POSITIVE CHANGE POSITIVE CHANGE

Leadership is critical to fostering positive change in any environment. Effective leaders model an openness to change. Gandhi taught that, “People need to be the change they wish to see in the world.”

This is especially true of great leaders. Their positive attitude regarding change is essential for success. A strong leader displays a positive mindset to the change that can bring better results to the organization. A transformational leader focuses on positive change to help others to look out for each other, to be encouraging and harmonious, and to look out for the organization as a whole.

With this leadership mindset, the leader enhances each person’s talent, morale and performance of his followers through positive change. John C. Maxwell brings up 5 distinct things a leader must do to create a climate where change happens.

1) The first order of things to be changed is me, the leader. It is difficult to follow a person somewhere they have never been. As leaders, our words carry much less weight if they are not carried out by our actions. Once we have made a change in our own lives, and the effect of that change is seen by those around us, we have much more authority to ask someone else to take the same journey.

2) The leader must develop trust with the people. Building trust in relationship takes time, integrity, and consistency. It also takes intentionality. A leader needs to create a relational environment for his team that makes them feel safe enough to become transparent. As a leader, you set the tone for this by modeling transparency with your team. Trust takes awhile to build, but once it is there you will find the team becomes stronger and more unified, and change comes more easily.

3) Check the ‘change’ in your pocket. Maxwell says that every leader is given a certain about of emotional support at the beginning of a relationship. That amount will increase or decrease over time. It takes ‘change’ to make change.

4) Good leaders solicit the support of influencers before the change is made public. There will always be people on our team, or within our organization, that carry influence with those around them. Bringing these people in pre-change to catch the vision of what is going to happen can ensure a better response from the group. People, as a whole, resist “being changed’. Hearing from others who are excited about and looking forward to the change can reduce that initial resistance from the group.

5) Show your people how the change will benefit them. This is key – and requires effective vision casting. People want to know how their piece or project fits into the overall vision. People will work harder and go further if they believe that what they are doing is impacting a bigger cause.