Why your division heads matter most when it comes to organisational change

Many senior executives believe that organisational change must be driven from the top down. Yet others argue for a bottom-up approach, with change initiatives being pushed organically by employee teams on the front lines.

The C-suite often gets the most praise for an organisation’s success, while team leadership is typically lauded as the foundation for getting work done. Yet our data clearly shows that the most important role for implementing change lies with the business unit leaders, or divisional heads. In our research, studying nearly one million employees involved in change initiatives at 150 global corporations, we identified 10 major drivers of successful change.

These include vision and direction, communication, business and team leadership, skills and staffing, systems and processes, accountability, and a broad range of emotions. Of those drivers, we found that business leadership has, by far, the most significant impact on business performance (e.g. improvements in effectiveness, customer service and cost management) as well as a substantial effect on benefits realisation. In addition, all of the other major drivers of change are themselves driven either primarily or indirectly by business leadership.

Thus, in essence, nothing budges without first being nurtured, nudged, pushed, or prodded by the business leadership. Think of it this way: business leaders are the linchpin that connects the top and bottom of the organisation. From the top down, they translate the corporate vision into terms that staffers can understand and, more importantly, embrace. And from the bottom up, they ensure that the teams below them are well led, receive the communication they need, and have the accountability, positive emotions and resources necessary to do their jobs well.

To drive change forward, the C-suite must ensure the right individuals are in place at the business leadership level. Business leaders require a complex set of skills for working with team leaders, with entire teams at another level, and with the C-suite at yet another level where they must negotiate to get people the resources they need. Specifically, business leaders need to not only explain but communicate the vision inspirationally to many audiences, across many different contexts, and in myriad ways, constantly keeping the communication about the vision and direction up to date to gain people’s buy-in.