Perhaps the most remarkable change at the organizational level that I have ever led was the introduction of complementary therapies for labor instead of the traditional epidural block (EDB) for pain relief. As a practicing scholar, I was responsible for communicating the need for a new practice to the personnel, as well as educating them about the negative repercussions of the EDB for women’s health. Also, I found it imperative to explain the tangible benefits of integrative medicine approaches and complementary medicine to the staff.
It required a considerable period of hard effort to implement the change, though results appeared to be less satisfactory than I expected them to be. In particular, the major unanticipated outcome was passive employee resistance. Having a lack of change management skills, I had a limited understanding of what it took of the staff to accept the change and how I could encourage them to support new practices. As a result, it was a tough experience to find myself incapable of handling resistance immediately and efficiently. The insight that I had yet to become a good leader was no less frustrating.
Nevertheless, now I assume that my practice in the change implementation serves as an invaluable resource for reflection. It is clear to me that I lacked leadership and problem-solving skills when administering the change discussed above. In order to achieve better results, I could have paid more attention to the elaboration and utilization of leadership and communication strategies. This would allow me for creating such an environment that could foster change. I think I also could have promoted the involvement of interprofessional leaders as they could effectively collaborate on shared mission and vision (Kumar, Kumar, Deshmukh, & Adhish, 2015). Other workers, in turn, would feel more positive about the change supported by their colleagues. The use of communication strategies would be helpful in sustaining the evidence-based practice of complementary therapies (Palmer, Dunford, & Buchanan, 2017). In this respect, I needed to explain the need for the change better and ensure that workers had the required skills to support new practices.
The change is an ever-present feature not only in the organization but also in individual life. However, there was a time when I chose not to make a change due to time constraints. Despite the fact that it was appropriate to implement a new care bundle for patients in intensive care units, the prospects of me finding the scientific evidence, critically appraising it, and motivating the staff to embrace the change in a timely manner were slim. At that time, I did not manage to take responsibility for doing a thing which I felt to be lacking the required skills and knowledge. The only consequence of such a choice was a stable high rate of the incidence of hospital-acquired pressure injuries. The personal result of my refusal to implement the change was a growing motivation to develop myself as a leader.
If one wants to become an excellent leader, I believe there is no such thing as the impossibility to make time to work on personal changes to support one’s leadership formation. Since I feel passionate about my job, some part of my spare time could be and actually is dedicated to reading professional literature on leadership and change management. Apart from strategies, I learn about key qualities for practice scholars creating a change. When at work, I do my best to develop these qualities so as to further act as a change agent. I often analyze the leadership behavior patterns of other professionals with whom I work in order to comprehend not only what leaders do but also which thoughts guide their actions.
When I led the change effectively, I felt more confident about myself as a practicing scholar and a leader. There are several key insights that I gained from that effort. Firstly, successful change implementation is unthinkable without a leader who communicates the new vision and mission to workers. Secondly, it is natural to discover employee resistance to change as people always tend to stick to the usual order of things. Thirdly, it is imperative to regularly communicate the change to the person so they could adapt to it. Since these insights concern the general aspects of change implementation and human attitude to something new, they will help lead future change efforts. Before implementing new practices, I will develop particular leadership and communication strategies and give co-workers some time to accept the change.
Leadership is considered to be an integrative process that empowers and motivates others to reach specific goals. As a practicing scholar, I ought to be capable of leading innovation and acting as a force for change. Speaking of important external expectations that determine the expectations I have for myself as a leader, I think of clarity of goals and objectives, involvement, consistency, keeping commitments, respect for team members, and honesty. Also, I believe that practice scholars should move beyond traditional leadership roles and assume them as educators, researchers, and administrators.
References
Kumar, S., Kumar, N., Deshmukh, V., & Adhish, V. (2015). Change management skills. Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 40(2), 85-89.
Palmer, I., Dunford, R., & Buchanan, D. A. (2017). Managing organizational change: A multiple perspectives approach (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.