Change leadership is a proactive, people-centric approach to change management, visualizing change initiatives as an opportunity for organizational growth and improvement rather than a finite project.
It requires being visionary, agile, and responsive to the changing business requirements, and understanding how to overcome common barriers to change.
Change leaders are not the same as change managers or practitioners. While change managers administer change to achieve short-term goals, change leaders command, influence, and advocate for long-term transformation initiatives. If employees are the driver of change initiatives, change leaders are the ones that empower them to provide inputs. Leaders of change are the ones who engage with the initiative rather than impose change.
Change management is associated with small-scale changes and is a set of tools and/or measures to keep a change effort under control and to provide solutions to any organizational resistance to a change. The goal is to minimize the change initiative’s disruption, make it cost-effective, and reduce the chances of change failure. On the other hand, change leadership is related to the vision and driving force behind large-scale transformational changes, ensuring the implementation process quicker, more innovative, and efficient.
