Navigating Change

Change is a constant factor in any healthy culture and one that leaders are constantly having to anticipate or respond to. Whether it’s transitioning roles, responsibilities or relationships, the process of change always comes with highs and lows, presenting with it the very real challenge of how to navigate it successfully.

Here are 6 leadership learnings about how to face transition and deal with it well. These are applicable if you are the transitioning leader or if you are supporting and leading alongside those in flux.

Reflect

Evaluate the good and the bad, the joys and the disappointments. Take time out to purposefully pause and consider all that the last leadership season has been. What has it taught you? How has it shaped you? What type of leader are you now as a result? Taking time to reflect ensures that you carry the right things forward with you into your ongoing journey.

Release

Take time to release the old season to God. Make space to grieve and mourn the leadership loss, pain, and disappointments you may have encountered. Release the right and responsibility to lead in that setting. Lay it down on the altar and pray a release both for you and for those you have led.

Resolve

What resolutions will you now make? What kind of leader will you resolve to be in your next season? What accountable actions and measurable goals can you put in place to make this happen? If you are helping to steer an organisation through a leadership transition, how will you resolve to be supportive and faithful to the next first leader? How you close one leadership chapter will determine how you begin the next, so resolving to finish well will benefit you and those around you.

Recognise

In the process of transition, there will be a raft of emotions that will inevitably impact the new leader and the exiting leader. Recognising your own emotions and those of others around you is vital. Take the time to acknowledge any emotions that surface and respond to them prayerfully and wisely.

Rejoice

Build an altar of thanksgiving to commemorate all that God has done in that season. Take time to worship and rejoice amidst the landscape of change. Process and celebrate all that God has done in you and through you, remembering this beautiful promise: “You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace”.

And finally, over the weeks and months during and beyond transition:

Review

Ask yourself some regular questions. How is my mind and my heart? How am I being accommodating and supportive to the new season God has me in? How is my spiritual health and walk with Jesus and others?

Why not set some time aside in the coming month to prayerfully consider these six approaches? Which resonate with you the most right now, and how can you respond positively and practically to them?

I hope and pray you’ll be encouraged and inspired in heart and spirit as you do.