Navigating Institutional Change

I recently took part in a job shadowing experience and was able to make some basic observations. It seems that everywhere I look I see organizations going through major changes and in some cases turbulence. At PSU in particular I see reorganizations taking place, new groups created, others folded, greater push toward centralization, social changes, health care changes, staff changes, budget changes and even environmental changes. What I have noticed is this change brings with it a large amount of anxiety. People like stability. In the midst of an evolving work environment my observation is some associate this change with chaos. It is this very moment where good, pointed, compassionate, and tireless leaders are important. With the wrong leadership in place when changes like these occur, especially in the area of IT, good people will often leave or disengage. Someone has to be able see the light at the end of the tunnel. Someone has to have a clear vision of what the organization is working towards, what it might look like when we get there, be able to articulate that to the workforce, and have enough respect capital built up to drive through the storm. Miss this point and leave authoritative or disengaged managers at the helm during rough patches and the organization can fracture, lose it’s top talent, and fail at its mission. Good leadership is paramount to survival and adaptation. Not only must he or she be able to pull this off themselves, they must guide and convince everyone else to do the same thing.