The Roles of Leadership

What defines leadership? Executives ask this question every time they choose a new leader or train their current leaders. Organizations must understand the fundamentals of leadership before making decisions about their leadership. Leaders are not created overnight. Becoming an effective leader involves considerable time and effort to hone the necessary skills and abilities. Training helps, but understanding the concept of leadership is critical.

From more than 12 years experience working with leaders in Fortune 500 companies and organizations around the world, Cornelius & Associates has determined that a leader must take on certain “roles” to be truly effective. The Role of a Visionary; The Role of Integrity, Honesty and Values; The Role of Releasing Potential and Energy; and The Role of Leading Change (Planned Change and Emergent Change).

While each role is unique, they are also interdependent. The skills leaders learn to perfect one role will also help leaders master the other roles. In issues of Impact, we will explore these leadership roles- what they are and how to hone your skills for each role.

The Role of Leading Change in the Organization

Leading a change initiative is one of the most difficult tasks a leader can face. It is a double-edged sword with many risks and opportunities. For most leaders, managing a change initiative is crucial role, but the responsibilities can widely vary depending on what type of change will be pursued.

Two Types of Change Processes

There are two types of change in an organization: planned change and “emergent” change. Planned change refers to initiatives that are driven “top-down” in an organization, while “emergent” change refers to a situation in which change can originate from any level in the organization.

The role of the leader is critical in both types of change. In a planned change initiative, the leader must have a clear vision and a plan that both involves people in the change and ensures there is a support infrastructure for the change. In an “emergent” change, the leader must create and foster a “readiness for change” culture – a culture that encourages and supports change that comes from “within” the organization.

In this article, we discuss the basic role of the leader in planned change initiatives. In the next issue we will discuss the role of the leader in creating a culture for “emergent” change.

The Role of the Leader in Planned Change

The leadership “hat” in planned change is a critical one to wear that includes two crucial responsibilities:

Communicating the vision for the change.
Establishing the support elements necessary for the change to be successful.

The Vision for Change

As we’ve presented in our previous leadership articles, the role of the leader in any organization is to set direction and inspire others to attain the goal. In the case of a change initiative, the leader must first be able to describe what the future will look like after the change. It is important for the leader to find a way to communicate the vision for the change in a way that will inspire people to act. The leader’s challenge is to communicate the change in positive terms so that people can rally around the vision for the future.

After the leader has determined a positive vision for the future, the next step is to successfully communicate that vision to all levels of the organization. There is a large difference between crafting a vision for the change, and communicating it effectively. One common problem most organizations face is there is not enough time spent communicating the vision for change. In his book, Leading Change (1996), John Kotter dramatically points out that the average leader under-communicates the vision by a huge factor. This means that any change initiative should have a good, formal communication plan in place before the change initiative begins. (Click here for a link to our previous Impact article describing formal communication plans in detail.)

When communicating the vision of the future, be sure to summarize the following points in the vision itself:

	Things that will stay the same
	Things that will be left behind
	New things that we will have that we've never had before

The leader is not only the chief spokesperson for the change vision, but also must ensure that all levels of the organization understand the rationale for the change and how we are going to go about implementing the change. The five critical elements that must be communicated to ensure understanding and awareness include:

	What is the change?
	Why are we doing it?
	How are we going to go about it?
	How long will it take us to do it?
	What will the role be for each department and each individual?

Establishing the Support Elements

The second responsibility for a leader of planned change is to ensure that the support elements that are necessary for the change to be successful have been installed. For most significant change initiatives, those support elements include the following:

A realistic project plan
The leader ensures that a step-by-step plan, usually entered into a project management software program, as well as a risk analysis and business case analysis have been produced in the planning phase.
An organization structure for managing the change
The leader must ensure the structure for implementing and managing the change is installed. The leader should establish a system that solicits involvement and ownership of key stakeholders. Typically, the organizational structure for doing so consists of a team approach. For large change projects, such as implementing an enterprise-wide software package, it is not unusual to have a cross-functional steering team, a sponsor, a project leader, and sub-teams, as needed.
Internal change agents
The leader identifies and orients a coalition of internal change agents. These agents will act as facilitators and “cheerleaders” of the change.
A formal communication plan
The leader creates a formal communications plan for the life of the change initiative. First, all key stakeholders must be identified. Then, for each stakeholder the leader develops the types of information necessary, the frequency of the information, the method of communication, and the responsible party for carrying out the communication.
A formal training plan
The leader identifies the new skills or training necessary for the change to be successful and establishes a formal training program to fulfill those goals. Often key stakeholders will need new skills in either bringing about the change or in operating in the new environment once the change is completed.
Barrier removal
The leader makes a concerted effort to first identify barriers in the environment that will inhibit or prevent the change, and then develops action steps to systematically remove the barriers. Barriers can include staffing (not enough people or release time to carry out the change), lack of budget, lack of management support, competing initiatives, etc.
A supportive and aligned management group
In many change efforts there is lack of alignment and support among the management group, which hinders the change process. The leader’s first responsibility is to ensure that his/her management team presents a united front about the change. Often the leader will insist that successful change performance is tied to the performance management system of the organization.
A system of periodic audits and feedback
In order to map progress against the change goals, as well as to help institutionalize the change, the leader must install an audit process, as she/he would for quality, customer service, or employee satisfaction purposes. Psychologically, it is important to build in a “quick win” or a “quick success” to help build momentum for the change.

Overcoming Resistance to Change

Through our years of working with organizations to implement change, we have found when we ask management groups the question-- “Do people resist change?”-- we usually get an immediate and resounding “YES.” We have found that if the leader paints and effectively communicates a positive vision and establishes the support elements listed above, resistance to change can be minimized.

One quick and easy model we use to help remember how to manage through change is the USEM™ model. The USEM™ model is actually a generalized performance model that can be applied to several types of organization situations. The following segment shows how this model can be applied to a change initiative.

To maximize a positive response to change you must have the following USEM™ parameters in place:

U = people must understand what we’re doing and why

S = people must have the knowledge and skills necessary to execute the change

E = we must remove barriers in the environment that will prevent the change from being successful

M = people must have motivation to change, i.e., they must want to help achieve the change

If the organization does a good job of putting in place the U, S, and E parameters, it is our experience that the motivation will follow. In other words, if people have the Understanding, Skills and proper Environment without barriers, then this will go a long way towards solving motivation and resistance issues.

The eight support elements listed above directly correlate with the USEM™ model. The first six elements address the U, S, and E factors, while the last two parameters directly influence the Motivation parameter.

Leading change in an organization can be a risk, but when the leader creates and communicates a positive vision and establishes the necessary support elements described in this article, the components of the USEM™ model are thus fulfilled, and a change initiative is less likely to experience resistance. Taking on the role of leading change in your organization is a step towards becoming a leader. Stay tuned for the next issue of Impact, where we will explore the Leadership Role of Leading Change in the Organization, Part II: Leading a “Readiness for Change” Culture.