Give yourself permission to add "Change Leadership" to your LinkedIn

Change Management is an absolute buzz word and amidst layoffs and job loss, redundancies and restructures, automation and artificial intelligence (AI), the market demand for people who can actually be confident to lead change effectively is growing in every organisation, every industry, every country.

The pace of change has certainly accelerated. And I would say that COVID didn’t speed up job loss, career transition, and the future of work - research had been predicting this digital transformation-fuelled job loss epidemic before the impacts of COVID ever hit. 

Predictions we missed

In early 2020, the World Economic Forum estimated that 75 million jobs could be replaced by technology, such as automation and AI, in the next 10 years. 

And even that wasn’t new news. 

Years before, the Committee for Economic Development in Australia Report 2015 estimated 5 million jobs in Australia could be lost in 10-15 years due to technology change. That’s 40% of all roles and that was 5 years before COVID.

Ironically, CEDA’s report in 2015 came in the same year that Bill Gates predicted we wouldn’t be ready for a global pandemic. The global pandemic obviously did happen and Bill was right - we weren’t ready. I reckon the pandemic slowed job loss from technology change, but as the world now stabilises we’re seeing the predicted job loss take its proper place. We weren’t ready for the COVID crisis - will we be ready for the future of work one? 

Why change fails

More than ever we need more people to lead change effectively. But if I had one criticism about the Change Management industry, it’s that it’s kind of exclusive and elitist. Which is ironic because it attracts the nicest, most caring, savviest people to its profession! There’s just not a lot of simple, practical information out there about how to actually do change (though there’s a flood of complex wishy-washy articles and smoke-and-mirrors consultant speak about the importance of Change Management). 

And the truth is: you’ve been managing change. Throughout the pandemic, if you’re any kind of manager or leader or specialist, you’ve had to help your people cope through COVID and redirect and recharge in the aftermath. It may not have been seamless, it may not have been graceful, but you did it. And now we know it’s not going away - you’ll face a new wave of challenge as your people find themselves needing to upskill, reskill and reimagine their futures with the impact of technology-driven job loss.

You are a Change Leader, even if you’re not a Change Manager. 

Making Change Management mainstream

I’m so passionate about making Change Management concepts, tools and practices mainstream and accessible because I truly believe that the only way our world is going to survive the turmoil of digital transformation is to lead our teams successfully through it. And to do that, we don’t just want to manage change, we want to lead change confidently and inspire and empower our people for the future of work. We need to lift the veil of complexity and exclusivity of Change Management skills and practices if we want Change to have a seat at the table every time.

Change Management isn’t really a profession - it’s a skill set. 

Change Management isn’t really an industry - it’s an enabler.

Change Management isn’t really exclusive - it’s for all leaders. 

The switch to Change Leadership

And that’s why I prefer to talk about “Change Leadership” - taking the processes from Change Management, amplifying them with next-level tools and techniques, and peppering them holistically throughout every organisation, industry and country. 

Of course we need actual Change Management practitioners, with Change in your title, splashed across your CV and LinkedIn profile, and as a dedicated resource into projects and transformation programs. It’s an amazing highly-paid, female-dominated profession and people can change careers to Change Management from any number of existing roles including Marketing, Communications, Learning and Development, Training, Project and Program Management, Human Resources, Organisational Design, Human Resources, and any operational leader role.

But regardless of whether you make the change to Change - I hope you start to believe that Change Leadership is in your heart and in your hands already and showcase “Change Leadership” on your LinkedIn profile. Because everyone has been leading change and will need to continue to do so - the question is: will you be ready?

If you’d like to learn Change Management in a super simple way, come join my free Change Tools Masterclass. The first video comes out today, so register your free spot now:

CLICK HERE to register for Video 1 of my free Change Tools Masterclass

Lata xx