Leadership for Change

Abstract

• Leaders, people who have a vision and the ability to empower others to make the necessary changes to transform the vision into reality, are in the business of change management by definition. Bringing about change is inherent in leadership, and managing change is an essential leadership skill. Leaders are often praised for their charisma, their ability to inspire and motivate people, and their negotiating, decision-making and learning skills, but ultimately they are remembered for the changes they bring about, whether these are positive or negative. Decentralisation is a profound change in governance which requires an approach involving systems thinking and thorough discussion of the content from a political, legal, administrative, cultural, developmental, social, environmental and economic perspective. However, this multi disciplinary systems approach can only be complete if it also addresses process issues, particularly leadership challenges relating to decentralisation as a change management process. The ‘leadership for change’ session is designed to strengthen participants’ ability to act as confident agents for change in the Kingdom of Swazi- land’s decentralisation process. The session uses experiential learning techniques in order to make the learning process as effective as possible in the available timeframe.