Change Leader Competency

Luigi Sille on sharequality answered the June 2019 ASQ Roundtable Topic asks: “How can an individual become a successful Change Leader?” I’m a big fan of both blog carnivals and change management so here goes my answer, which is pretty similar to Luigi’s, and I would guess many other’s – just with my own spin.

A few things immediately come to mind.

Change management (and this is another great example of really meaning people change management) should be a competency on the ladder for any quality professional. It certainly needs to be a core area for anyone in a quality leadership position.

There are a lot of competency models out there for change management. Instead of pointing to just one, let’s try to find what they actually have in common. To do so it is important to set out the critical activities of change management:

1. Define the change
2. Ensure change delivers value
3. Stakeholder strategy
4. Communication and engagement
5. Assess change impact
6. Project management

In order to do these it is important to be able to provide education and learning support, facilitation, team effectiveness and understand how to sustain systems.

Change Management requires the seven skills we should all be developing: communication, content, context, emotional competence, teaching, connections, and an ethical compass

Change Management is part of the core for any quality leader, together with continuous improvement and knowledge management.