Increasingly, change comes through networks versus individual heroes. Embrace collective and network-based leadership to build sustainable movements. Anchor in your values when facing hard choices rather than compromising. If unsure how to lead, focus on asking great questions to unlock others' wisdom. Seek diverse perspectives for better solutions. Distribute leadership to many hands versus centralizing control.

Reinventing Leadership 

The most successful changemakers see the world as something that they can shape rather than something that is shaped for them.

Microleadership means seizing tiny leadership moments anytime, wherever you are. You don't need a title or permission to practice microleadership. Break leadership down into its most basic and profound unit - the brief interaction. Invest in relationships, apply empathy and create safety to influence honestly. Small moments compound into massive change.

Microleadership


Foster psychological safety so team members feel respected, trusted and able to take risks without rejection. Google found it most important for team success. Combine self-awareness of biases with humility to keep improving as an inclusive leader. Seeking diverse perspectives increases innovation but requires equity and inclusion. Give the leadership you wished you had.

Becoming the Leader You Wish You Had

<ul>
<li>To spark change, challenge the status quo with curiosity rather than blindly accepting the norm.</li>
<li>Being willing to see the world differently unlocks new possibilities.</li>
<li>Changemaking requires taking smart risks in new directions, not just more risks.</li>
<li>When everyone heads one way, consider diverging and brainstorming alternate paths and opposite approaches. This divergent thinking generates ideas.</li>
<li>Then use convergent thinking to evaluate and select the best course.</li>
<li>Avoid following the herd without conscious evaluation.</li>
</ul>

Question the Status Quo

Approach leadership as lifelong learning. No matter how experienced, remain a student ready to grow and see things freshly. Changemakers practice cognitive, emotional and dispositional adaptability. Specifically cultivate dispositional flexibility to update how you work. Build resilience to stay strong when facing inevitable hurdles and setbacks. Deliberate practice across mental, physical, emotional and spiritual realms compounds strength. Continual learning enables continual growth.

Students Always

<ul><li>People resist change. Engage champions early to delegate and advocate. Hear out sceptics but make smaller asks to build buy-in. </li><li>Lead culture change through formal and informal norm entrepreneurship from any seat. </li><li>Overcome status quo bias with extra effort. Expect obstacles and be adaptable but persistent to drive change adoption.</li></ul>

Leading Change When Change Is Hard

Adopt a servant leadership mindset that puts ethics first and focuses on empowering others. It's never too late to embed service and ethics into your work. Take a long-term view versus seeking quick wins - changemaking is a marathon requiring sustained effort over years. Don't fear an ambitious vision to inspire people to join you. Keep a clear why but flexible how to adapt over time. Lifting others benefits all.

Beyond Yourself 

<ul><li>Ideas need action. </li><li>Before launching initiatives, reframe obstacles as opportunities and examine if resources can be redeployed. </li><li>Test ideas early, often and small through lean startup's build-measure-learn approach. </li><li>Data and experience can spark ideas. Engage collaborators, approval-givers and skeptics to grow support. </li><li>Move boldly but incrementally from idea to action.</li></ul>

Sparking Change



<ul><li>Effective leaders balance confidence with humility. Data shows humble leaders perform better on revenue, engagement and more. </li><li>Seek win-win solutions by collaborating at the sweet spot between advocating your needs and meeting others' interests. Gain trust by giving trust first and empowering others. </li><li>Get off the leadership merry-go-round of ego and control. Let go of always needing to be right and in charge. </li></ul>

Becoming a Changemaker is a book written by Alex Budak, a UC Berkeley faculty member, speaker, and changemaker educator. The book provides an in-depth look at how to become an effective changemaker and covers topics such as understanding the power of storytelling and leadership, developing a network of support, and creating a vision and plan of action. The book also provides practical advice on how to develop a mindset of resilience and courage and how to communicate effectively with stakeholders. 

“… A catalyst for a new generation of leaders committed to changing the world for the better.”--Dan Heath, co-author of Switch and Made to Stick. In Becoming a Changemaker, Alex Budak provides a fresh, inspiring and research-backed guide to developing the mindsets and leadership skills needed to navigate, shape, and lead change and to make a positive impact in our lives, career, and communities.    Through a diverse series of case studies, and brand new insights from his original research on the traits the most successful changemakers have in common, Alex provides an actionable, inclusive guide for people of all backgrounds, levels, ages, and industries to get unstuck and to start leading change from wherever they are.   The book is based on Budak’s wildly-popular class of the same name at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business that changemakers like Olympic athlete Alicia Wilson describe as "life changing."   Accessible and energizing concepts like Microleadership show how each of us can lead from where we are, and principles like “Confidence without Attitude,” “Question the Status Quo,” and “Beyond Yourself'' provide a framework for stepping into our own unique changemaker potential.

ALEX BUDAK

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