Influence of Leaders on Change

By Emma Warren

Introduction

We live in a world of increasing turbulence, none more so than in this first half of 2020. The impacts of change are significant, and we see increasing reliance on cloud technology to enable business operations, and to inform decision making. This disruption is also introducing new ways of working using new technologies, and we are creating data in greater volumes than we can manage, as well as establishing data lakes to store it all. To effectively leverage all of these digital assets we need the governance and structure offered by enterprise architecture.

Successful deployment of any architecture is dependent on the capacity to manage the requisite change to human behaviour and organisational culture. As change permeates every aspect of our organisational and social lives, it is imperative that it be managed. Leadership is a critical success factor in building trust and in preparing the organisation to successfully transition to its new operating model. This article identifies opportunities for leaders to create a readiness for change and to improve the quality of understanding and stakeholder relationships that will smooth the change journey, creating the outcomes desired prefaced on a sound architectural base.

About the author

Emma Warren is studying for her Masters of Information Technology Management with Melbourne University in order to gain further insight into her day job as a Team Lead in systems development for the Water Corporation of Western Australia. She has a passion for Continual Improvement, and for understanding people’s motivations for behaving the way they do at work. This drives her to consider how she can better support her team in the turbulent world of Technology and Innovation, and help navigate them through this constantly changing and evolving environment so that it remains a positive experience for them all.