The emphasis of leadership has shifted from phase to phase of the change effort. In Foundations, you concerned yourself with such things as organization readiness, building the infrastructure for change, and helping people understand the change. In Executing, the focus was on executing to plan, staying on track, and getting people to make and own the change. In Sustaining, the emphasis of your role has shifted again. It includes:
- Modeling the way – lead by example in everything
- Encouraging and rewarding risk taking – to establish new approaches and culture, people must try new things and feel that it’s OK to do so
- Building capability – everywhere and in everything, look for teachable moments and opportunities to move people up the learning curve
- Watching and listening – what’s going well, what’s not, where are things going smoothly and where are people struggling?
- Learning and adapting – no change works “off the shelf” as planned. You need to demonstrate the ability to learn and make adaptive changes to demonstrate your commitment to make things work.