When it comes to business change, it is important for the change agent to know that business change is primarily an exercise of leadership. With business change, the type as well as the amount of leadership in an organization impacts success. Without an understanding of those two factors, it is possible for a change agent to present a change project that will be rejected by leadership. In order to avoid these issues in business change, there are three types of leadership that should be discussed. The 3 types of leadership are as follows: truck drivers, bridgebuilders, and waterwalkers.

Waterwalkers are those leaders who are often found in younger companies; they are the visionaries. They are not personally involved with the day to day operations, except at the level they desire to be involved. Their main focus is on providing new directions. They are not organizers at the structural level.

Bridgebuilders are the level of leadership that, in effect, can translate the broad, visionary language of the waterwalker into something that is executable. They design processes, procedures, or bring in the technology to enable the organization to follow through on the business change.

The last type of leadership, the truck drivers, are the leaders who deal with the tangible details of the change processes. They can be thought of as people who make sure that there are drivers in full trucks driving on the bridge that has been built.

The change agents should be able to differentiate between these types of leadership in the organization and how much authority and power they hold. Their tasks will be different in an organization that is primarily run by truck driver management than in an organization that has strong bridgebuilder leadership. Business change will become successful if the change is directed towards the right type of leadership, and adjusted accordingly.

For more information, please see our website: Business Change