Organizations today require `long marches' and not `bold strokes' to respond to the changing business environment. Globalization and Information Technology has resulted in uncertainty due to which detailed plans cannot be chalked out and owing to ample job opportunities, people are not willing to accept autocracy anymore. Therefore, change leaders today are required to be visionary, empathizing and empowering. They ought to understand both the beauty and the horrors of the ever-changing business environment and take measures to cope with them.

In today's fast changing business environment, temporariness has become the order of the day. One simply cannot harp on about one's past laurels. Adapting to change is the only way to move with the fast moving world. What the organizations require, Rosabeth Moss Kanter says, are not `bold strokes' but `long marches'. Long marches are the continuous efforts by people throughout the organization to bring about a change in terms of manpower, technology, skills, etc., to respond to external forces like globalization and developments on Information Technology (IT) front. While globalization has provided opportunities for the countries of the world to trade across borders, IT has brought about a revolution in communication with computers and Internet providing people with instant access to information from any part of the globe. It is difficult for leaders to chalk out a detailed course plan owing to the uncertainty in the environment. Due to ample job opportunities, people are not willing to accept autocracy anymore. All this requires a different type of leadership. Change leaders at present are expected to be democratic, empathizing and empowering.

Firstly, it is not possible for a leader to know everything or to be at all places at once, but a leader can collect information regarding customers and competitors through numerous means by creating a joint venture, a community service or a satellite office. Change leaders are expected to develop a kaleidoscopic thinking through which they should try to build patterns from available information to work out solutions to a problem. Kaleidoscopic thinking can be developed by empowerment, job rotation and external recruitment.

Global CEO Magazine, Change Leaders, Kaleidoscopic Thinking, Business Environment, Globalization, Information Technology, Multinational Pharma Company, Business Environment, Organizational Strategy, Robert Swan, Psychological Factors.