Change Agent Analysis

In order for organizations to develop, they need to undergo significant changes at various points of their development (McNamara, 2014). This is necessary to be successful, keep up with their competition and meet the needs of their customers and stakeholders. Just as these organizations need to undergo changes, so do the leaders and managers of these organizations in order to be successful change agents (Argosy, 2014). Leaders and managers must continually make efforts to successfully accomplish making positive change happen. The following paper analyses Ruthanne Huising's, "Becoming (and being) a change agent: personal transformation and organizational change" and discusses its findings. In this paper, the author states that change agents "do not begin as skilled, motivated agents but rather they undergo extensive training to become change agents (Huising, 2006, p3)." To further add to that point, in order to be an effective change agent, one must be a leader, and leaders aren't born with the skill set to lead, rather that skill set is acquired through experience, training and a willingness to put in the effort.

In Huising's paper, she discusses results from interviews of change team members from ten different organizations regarding how they came to be involved in change initiative, their role in the process and their experience managing change (Huising, 2006, p3). Those interviews revealed that it was, in fact, through extensive training that they became motivated and successful change agents (Huising, 2006, p3). When it comes to managing change in an organization, change agents must be able to "analyze organizations, identify critically important priorities to address (such as systematic problems or exciting visions for change) and then undertake successful and significant change to address those priorities (McNamara, 2014)." This falls right in line with Huising's paper, wherein she states, "change must be introduced, legitimated, and managed at multiple levels (Huising, 2006, p3)." It is how these change agents experience training, through business seminars, reading management texts, visiting other organizations with similar change and engaging in team discussion, that determines whether or not they will be successful in facilitating change (Huising, 2006, p3). Some change agents apply great effort in accomplishing successful and significant change, while others continually struggle and fail (McNamara, 2014). Furthermore, the interviews revealed that change agents are a product of organizations in the pursuit of change, and they produce employees who continue to seek work of the same nature in the labor market (Huising, 2006, p4).

Not only do organizations end up producing successful change agents because of their own organizational development but also the personalities of those change agents actually become altered as a result of being immersed in change initiatives, and they continuously seek to implement change in other organizations (Huising, 2006, p5). "Change agents are described as having strong communication and influencing skills, a keen sense of politics, and optimistic disposition (Huising, 2006, p5)." However, there is no such thing as a perfect change agent; particular requirements and personality traits are typically specific to the organization and/or the specific type of change (Recklies, 2013). For example, in any given situation, change agents may need to be familiar with the "corporate culture, strategic relevance of the project, acceptance of the project amongst management and staff, timeframe, resources, etc. (Recklies, 2013)." Depending on these factors, change agents should be able to motivate others through good leadership skills, or they may need good skills in the area of project management to ensure that progress on any given change initiative is moving forward in a timely manner (Recklies, 2013). Additionally, change agents should expect both resistance to and welcoming of change regardless of the scope (Argosy, 2014).

In her paper, Huising goes on to discuss personality traits of champions and championing, as in leading or implementing a change initiative (Huising, 2006, p5). Champions emerge from having certain "personality characteristics, transformational leadership behaviors, and frequency and variation