People have told me more times than I can fathom that the only constant in life is change. For better or worse, it's true. I realized when I first came to college that I will be moving on average twice a year for the next 5 years. New friends, new neighbors, new classes, new callings, everything changing all the time. I was talking to my grandma on the phone during the first week of school and she asked me what was new. I answered, "Everything."
As a leader, you can't avoid change. It happens and you have to be ready and able to lead your followers to and through it. Change can be difficult, frustrating, and a major hurdle for people. From our class discussions as of late, to me the most important aspect of leading change is sharing the vision with others and getting them involved and invested in the process.
In our RS, we struggled with getting everyone on board about the new system of reporting visiting teaching. Somewhere along the chain of communication the novelty of the changing system got lost and I don't think the rest of our girls knew that we needed weekly reports instead of just monthly reports. To remedy our situation and get our supervisors up to speed on the new plan, we invited them to attend a special presidency meeting where we talked about the new plan and why things need to be done this new way. After the supervisors understood why the change was necessary and how their role was crucial to bringing it about, they were great. My supervisor (yes, the members of the presidency have supervisors, it's a very communal, everybody check on everybody type of system) texted me less than half an hour ago to check in with me so she could provide the information for the weekly report.
The other most important part of leading change in my observation and opinion is leading it by example. People won't rush to do things in some new and crazy way unless someone they trust is endorsing the new behavior with their actions. Another recent example to illustrate this: it's getting close to the end of the year, finals are creeping up on us and nobody at my apartment has time to clean anything. Filth stresses me out and I cannot work well or focus half decently in a messy place. Change was imperative for my sanity and my GPA. I put in a few hours of cleaning one morning to replace the cleanliness bar in our dwelling. I then encouraged my roommates to join me in simple upkeep with the little, daily chores so we don't get overwhelmed with filth at inconvenient times. I figured if I start the trend, hopefully others will follow. And it's not fair to ask people to do something you aren't willing to do.
Lead by example, involve others in the process of instigating change, and hopefully enjoy great success. As this is my penultimate blog post for this class, let me close with an especially wonderful quote from our beloved prophet. (I love how in Conference everyone always refers to him that way—it makes me smile every time they say it because it makes of think of the millions of other people around the world who love the prophet, too.)
"Fear not; be of good cheer—the future is as bright as your faith." -Thomas S. Monson
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