Corporate Leadership Development

Positive and Negative Change

Corporate Leadership Development: Positive and Negative Change makes the case for the difference between positive and negative changes in your life. While change is a word used often, not all change is good. We must distinguish which kind of change we should pursuing.

Change is a buzzword in our world today. In every community, government speeches, business meetings, the word change is being used more often than before.

And rightly so…

With the rise of information and communication technology, things are moving faster than ever.

The smartphone industry for example, comes up with new phones every few months to a year that it’s almost impossible to catch up with them, unless you have very deep pockets.

But is all change good for you as a leader?

In this article, I want to look at the idea of change in the context of personal leadership and what defines positive change, and what is negative change.

First, let’s look at the positive side of personal change.

Positive Change

Positive change is growth in skills. It means that you grow to become better at what you do. If you are a manager, positive change means that you obtain more skills and character in your role as a manager.

It could include learning to lead, motivate, organize and plan. In the area of specialized skills like speaking, positive change means that you become a more inspiring and engaging speaker.

Whatever the skills are, this growth in skills is the positive change you want to strive for.

Positive change can also be a change in attitude. Maybe you used to be proud and unwilling to learn from particular people or sources, but now you’ve changed in your attitude to become more humble and willing to learn.

As a result, you’ve started to obtain new information, insights and have a new ability to grow.

Now that too, is positive change. Or maybe you used to be harsh and cold toward your staff, but now you’ve changed to become more warm and approachable.

And the workplace has become much more productive as a result. These positive changes are a result of your change in attitude

An increase in capacity is also a form of positive change. Maybe you used to be able to handle only a team of 5 people in a project, but now with your experience and new skills, you are able to handle a group of 50 employees under your care.

Now you deal with the problems of not only 5 people, but 50 people.

You used to solve small problems that affect only a few people, but now you’re making decisions that impact the lives of many because you have shown yourself capable of doing so successfully.

We can say your capacity has grown as a person, and that signals positive change too.

CORPORATE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Negative Change

Negative change means you change who you are as person. Negative change happens often to people who don’t know who they are. They are unsure of their identity.

Therefore they allow the environment to alter their behaviour, values and beliefs.

For example, some people used to be innocent, sincere individuals in college, but when they entered the corporate environment, they learnt that the world is cruel, cut-throat and unforgiving, and so they change themselves to become part of that culture.

They have changed themselves by the forces of culture (in this case negative), and who they are as a person.

Some of these individuals might still say,” No, I’m changing to adapt to the environment; I’m learning to integrate into the environment.”

To that I say, you are allowing the negative forces of culture change your deep most held values.

That is not leadership change; that is simply being passive.

What does it mean for you?

As a leader, we must stand strong AGAINST negative change by anchoring ourselves to our values, and not allowing the world to change who we are and what we stand for.

But we must stand strong FOR positive change, striving forward to become better at what we do, so that we can achieve greater.

You must understand the difference between the two, and know when the time to change is, and when the time is to stay anchored and unchanging.

In regard to people management, do not destroy the individual’s identities through your leadership by compulsion or dictatorship, but strive to bring change through unleashing the true potential of each individual.

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