In the final week of this series, let’s look at “change” as the central piece that brings everything together and gives meaning and purpose to the rest of the C’s.
Change is often the primary goal of leadership—to make the world (or at least your little corner of it) a better place. What usually sparks change is the feeling that something needs to be done, that things aren’t working as well as they should by just following what we’ve done in the past.
But we need to learn to change and adapt while still passing down historical knowledge and using past experiences to understand why things were done in a particular way. There’s usually a good reason behind why a certain decision was made decades ago—but if new techniques are now available, we need to re-evaluate and see if there is now a better approach. Just be sure to use all of the information available to you. We need to be able to adapt to life as it changes over time, while sustaining the things that are still working well.
Change needs an instigator to initiate it and then a team of committed people to help sustain it. Sustaining a project in the long term requires delegation and sharing of the work. As mentioned in previous articles, the team members have to work towards the same basic goals even if their motivating factors are different.
It can take a lot of courage to create change, and being willing to take a leap of faith toward a new idea or a different tactic may require discomfort and disagreement. However, you can use the “7 C’s” to help navigate those conversations.
Tip of the Week
As a reminder, here are the “7 C’s” we have discussed over the past few months: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, common purpose, controversy with civility, collaboration, and citizenship. Do you see ways you can work towards positive change in your community by making sure all of these pieces are addressed?