From Change Management to Change Leadership

Within organizations there are usually a large number of projects ongoing during the year. The main reason for all of these projects is to improve the current state of activities and achieve positive changes. As a result, specific project goals and objectives can be achieved while the final outcome is not as expected. This is more likely the case when the purpose of the project is to create a new operating model and processes for the organization’s daily activities.

The primary challenge of project management is to have permanent changes in activities. A new standard of activities will become permanent only if the organization is able to manage and organize changes and combine this with daily operations by creating new organizational routines. The actual work of implementing project results in practice will begin after closing the project, and it will require more than the management's commitment and support for the specific project. Moreover, it requires comprehensive change leadership and a consistent approach to lead new ways of operating throughout the organization. In some cases, this process might take several years to achieve.

Identity Management and eServices Require Change Leadership

Identity management and eServices are good examples of new processes and procedures which require leadership in process implementation. For example, identity management is not yet a part of organizations' basic processes and replacing policies with better ones requires coaching and change leadership to combine the new processes with current business processes. Similarly, succeeding in transferring services to eServices requires change leadership, coaching, and motivating people. Without change leadership it is impossible to move forward from today's 8/5 service organizations and respond to the challenges raised by 24/7 service requirements.

Successful change leadership requires no extra resources and it is more likely to occur when there is more leadership than people management and task controlling.