As our workforces grow more diverse every day, and customers are demanding better, faster, and less expensive service, companies are faced with the challenges to create and meet the changes necessary to remain in business. The organizational environment must also learn to assess the direction of these changes while also being able to respond successfully to those that roll in at a completely different direction than expected. The leadership required to handle these wonderfully tumultuous times, so that organizations in transition remain profitable, is crucial.

Today's companies become successful based on their abilities to create and manage change. They can no longer survive without "...courage and imagination - the courage to challenge prevailing business models and the imagination to invent new markets." As the globe continues to evolve into a marketplace with vanishing boundaries, competition becomes stronger, tighter, and smarter than ever before, ultimately forcing organizational change. The tidal strength of competition that has been upon us over the past few decades has fundamentally changed the "blueprints" of many corporations and how they now need t

Courage is another primary attribute of a successful leader. One of the greatest challenges for leaders of change is to develop the personal skills that are necessary to effectively generate and cultivate courage, in themselves as well as those around them. "They recognize that courage is really about making the connection between what's changing in the business world and what needs to change in their personal behaviors. They also recognize that personal change offers far more potential rewards than sticking with the status quo." As the hallmark of a true leader, courage is necessary to take risks, to create a vision, to empower others, and to challenge the current conditions of any situation. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said: "Leadership is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humanness, courage, and sternness."

Leaders of the future must have the strength and fearlessness to go against the grain of old assumptions or paradigms. They must continue to trailblaze in their efforts to see that the organizations of the next century will remain in tact. They will be the encouragers of change for positive results; they will be the beacons that the others look to guide the ship through any storm; they will hold their heads high in recognition of success and have the courage to admit when outcomes are not what they had planned. Tomorrow's leaders of change rise to the occasion and take the others with them.

Those situations in which corporate performance requires most people throughout

to a competitive advantage for the enterprise allowing it to produce better and

Once a leader has formed, articulated, and shared with the other members of the organization his or her visions for the future, those other people will be watching very closely to see just how much conviction the leader has in those visions. They expect leaders to show up, to pay attention, and to participate directly in the process of getting extraordinary things done. Leading by example is how leaders make visions and values tangible. It is how they provide the evidence that they are personally committed. That evidence is what people look for and admire in leaders, people whose direction they would willingly follow. This makes credibility a very important attribute that people look for in a successful leader. Those looking to a leader need to believe in that person; that he or she can be trusted; that he or she is truly excited about the direction that the company's heading. People expect their leaders to stand for something and to have the courage of their beliefs. It is also equally as important for the leader to know that his or her credibility is not being challenged.

"We live in an era of organizati

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Approximate Word count = 1828
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)