I have come to the conclusion over time that most of the definitions of leadership and management are confusing, rather than helpful. Dependent on which text you read you find elements crossing over from one to another of the two concepts. When we talk about change particularly the crossover is more evident. Is this important or even relevant to change? Well in my opinion it is, because of the recurring nature of change, the fact that it is never done and dusted for any length of time, means that people can quickly tire of it and therefore, for me, they need leadership more than they need management. Ahh, you say.. but what do you mean by leadership? Well rather than create a long list of attributes, traits or actions of leaders, I thought I would cut to the chase and give you the single most important issue for me…. People.

Most change management texts are about the process of getting change implemented, the systems, the plans, the stages and the methodology. All of the above are important but not as critical as the people element of change. Leadership for me is about helping people through change.

Therefore the term is about people more than about processes and tasks and systems. Leaders inspire others to follow and others to do something themselves. Again this is about personal change. You can manage others quite clinically, without getting emotionally involved by following the book and doing as policy says. You cannot, at least in my experience, lead without getting emotionally involved in how people react, without taking it personally, without having a real stake in the outcomes at heart.

Now a quick google will reveal lists of the difference and similarity between leadership and management, but for a quick definition, look to leaders lead people through change, managers ensure processes are followed.

Who do you want in these turbulent times at the top of your organisation, a leader of people or a manager of processes?

There is one that comes to mind Frances Hesselbein, one of the leaders of the girl scouts and the one to transform the entire organization.   Her theme in the article in Leader to Leader is about changing hearts, changing minds to changing lives.   Positive change is about just that informing the heart which then works on the inner workings of the mind.   Once the mind is transformed the outcome can be lives changed, perhaps thousands.   There are many leaders who had a vision for great change and some of those visions are alive today.

People like Mother Teresa who was able to transform the ugliest of slums to a place of hope (for some).  

Who are the change leaders you admire?

Here’s one:

One of the best examples of a leader with purpose was the late  David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. I met him in early 1969 when he was the new Deputy Secretary of Defense and I was the special assistant to the Secretary of Navy. Packard had taken a leave from HP to serve his country. A big, powerful, yet modest man, he immediately impressed me with his openness, his sincerity, and his commitment to make a difference through his work.

Are you making a difference for others in your sphere of influence?

Now is a busy time for people who work in organizational change.  As the chaos of the markets settles down from shock to resigned action, there will be a need to assist organizations re energize and rebuild.  Many organizations will react to the downturn with reduced headcount,  or compressed organizational structures.  In my experience, and I am sure that of many who work in change management, a new structure does not alway work very well  however well planned on paper.  It’s into this space that organizational change specialists step to assist the re energizing of the business – the process of getting the energy flowing again,  in  a positive and productive direction.

If you are a survivor of the corporate night of the long knifes then giving your all is not always the first concern. Keeping a low profile , head down and out of sight is many’s natural and understandable  reaction.  It’s always the tallest corn that gets cut first as the old adage goes.  If this is the case how will our organizations innovate, thrive and really survive? You need peoples freely given effort to get an organization really buzzing and really competing – that will not come to be when people are anxious and afraid to contribute.

So what has this got to do with a career in change?  Well history tells us that the situation we are in now is not new, the scale may be larger than we have experienced for a while but the situation is not in itself new.  Change can be managed in a positive and engaging way – or an imposed and brutal way – there is a choice.  What many organizations are lacking is people who see change as their role , their vocation, their territory.  If we had more really committed change agents,  change managers,  change executives, change leaders then we would I am sure have more positive and  well implemented change.  We rarely accept amateur accountants or people who want to dabble in medicine, but change is an area of work we think we all know  a bit about and so can have a bash at.

So why don’t you think about a career in change and become an expert in demand – as any really good practitioner is at the  moment.  It doesn’t stop you having another role within the organization, but being an expert in positive change management is never going to go out of fashion.

Ashridge have created a short video of Jonas and myself giving you a taste of what’s in the book. Of course you need to buy it to get the details or come and see us at one of the conferences we speak at. However, a small taster is available here.

Over the last few days I have been presenting a case at two business schools in Europe, once to marketing masters students and once to executives on a leadership programme. In both programmes the participants, when presented with a case about complex organisational change, focused when challenged to define the crux of the problem on either product based issues or what I would call systems based issues. Niether group recognised the real issue at heart here was the lack of engagement of a key group of people. The case is available here is you want to read the background, ww.lums.lancs.ac.uk/research/centres/hr/   filed under working papers, you can download it if you are so inclined. What interested me, and I see it so often, is how educated and successful leaders focus on the systems or products, or engineering, or technical solutions when looking for change in an organisation. These are important issues, and not to be ignored, but they are of little consequence if the people are not engaged in the direction you are going. The fact of the matter is that a group of willing and engaged people can make a bad process work or an inefficient system more efficient. The best systems or processes will not function well if the people are not interested in making them so.  Once again what I’m seeing is that leaders somehow by default go to the technical or systems challenges rather than lead people  – why don’t we call them technicians, rather than mislead people about what their role is about ? However there is good news. Most of the skills and approaches to leading people through change are things that most intelligent people can learn, if they want to. Engagement is not a nice to have in change management — it’s the critical element – without it there will be spilt milk and crying.

We sometimes get into the debate about is leadership really required to lead change – do you need the top team bought in or can change be driven from the bottom up? It’s an interesting debate and one that never really gets resolved. I don’t intend to try, but will add my two penny worth of opinion here.

You don’t need the top executive completely sold on change, as long as they don’t inadvertently sabotage it with other issues. I have worked in organizations where the top team are giving support, in a sign off and sleep sort of way, but allow the senior management team to get on with re energizing the organization. It’s not for the faint of heart and it always takes longer, because you have two constituencies to swing opinion in, those below and also those above in the hierarchy.

If you do get top team support, fantastic ! But again, it’s not a guarantee of success, just a higher profile if you do and a bigger blame to shoulder if you don’t. When there is failure to deliver heads will roll, but it seems generally lower than the board room. So my advice and council to those of you involved in delivering change when the top team is less than enthusiastic, is to persevere.  Lay out the benefits to the organization very clearly when pitching to the board, and use the same solid benefits when selling to the people who are going to be in your delivery team. If you can get board buy in, not necessarily leadership, you can galvanise people around you to get things done. Your confidence in tackling the board will not go unnoticed and it will affect how others view you.  Taking action, sometimes above your fighting weight in the organization, wins respect in many situations.  As I said earlier not for the faint of heart.

One of my first and most influential bosses once told me ” if you want to be a change agent, be prepared to be fired every day of your career”. Wise woman Annie – getting things done can mean getting to the root of the issue and it can feel like you are treading on egg shells. Well we all know that to make an omelet you need to crack a few shells…

Change is a participation sport, there is no room for standing on the sidelines observing and giving critical commentary. It always starts with the indvidual. From here you can build change in teams and if you get enough teams aligned then change will happen within the organization.

So given that you are the catalyst for change in the organization, what are you going to do? Our model  of change, 3e is a framework not only for leading change, but also for leadership development. People and   not or Organizations.

Think about the concepts contained in the framework, see the cube, and think about each one in relation to your own ability – so how much competence do you have – scale 1-5, how much confidence do you instill in yourself and others 1-5 etc etc. This will give you some idea of the starting point, the higher you rate across the grid the more likely you are to possess the abilities and energy to make change happen. Of course you should know more about how the model is constructed and the specific definitions and meanings behind each concept, but alas to get those in detail you must order the book or contact us for other ways to develop your leadership.