The question set all leadership teams should be able to answer:
Do you understand the organisation's change history?
Do you have a change vision?
Are you aligned on your strategic objectives?
Are you a high performing team?
Does your team have change leadership skills to lead the change or improvement that your organisation is facing?
Leadership team alignment is fundamental to the health of an organisation and critical when implementing strategic change. We often find an organisation’s priorities are ranked very differently by each individual leadership team member. In addition to this, each leader on the same team has something even more important than the ranked priorities of the organisation, they have their own goals and egos. Unless the leadership are aligned, they are a high performing team and have change leadership skills to navigate their change, then no change model or tool, no number of competent resources or external consultants will deliver change successfully.
What is Change Leadership Alignment?
Change leadership alignment ensures that the organisational leaders are an aligned leadership team before they start their organisation's change implementation. This means they understand the organisation's change history, they have the same change vision, they are aligned on their strategic objectives, they are a high performing team, and they have the change leadership skills to lead the change, transformation, or improvement that their organisation is facing.
Why is Change Leadership Alignment important?
Change leadership alignment is important because the skills required for leading day-to-day operations are very different to change leadership. Without aligning and preparing the leadership for their change journey, it is highly doubtful they will successfully implement organisational change to ensure a return on investment, achieve full employee change adoption, and sustainable change.
What are the key steps of Change Leadership Alignment?
Change leadership alignment has five key steps:
1. An assessment of previous change history to establish what went well and what needs to improve.
2. 1:1 Interviews with the leadership team to establish barriers and enablers to change success.
3. A strategic alignment exercise to ensure the leaders are aligned on the organisation's change priorities.
4. Develop a high performing team so the leaders can deliver the change together.
5. Develop Leadership of Change® capability, the knowledge, and skills to lead employees through the change.
When does Change Leadership Alignment start?
Change leadership alignment starts on day zero of any organisation's change journey. Unless the leadership team are aligned and committed, the change is unlikely to provide the targeted return on investment (ROI).
“Change waits for no leader”
Find out more about: Change Leadership Alignment
Read the book: Change Management Leadership - Leadership of Change® Volume 4
Peter consults, speaks, and writes on the Leadership of Change®.
For further reading please visit our websites:
Peter F Gallagher is a Change Management Global Thought Leader, Guru, Expert, International Speaker, Author and Leadership Alignment Coach.
Listed #1 by leadersHum Top 40 Change Management Gurus You Should Follow in 2022 (Mar 2022).
Ranked #1 Change Management Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Change Management (May 2021 & 2020) by Thinkers360.
Ranked #2 Business Strategy Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Change Management (Dec 2020) by Thinkers360.
Ranked #2 Leadership Global Thought Leader: Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Change Management (Aug 2020) by Thinkers360.
Business Book Ranking
Change Management Behaviour - Leadership of Change® Volume 6, listed among the 50 Books from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders to read in 2022.
Change Management Adoption- Leadership of Change® Volume 5, listed among year-to-date’s (Jul 2021) most popular books on business and technology from Thinkers360 member thought leaders.
Change Management Handbook - Leadership of Change® Volume 3, listed among the 50 Business and Technology Books from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders to read in 2021.
Change Management Pocket Guide - Leadership of Change® Volume 2, ranked within the top 50 Business and Technology Books (Jan 2020) from Thinkers360 Thought Leaders.