While sponsor effectiveness and stakeholder management are often highlighted in Change Management literature, the role of managers is equally crucial. Managers can significantly influence the success of change initiatives, both by enabling and, at times, resisting change.

Supervisors and managers (let’s say simply say ‘managers’ onwards for brevity) are the unsung heroes of change management. This article will delve into why managers are critical to change management before covering three ways to equip managers so they can best support change in an organization.

I’ve also included a change checklist that managers to refer to, below!

Why Managers are Critical for Change Management

First, let's examine the role of managers in detail.

Their primary purpose is to create the conditions that enable their staff to perform as effectively as possible, both individually and as part of their workgroup and team. This is not easy in the context of modern, ever-changing organizations.

On an ongoing basis, they must understand and interpret broader organizational context, strategic intent, and senior level direction, and share that with their staff. They must provide direction, resolve issues, evaluate performance and provide feedback. They must create a positive, productive working environment that supports innovation, inclusiveness and learning. And they must share, and often defend, their staff and team’s perspectives, accomplishments and lessons learned with their peers and their superiors.

Managers, therefore, play a number of roles on an ongoing basis. Managers juggle multiple roles. They are employees with their own performance expectations and relationships with higher-ups. For their staff, they are communications conduits, conductors, mentors, coaches, colleagues, advocates, interpreters, mediators, jugglers, advisors, role models. There have been many studies and reports over the years that identify Manager effectiveness as a critical factor in employee satisfaction and retention.

Just as managers have a significant impact on almost every aspect of their employee’s work on a regular basis, they also have a major impact on the success of any specific change initiative and their employee’s experience during the process. Because of their oversight role, and the relationships they have with their staff, managers are in the best position to anticipate, mitigate and address any change resistance that emerges during the project.

If they support the change in words and action, that will influence their staff to do the same.  They will create and influence the conditions that will help their staff adapt to the changes and work in new ways. And the opposite is also true. If they do not support the change, they will resist, erect barriers to the change, and their staff will follow the example.

Because effective, long-lasting change really can’t be conscripted and managers must decide or volunteer to change and support changes, the question then becomes: “How might we best equip Managers to volunteer change themselves and support the voluntary change in their staff and teams?”

Related: Effective change management: 8 tips to encourage employee volunteerism

Let’s assume for a moment that a given manger or group of Managers have all the fundamental core competencies to fulfill their various managerial roles such as communications skills, teamwork and collaboration, work-planning, leadership, coaching and feedback etc. The next important step is then to equip them to support their staff through change.

3 Steps to Equip Managers to Support Change

Step 1 – Assessment

Each person has unique perspectives, experiences, and capabilities when it comes to supporting and coaching others through change.

The first step is to quickly assess their change readiness as individuals and look for any gaps in awareness about the changes and their benefits, impacts to themselves and their teams, understanding about their role in the change, knowledge and skill gaps in changing themselves and coaching others through change. This can take the form of a self-assessment, an assessment conducted by their own manager, through informal conversations with project manager or change specialist.

In some cases, it is also effective to distribute a readiness assessment to a wider group of managers simultaneously and look for trends. It is important at this stage to clarify any sources of the manager’s resistance.

Step 2 – Fill the Gaps

After the assessment, address any gaps in their ability to support and lead change within their teams. This could include:

• reviewing general information about the initiative, meeting and discussing the changes with the initiative sponsors or champions,

• the manager reflecting on their own perspectives and thoughts about the impending change,

• assessing and discussing impacts with their staff and immediate supervisor,

• accessing learning material and taking courses.

Step 3 – Lead Change

Once managers are equipped with the basics, they can enhance their approach by:

• communicating with their team about the change, benefits, impacts and providing regular progress updates,

• assessing potential resistance in their team,

• working closely with the initiative project manager and change management specialist to build a resistance management plan and to implement changes in ways that make most sense for their team,

• participating actively in the initiative and resulting changes,

• ensuring that their teams have the time, learning opportunities, and support to work in new ways,

• dealing with any specific points of resistance as they emerge,

• celebrating success.

Conclusion

Supervisors and managers play a key role in identifying and addressing change resistance in their teams. Doing so is the focused application of their regular activities, managerial skills and competencies to the change at hand. They can take advantage of their intimate knowledge of their team’s work, perspectives and attitudes to be the perfect change coach.

By actively participating in the change project, managers can clarify priorities, contribute to solutions, understand benefits, and effectively coach their staff through the change process while managing resistance.

Below is a change checklist that can support managers in their roles as change leaders. Use this checklist as a practical tool to guide actions, monitor progress, and address any issues that arise during the change process.

I hope you found this helpful. To learn more, check out my other change management-related articles about how to encourage employee volunteerism and change management strategies for successful artificial intelligence integration.

Need more change management support?

At Gravity Union, we provide project teams with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to empower managers in their change leadership roles. With support from our deployment leads, project managers and change experts, managers are equipped with what they need to support their employees through learning change, and ultimately achieve the intended benefits of the new solution.

Contact the Gravity Union team for support on your organizational projects today: