Change Management Starts with Project Leadership

It might be tempting to assume the people tasked with leading an initiative automatically support it. This is a dangerous assumption to make. Project leaders are people like everyone else, and they need to move through the same change processes as everyone else to fully support a project.

Most people think of change management as an activity that is done by members of a project team to increase non-project team member support for an initiative. However, project team members can also benefit from change management efforts. In fact, a strong argument can be made for the idea that all change management efforts should initially focus on the members of the project team, especially the leaders of the project team.

Projects are led by human beings, and these human beings are subject to the same thought processes as all the rest of us. As such, it is not a given that leaders of projects fully understand and support the initiatives they are tasked to lead. However, their understanding and support is exceptionally important to the overall success of most initiatives. One of the most important responsibilities of project leaders is to help gain support for a project from other stakeholders. It is very hard, if not impossible, for project leaders to do this work if they themselves do not understand why a project is being undertaken and/or do not fully support the project.

In order to ensure project leaders fully understand and support a project, it is important to take the time at the start of a project to help project leaders move through their own change process. This effort should focus on ensuring project leaders understand the benefits of undertaking the project, the risks of not undertaking the project, and why it is important that the project be undertaken now (especially instead of any other projects that the leaders might believe are more important). Additionally, project leaders should be encouraged during this time to voice any concerns or reservations they have about the project, and these issues should be appropriately addressed prior to moving forward with the initiative.

This initial project leader focused change management effort is in many ways just a smaller-scale version of the change management work that will be required for the overall project. In fact, the learnings from this initial effort are often very helpful to the larger overall change management effort. The questions and concerns voiced by project leaders are often very similar to those that will be voiced later by other stakeholders. Sincerely working through these issues with project leaders at the start of an initiative not only helps gain the true support of the project leaders, but also better prepares everyone for the larger-scale change management work that is to come.

It is tempting to believe that project leaders are somehow magically above having the same types of questions and concerns about projects as other stakeholders. However, this is simply not the case. Project leaders are human beings subject to the same doubts and concerns as everyone else. They need and deserve time to work through the same change process as all other stakeholders. Allowing them this time and providing them the same change management support provided to other project stakeholders dramatically increases the success of all projects.