Leadership Skills

Dealing with Change

Change is simply doing something new or different, and many people are uncomfortable with any change in their lives. In reality though, everything changes. The task for you, as the leader, is to help your team move into a period of change with a positive attitude rather than being filled with fear and anxiety.

The main reason people are afraid of change is because it is uncomfortable to learn new ways of doing things. If a person is competent with a task, any change will be awkward, at first, because the person must learn the new methods. Faced with such a change, the person can either accept that he or she won’t be perfect until the new methods are learned or resist the change in order to remain competent. The better a person understand the reason for the change, the less likely he or she is to resist it.

As a leader, you can help guide your team through a period of change by following these guidelines:

Understand what is changing and the reasons behind the change.
Identify the possible frustrations and resistance.
Create a positive vision for your team of the end results of the change. Share these positives.
Allow your team to express their frustrations; acknowledge the potential difficulties during the interim learning period. (This is your time to be the cheerleader and express your confidence that they mastered the “whatever is changing,” so they will master it again.)
Be available to talk and brainstorm new processes, if necessary.
Steer future discussions toward the positives outcomes.

Your attitude will impact the other members of the team. Focusing on the positive reasons for the change will help the team not be so fearful of the unknown.

Leading & Motivating
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Velda Arnaud, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Lead, Educate, Serve Society
leadeducateserve@gmail.com