I hate it when the two words change and management are used together.
There is nothing unusual about change. People seek improvement and change all the time. But often what we don’t like is change imposed by others. When this happens we feel a lack of control. Change management implies the design and implementation of changes where the locus of control lies outside of the people expected to change. An approach that is likely to cause resistance – the very opposite of change.
The second problem lies with the concept of ‘management’. Management is about doing things right, whereas leadership is about doing the right thing. Management ‘drives the process’, keeps lists, provides updates and generally dots the I’s and crosses the T’s. It’s a great way of describing the skills and competencies needed for the operational running of the business, i.e. not changing things. But what happens when the change encounters unanticipated obstacles or if the change is just plain wrong? Who will take leadership to change the change managers? As a leader, you must find the courage to use your judgment and make a call. It is about doing things differently. Leadership in contrast to management is really about changing things.
That’s why change cannot be managed. It has to be led.
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Nice article! Just testing the blogg process, as I promised I would about 12 months ago. Always good to bury an insight (contrast between management and leadership) within the main insight, to give extra weight to the article.
I’m happy to have encountered this website; and your article. Thanks for taking the time to author this wonderful article!! I will be paying attention to your upcoming posts and have bookmarked your site to see what else you come up with.
Another lovely article, Abraham