When engaging in business change, it is important for the change agent to know that change is fundamentally a leadership bounded exercise. The success of business change can be influenced by the type and amount of leadership in an organization. Without considering these two factors, it is possible for a change agent to present a change project that will be rejected by leadership. To prevent this problem from happening in business change, there are three types of leadership that should be discussed. The three types of leadership can be broadly identified as waterwalkers, bridgebuilders, and truck drivers.
Waterwalkers are those business leaders that tend to be found in younger companies; they are the visionaries. They are not personally involved with the day to day operations, except at the level they desire to be involved. Their main focus is on providing new directions. They tend to lead by presenting bold ideas and taking initiative.
Bridgebuilders are the level of leadership that, in effect, can translate the broad, visionary language of the waterwalker into something that is executable. They create a bridge between the waterwalker’s vision and the final level of leadership: truck driver leadership.
The truck drivers, are the type of leadership that handles the tangible aspects of the whole change process. They can be thought of as people who make sure that there are drivers in full trucks driving on the bridge that has been built.
The change agent needs to be able to recognize which types of leadership are in the organization and how much relative power they have. Their tasks will be different in an organization that is primarily run by truck driver management than in an organization that has strong bridgebuilder leadership. In order for successful business change to happen, it helps if the change is geared towards the appropriate type of leadership, and if there’s a gap in leadership, they should be filled accordingly.
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