the organization make sure that you are exhibiting the behaviors that you would like the organization to shift into. Employees will do more of what you do than what you say and look to you as a model for the new habits.

Promoting change can be hard as people often are uncomfortable with it, but the more that you understand and take the actions above the more you will be acting like a leader. What changes are you and your organization going through today? What can you do to promote the change more effectively?