Have you ever wondered why managing change is so challenging? In a new blog Jaspal Kaur, Director of HR, introduces some new tools that the Leadership and Management Academy has developed to help you understand and lead change more effectively.

“Universities are all about change, be it through our world changing research, or the impact we have on our students’ lives, but when it comes to changing how we do things it can feel difficult and uncomfortable.

We can’t avoid the fact that there are a huge number of external pressures meaning that change is inevitable. Whilst the University is in a strong position, we need to continually review and reflect on our ways of working to ensure we stay ahead. It’s important that we recognise that we are operating in a much more complex environment than ever before and we need to make sure we are equipped to deal with this complexity. Leaders at every level of the University are managing change constantly and sometimes this can seem overwhelming. One of the reasons for this may be that we often lead different types of change in the same way. What is really needed however, is different approaches to managing different types of change. Expanding our skills knowledge and understanding of what these different change approaches are can be very useful.

That’s why I’m pleased to announce that the Leadership and Management Academy has produced a package of eLearning and toolkits which you can access to help you understand and manage change more effectively.

In this package you’ll find a wide range of resources, including a series of videos from Vice Chancellor Shearer West, where she talks about her thoughts on how we should approach change at the University and some of the lessons she has learnt through her career. One of the key messages that comes from these videos is the importance of engaging with change in a human, emotionally intelligent manner. It’s this that is at the heart of managing change successfully.”

You can view the tools and resources here: Leadership and Management Academy’s Change Management resources.

Want to find out more? Take a look at the next post in this mini-series about change management: ‘Emotional intelligence and change‘.