From Change Management to Change Leadership: Embracing Chaotic Change in Public Service Organizations

Abstract

The objective of this article is to describe a way for public services leaders to lead chaotic change. By chaotic change, it is meant changes in an organization when the external and internal complexity and uncertainty is high which is the case for most public organizations. Suggestions are made on how to lead chaotic change by influencing the patterns of human interaction and to focus change management on people, identity and relationships by changing the way people talk in the organization. Building on experiences from the private sector, the authors contend that change management effectiveness is low because leaders underestimate the complexity of change, focusing on tools, strategy and structures instead of paying attention to how human beings change by forming identities through relating. Also, in public services, the complexity of change is high as it equally deals with the transformation of complex patterns of interaction and relating. Successful change management practices in public service organizations should therefore take better account of unpredictability, uncertainty, self-governance, emergence and other premises describing chaotic circumstances. For a leader, this necessitates paying attention to how people form identities in organizations and avoiding design-oriented managerial interventions, as well as keeping at bay the anxiety caused by not being in managerial control.