As a leader, there is a great deal of pressure that comes with the role. People depend on you. Their jobs depend on you, their livelihoods depend on you, and their career aspirations depend on you. Therefore, making the right decisions is key. Not only do you have to consider what is best for yourself when making decisions, you need to consider what is best for all of your employees within your organization. In business, the ones who are quick to adapt are the businesses that thrive. This involves frequently making changes and overseeing projects that adapt your organisation.
It is inevitable that changes will be made during your tenure as the leader of your organization. Throughout your leadership, you will navigate your organization smoothly through these changes by managing multiple projects unilaterally. You will do so with the aim of causing minimal disruption to the company and evolving your organisation to keep ahead of changes within your industry. Here are 5 actionable attributes that you will need as a leader to be able to guide your organisation through changes, and to further grow your business culture.
Problems arising during these changes is as inevitable as the changes themselves. As a leader, your priority here is to focus on solutions, and not dwelling on the problem. Your strength as a leader will increase the more flexible, resilient and innovative you become. Adapting and overcoming is the key to success in business as well as in life.
As a leader, we advise you to have a close group of colleagues within your organisation who you trust, regardless of job titles. Having a core operational team of people that you can communicate your requests, concerns and strategies to will be crucial in leading your organisation through change. When managing projects, continuous and clear communication with your team is essential, and open feedback in all directions is necessary to navigate these changes and to make this projects successful.
Culture within an organisation is dictated from the top down. Employees are likely to be influenced by the behavior of their managers and leaders when at work. Therefore, you should consider what kind of culture you want your company to have during these transition periods. For leading your organisation through changes, we recommend creating an adaptive, open and flexible culture. This environment is conducive to productivity and being able to effectively navigate these changes. By embodying these characteristics as a leader, you will greatly influence the culture of your organisation; priming it for productivity and enabling it to be adaptive to changes.
When a passionate leader approaches a project, their temptation is to act fast. They want to see an immediate result. However, we advise that you approach the project tactically. By capitalising on the initial stages of a project to devise in depth plans and strategies, you are ensuring the success of the project.
We find that the best way to navigate these changes and to effectively manage projects within your organisation is by adopting an agile approach. By learning how to balance constraints and influences when managing a project, and to be able to utilise multiple strategies and approaches to better manage and lead programmes and changes, you will become a better leader.
If you would like to find out all of the attributes needed to effectively lead an organisation through change, and to learn all the necessary strategies in project management, enquire about our Agile Project Leadership Programme. This programme is run in association with the University of York.