This paper studies the ability of leaders in effective organizational change management. It gives the details of an action research conducted in agricultural research organization. It is necessary for any organization to keep pace with the dynamic internal and external environments. To bring in organizational change, the abilities of the existing leaders play a vital role. They can be termed as the direct change agents. Their knowledge, skill, and willingness help the organization in facilitating change.

It is essential for organizations to keep pace with the changing internal and external environments of the organizations. It is more so in these days of global competition due to liberalization and the intellectual property regime. Bringing about change successfully in organizations requires certain change management abilities in the change agents. The pace of change that can be brought about will depend upon the position of the change agent in the hierarchy and also his/her excellence in transience management skills and his/her willingness to utilize the same.

Harigopal (2001) has stated that to survive and eventually to prosper, an organization must monitor its external environment and align itself with changes that occur or tend to occur. Sometimes, change could be so rapid that there is no time to adjust before more change takes place. Yet, it is the ability to plan for, implement and manage change that seems to be the core factor that separates successful organizations from unsuccessful ones. The successful ones do not believe in change per se but a proactive (rather than reactive) change, radical when required, and reinvent themselves as and when necessary. Such change management would require heads of institutions having high change management ability.

A number of instruments have been developed, by various social scientists, to measure personal characteristics of change agents, which are thought to measure their change management abilities. Some of these instruments are listed in the Table.

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