INTELLIGENT LEADERS GET THEIR PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE CHANGE PROCESS BEING MINDFUL OF THE FACT THAT PEOPLE RESIST CHANGE IF THEY FEEL THAT IT IS BEING FORCED ON THEM.
In times of crisis and change, it is important for the leader to be able to handle his or her emotions as well as those of the followers and make unbiased constructive decisions. Intelligent leaders set direction and example, communicate effectively, create alignment between the follower’s purpose and the goals of the organisation, bring the best out of people and act as agents of change.
To strike out for change, Intelligent leaders ensure that everyone is emotionally attuned to the goals of the organisation and that they are channelling adequate energy towards the actualization of the vision, and less of it into internal conflict. Understanding others and their viewpoint is a crucial factor in persuading and getting them to align with emotional conviction to the goal of the organisation.
Intelligent leaders tool up for effective relationship management that embraces all stakeholders of the organisation: employees, shareholders, suppliers and the community at large.
Change leaders are integrating leaders who network to build a personal set of contacts cutting across different functions and hierarchical levels of the organisation to ensure that the organisation behaves as a cohesive unit instead of an assemblage of factionalised political units competing against each other.
For a leader, the path to influence is by being credible, behaving in a manner that inspires confidence and handling information well.
In a change situation, the prospect of loss makes people to feel threatened; the effective leader empathises with the people and caringly assesses a situation from the people’s perspective to establish common aims and objectives. Intelligent leaders do not only present spreadsheets and numbers, but they also use language to inspire their people, painstakingly. With an eye to effectiveness, they stand on their expansive qualities to create processes that impact emotionally on their people and draw out a good performance from them.
For people to feel that change is being forced on them is something that will tease out resistance from them. People often respond positively to change if the feel involved in the change process.
