The Art of Change Leadership

Chapter 1Why Do Organizations Need Change Leaders?

The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.

—John Kotter

The future workplace is now—is your organization ready?

Are you ready?

We need change leaders now because the fast pace of change has made it an imperative. Why?

Because fast change means there is a need for people to adapt quickly. The truth is that change involves human beings who must be willing to move away from the familiar and move toward the unknown and embrace it.

The art of change leadership is to understand the fundamental of change from a human point of view. When we as change leaders consistently use strategies to improve our own approach to change and then share those strategies with those we lead, then we can effectively create sustainable organizational change. That's the goal of this book, to provide the human (feelings, thoughts, and behaviors) and the structural (steps to be taken) strategies as well as the behaviors (action/execution) that will drive transformation in our fast paced world.

In the past 10 years, there have been massive changes. The Conference Board surveyed 1,020 global chief executive officers (CEOs) in 2014 and asked them to rank their top business challenges. Human capital, customer relationships, innovation, operational excellence, and corporate brand and reputation emerged as the top five challenges. Although these ...