Introduction
- The management of change is often directly linked to the role of a strategic leader.
- Leadership is the process of influencing an organization in its efforts towards achieving an aim or goal
- Change agents or change champions provide the leadership role.
- The leader‘s roles include creating vision, empowering people, building teamwork, and communicating the vision.
- The qualities of an effective leader can be summarized as being visionary, skilled, competent, delegative, motivative, analytical, persistent, enduring and flexible.
Leadership competencies
- A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don‘t want to do and like it.
- Changes in organizations are more and more common and appear at faster pace and employees are expected to be even more adaptable.
- Leaders play an important role in setting an example for all those values, behaviours and considerations expected from employees.
- Leaders have to ensure that changes in an organization are accepted and implemented in a way resulting not only in better job performance but also in general understanding and satisfaction of all.
- Leadership competencies for successful change management can be categorized as:
- Cognitive,
- Functional, and
- Social abilities and skills
- Cognitive competencies Include divergent thinking, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, strategic thinking, analytical skills, and numerical abilities
- Functional competencies include language and communication skills, technological skills (IT, media etc.), multicultural competencies (knowledge of a general and other cultures, foreign languages, etc.), learning abilities and personal development, career planning skills, managerial skills, and decision skills.
- Personal and social competencies include self-direction, interpersonal skills, teamwork skills, compassion, integrity, mobilizing skills, personal and social values, and ethical dimensions.
