Content area
Full Text
This position paper makes the case that all leaders need to become agents of change. The steps to becoming a change agent are analyzed, including knowing one's organization, assessing one's leadership skills, gauging people's reaction to change, learning the process of change, ana making a commitment to change. The author analyzes Fullan's model of the phases of change to provide a guideline to create the change process in a variety of settings. Current and future leaders will become reflective regarding how they can develop the skills necessary to meet the challenges of change from both an organizational and individual point of view.
The ability to lead change has become a valuable skill as organizations, including schools, are required to transform in order to meet higher expectations for success. The pace of change is rapidly increasing, and the conditions to foster change are more demanding. The learning curve to become a change-agent leader, therefore, is steep and may pose challenges for individuals who seek to have organizations benefit from change even as they recognize the barriers that exist for individuals to change. How, then, does a leader prepare to be a change agent, and what steps might he or she take to become one?
Know the Organization
Leaders know the sense of urgency to change and respond to the pressure to change (Reeves, 2009), One of the first steps they must take is to assess why the change is needed and how quickly the leader must produce the change within the organization. Accountability to federal and state mandates and local district requirements to meet adequate yearly progress and improve student learning are key factors to consider. Other forms of organizational change might be localized, such as accepting a new leadership team when a new superintendent or principal takes charge. Whichever form of change is anticipated, the organization as a system has to move from what it is to what it will become, and the leader needs to anticipate how the current reality must be moved to formulate a new vision.
Senge (1990) introduced the concept of a'mental model" (p, 8), which is an assumption or a picture that influences how a leader might see the change and envision the steps necessary to take action to...