Many scientists argue about the meaning and the essential role of the leadership. Some of them suggest that leadership is only about being able to make people follow you and do what you want them to do. But the truth is, a true leader is a person who knows how to implement changes and is not afraid of them.
This means that leadership is a phenomenon that allows people to modify and handle the behaviour of other people in order to improve the certain process or work by causing changes. That is why the real success of a leadership cannot be seen by measuring the personal traits and qualities of an individual leader, but by measuring the overall amount and quality of changes under the leadership (Spector, 2013). No matter how good a singular person can be, it does not mean it is a good leader until the people behave as he tells them and makes all the necessary changes for the sake of the company or organization they are working for.
Most of the practical theories that help the leaders to create changes may be divided into three following categories. First of all, cognitive changes provide the employees with the logical explanation for their work (Kotter, 2012). By providing the employees with more insight about the forthcoming changes, the leader increases their awareness about their particular role in them. In addition, cognitive changes are also concerned with the matter of learning. Each employee should be constantly learning as changes always bring us some new information to work with.
A good leader should be keen on implementing the perfect environment for his employees in order to get rid of all the distractions that may be reflected on the quality of a work. A perfect environment should not only stop distracting employees from the unimportant trifles, but inspire them for active participation in changes and sharing all their thoughts and ideas about the new projects.
Since the changes may be concerned with several aspects of the organization, we need to make sure the employees are staying on the same level with the changes (Kotter, 2012). Such effect may be achieved by refining or even modifying their way of thinking. A born leader knows how to make people accept the changes and live according to them.Since every person is a living being and not some mindless robot, it is necessary to pay enough attention to the emotions of the employees. That is why the second theory is concerned with the emotional changes.
Very often the people`s emotions interfere with their work by spoiling the relationships of business partners or just not letting people do their job because of the peculiarities of their characters (Spector, 2013). The role of the leader is to teach people to get hold of their emotions and make sure no one cross the edge of applying their emotions to the work (Spector, 2013). Cold mind is the things that brings the successful changes and help you not to be afraid in front of the evolutionary changes.
But it goes without saying that no person can just simply turn off their emotions. So we just need to point them into the right directions. The collective emotions are the bad thing that may cause very unfortunate consequences to the organization. Unlike collective, the individual emotions may be applied to the thinking over all the aspects of changes, refining and modifying it as well as predicting the outcome of the changes.
Another proof to the importance of the emotions may be revealed while thinking about understanding the emotions of employees. From the experience of many successful companies and organization we see that the coherence between the emotions of the employees and understanding of the leader is the key to implementing of something new.
When a person who stands higher in the organizational hierarchy sees the emotions of the lower levels of the hierarchy, it knows what material or mental thing he needs to provide his team with (Spector, 2013). Such harmony between different level of hierarchy results in perfect quality of work and decent desire to work for the sake of organization.
Some of the employees may have quite different point of views upon the matter of changes. Such a phenomenon results in different emotions between the employees. Some members of your team may be glad and happy with the forthcoming changes, while the other may be angry, annoyed or irritated with them (Kotter, 2012). The leader`s task is to equalize them in the term of emotions by taking compromises or even taking some serious decisions.
And finally, the last practice of changes is called behavioural change. The role of this practice is to focus directly on the behaviour of the working unit as well as modifying it up to the necessary conditions.
The leader has to emulate the desirable perfect behaviour upon his employees and produce it using his own behaviour as an example. We are not talking about right or wrong behaviour. All the efforts should be concentrated on the behaviour that would benefit the forthcoming changes.
Another hidden key to the successful implementing of the changes is a practice. It means that the changes should be projected before implementing them. We may even say that they should be “rehearsed” by your team before going to the “big screen” (Spector, 2013). A practice will provide the organization with the practical insight of the core and the effectiveness of the changes.
This principle goes both ways. Not only the changes should provoke the employees to changing their behaviour according to the new stream, but the new behaviour should inspire people to be more eager to developing the changes as well as implementing them. In other words, people should be motivated by their behaviour to accept the changes and vice versa.
Enough attention should also be paid to the characteristics of the leader who is implementing the changes. First of all such a person should possess a perfect and flawless vision of the changes. The complete picture of changes allow leader to clearly explain himself to his team. It also determines the amount of time spent to the disposing of the small misunderstandings.
The true leader should understand the real value of each employee. It may sound strange, but the employee should have no value as in a perfect team that want to implement changes each working unit is an equally valuable part of the whole organism (Spector, 2013). Thus, a leader listens and hears equally each member of his team that have something to tell about the changes.
Apparently, no successful changes may be achieved without a good chance taking, risking and flexibility. The need to adapt to the growing needs of the modern world stands along with the ambitions and intuition of the born leader. However, these traits should not interfere with the confidence and respect of the team members (Spector, 2013). The true leader should always remember that by taking the wrong decision he fails not only himself, but many more people who work hard on the certain project.
References
Kotter, J. (2012). Leading change. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.
Spector, B. (2013). Implementing organizational change. Boston: Pearson.
