Provides the visible leadership needed to drive a program forward, create a vision for change, and lend credibility to the change project.
Give the change credibility, authorize funding and resources, and perform important employee-facing activities.
For employees, the executive sponsor of change is the best spokesperson for communicating why a change is needed and the risk of not changing. To be effective the executive sponsor must be active and visible throughout the entire change process, engaging with the project team and collecting feedback from employees. This direct communication with employees will increase adoption of the change. The executive sponsor must also build a coalition that reinforces the awareness messages at all lveles – enabling peers, managers and direct reports to communicate the reasons for change through multiple communication channels and throughout the organization. A dedicated and supportive sponsor is critical to a successful change initiative.
In the Best Practices in Change Management – 2016 Edition, as in previous research reports, participants identified “active and visible sponsorship” as the most important contributor to change management success – more then three times as often as other contributors.
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