Amid this year’s economic and financial tumult, I’ve seen staffing leaders challenging their traditional approach to their businesses. This focus on improvement has always been important, but it’s even more vital now as the market is evolving at a breakneck pace, requiring firms to be more adaptable. 

To benefit from change, however, there also has to be a clear understanding of the pitfalls. While leaders are responsible for identifying, prioritizing and implementing improvements, they’re also responsible for mitigating risk.

Yet not every leadership role should have the same priorities or approaches to these priorities. Therefore, I will focus on three key roles: the innovator, the builder and the implementer and how each must collaborate on facilitating change — while also identifying risks.

The Innovator

The innovator is your organization’s change agent, most commonly the CEO or a senior-level executive. The innovator enjoys the process of reinvention and tends to keep up with the latest trends in management philosophy, strategy or technology. When the innovator comes back from a conference, they typically have a lengthy list of ideas they want to implement.

Properly focused, this desire for innovation can be valuable — especially for small firms where the benefits of change often outweigh the disruption they cause. However, as an organization grows, modifications become more difficult to implement, and the negative effects of disruption grow. The adoption of new technology is the most common example: whereas a small company can drive compliance quickly, a large organization needs a change management plan, including ongoing follow-up. Therefore, the innovator needs a counterweight to their disruptive instincts and someone to design a change management plan. Enter the builder.

The Builder

While the innovator identifies improvements, the builder understands the scope of change and knows what it takes to implement it. Builders typically come from delivery or operations roles, such as a COO, VP of operations or director. They are close enough to daily production to understand how changes could affect operations while simultaneously understanding the benefits of potential disruption. Builders can educate the innovator on whether the idea she gleaned from the conference could help the organization — as well as reveal its unintended consequences. These people are creative enough to redesign roles, best practices and even technology while being detailed enough to roll out the changes effectively.

Teamwork is essential. A highly innovative executive without an effective builder tends to take on too many projects, many of which are poorly implemented. A builder without an innovator leans towards the status quo or minor process improvements that may risk the organization becoming outdated and less competitive.

While builders may not drive change, they are central to prioritizing and implementing it. Then, adoption falls on the implementer.

The Implementer

Regardless of how powerful the innovation is or how well the organization executes it, it will fail without ongoing management. The implementer is a line-level manager, such as a recruiting or sales manager, who ensures adoption through a combination of tracking, coaching and performance management. They’re also responsible for ensuring that changes are having their intended effect.  

Implementers, by nature, tend to be the most reluctant to change. They must answer negative feedback from the team, holding the company line while also trying to maintain their own credibility.

Unlike builders, implementers may struggle to see the overall impact of proposed changes, but their suggestions for incremental improvements to the project should not be dismissed: They’re best positioned to provide constructive feedback on whether changes are having their intended effect.

A fluctuating market requires a flexible organization. Identifying what improvements to pursue and how to implement them requires these three leadership roles to operate in distinct yet collaborative ways. 

Innovators should push for imaginative change. Builders should skeptically examine those ideas and propose effective roadmaps. And implementers should be ready to provide ongoing training and oversight.

Regardless of your organization’s size, each role is vital. Without them, organizational development will be stunted, if not halted altogether, potentially impacting both short- and long-term growth.