How to Become a Change Leader

From program evolutions to equity refreshes to process improvements, change is a perpetual—and necessary—part of the workplace, especially for those working to imbue equity throughout our organizations. However, successfully managing the process of change can be an uphill journey, and implementing even small shifts requires careful planning and collaboration. According to Harvard Business Review, about 70 percent of workplace change initiatives fail due to convoluted and unfocused processes.

Regardless of title or seniority, anyone can be a change leader in their organization. But know that a change leader’s role is not to suggest the “best” ideas or unilaterally implement shifts in practice. Their role is to weave together an inclusive, proactive, and flexible approach that unites their organization in a common vision for a better future. It’s a role that also requires you to understand that the approach you take to manage the ups and downs of a transition can be as important as the shifts you seek to realize.

So, how can you successfully navigate and lead change at your organization? Here’s what you should consider when embarking on the journey of achieving transformative change.

Lean into your knowledge of your workplace

Though every organization has a unique history, context, and process for its approach to change management, change occurs in large and small ways at all levels. This is why you first need to define how change is most commonly initiated at your organization so you can begin to strategize how you can best launch your efforts.

• Are there existing organized avenues for proposing changes, or does your organization handle change more informally?
• Are day-to-day actions and behaviors driven by policy or by habits?
• How are changes communicated?
• How do people behave when change is implemented?
• Are change initiatives driven by values or by data?
• Does change happen incrementally or in one fell swoop?

Anchor change to core values and envision your future

An organization’s values, principles and mission are the guiding currents of all their work. That’s why directly tying changes to a process, practice, or program to the organization’s core motivations and vision is key to successfully making shifts happen. It communicates to your stakeholders that, despite disruption or discomfort, the effort will enable your organization to get closer to achieving its goals. This can also help build allyships and peer support. Perhaps a proposed change streamlines the workflow of one department but incidentally creates a new hurdle for another. Connecting the change to a key value can unite your organization as one whole rather than disparate parts. This will enable stakeholders across your organization to feel invested, excited to brainstorm solutions to any negative side effects, and willing to work towards that change with empathy and understanding.

Another great way to rally excitement around adopting a change initiative is to use a future-focused perspective. Your responsibility as a change leader is to lead people through their own experience of the transition, bearing in mind the context in which they’re operating and at the pace they’re ready to move. Keep your finger on the pulse of the current state of your organization’s processes, performance, and objectives to identify the framework needed to successfully communicate with stakeholders across your organization. Assessing the gap between your organization’s current and desired state will help you determine the most urgent changes needed and develop a clear and inspiring vision for the future in collaboration with those who would be impacted most.

Approach resistance as an opportunity

Transitions are often uncomfortable processes that can stir up complicated feelings—fear, doubt, confusion, and even anger—across an organization. These feelings may come from a lack of understanding, a sense of loyalty to how an organization has always done things, or a belief that the proposed changes will negatively impact a role, department, or the organization itself. As a result, coworkers may engage in distancing behaviors like withdrawing from or undermining the change initiative. Though resistance can be demoralizing, understand that resistance is an opportunity for providing clarity, fostering collaboration, and encouraging growth.

To build allyship and consensus and increase adoption of a change initiative, it’s critical to build a dedicated process for investigating and addressing the ripple effects of a change before, during and after its implementation. Listen to your colleagues. Why are they struggling with the change? What can you explain further? Are there opportunities to tweak your plan to address concerns and encourage full buy-in?

Change leaders can build trust by communicating honestly and openly with the stakeholders who will be most affected. Create opportunities for constructive and honest discussions throughout the process, like listening sessions where concerns can be openly shared and anonymous feedback forms, and ensure people know how their feedback will be incorporated into the process.

Resistance is an inevitable part of almost every change initiative. Addressing sources of resistance proactively, transparently, and with compassion allows change leaders to alleviate concerns, pinpoint hidden impacts, and move forward with confidence and support.

Measure impact and celebrate success

To ensure that your change initiative has been successful, you have to effectively evaluate its impact. It’s important to identify the indicators of success early in the process so you can determine what kind of data will be most helpful in illustrating how a change initiative has affected your organization and how you will gather that data—be it by surveys, interviews, or something else. Deciding how frequently you want to collect data and whether impact should be measured internally, externally, or both are also important. The answers to these questions depend on the nature of the change initiative but without a doubt, it’s key to decide on the cadence and frequency of assessing impact.

Change never happens in a silo. As circumstances, priorities or resources shift, your change initiative should be nimble enough to shift too. Flexibility within and beyond the process of launching, managing and maintaining an initiative is a huge part of success. Listen to the data, your colleagues and your organization’s needs. Patience is another important element—change can take a lot of time. Stakeholders may move on to other projects or organizations, new urgencies may crop up, and the long-term vision might evolve. However, patience, persistence, and aligning change initiatives with your organization’s core values and mission will help ensure that, eventually, there will be success.

And with success comes celebration! Be sure to identify and uplift milestones big and small. Acknowledging incremental achievements will help you maintain the momentum and morale needed for long-term change processes, and we should always create more space for celebration, camaraderie, and joy.

Image: Ové Pictures for Fine Acts