Leading Through Change

By: Sonja Burns

Change is a double-edged sword

Its relentless pace is difficult to adjust to, yet when things are unsettled, we can find new ways to move ahead and create breakthroughs that are not possible in stagnant societies.

Change arouses emotions for better or worse: Excitement Anxiety

Energy Fear

Exhilaration Danger

Risk Taking Loss

Improvement Panic

Leadership vs. Management

Leadership and management are two distinctly different but complimentary skill sets that all companies need. Leaders make sure the organization is doing the right things, while managers make sure they do those things right. Leadership is about coping with change while management is about coping with complex issues. Both are qualities that can be learned and both require constant focus on improvement. Especially when the organization is facing potential adaptive challenges.

Leadership

Leadership is not mobilizing others to solve problems

we already know how to solve,

but helping them to confront problems

that have not yet been addressed successfully

Five Components of Leadership

Understanding

Change

Relationship

Building

KnowledgeCreation

And Sharing

CoherenceMaking

Moral Purpose

1. Moral Purpose – acting with the intention of making a positive difference in society

2. Understanding Change- healthy respect of commitment to moral purpose

3. Relationship Building –

each must consummate relationship builders with others

4. Knowledge Creation & Sharing-Continually generating and increasing knowledge inside and outside the organization5. Coherence Making – effective leaders tolerate enough ambiguity to keep the creative juices flowing

Personal characteristics of effective leaders

Enthusiasm

HopeEnergy

Effective Leaders Are not those with the

highest IQs,But those who combine

mental intelligencewith emotional

intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence5 Key Points

Intrapersonal

General mood

Stress manageme

ntAdaptability

Interpersonal

KNOWLEDGE IS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Information is on paper and in computers

Knowledge is in people.

Information is not pertinent until people decide what it means and why it matters.

Organizations must frame the giving and receiving of knowledge as a responsibility

Knowledge is continually given and received, as organizations provide opportunities to do so and value and reward individuals who do.

KNOWLEDGE

Responsibility

Giving

Opportunity

Receiving

Barriers to sharing must be discovered and removed.

No control freaks allowedStrong norms of trust

Skilled individualsSharing the same goal

Communication

Learning requires modeling.

Leaders must led by modeling the values and behavior that represent collective goods.

Role based theories of leadership wrongly envision leaders who are empowered to ask or require others to do things they may not be willing or able to do.

Leaders should be doing and should be seen to be doing, that which they expect or require others to do.

Leaders are not born; they are nurtured.

Modeling and mentoring are crucial!

Creating a Climate of Openness, Optimism and Trust.

If you want to develop leadership, you should focus on reciprocity – the mutual obligation and value of sharing knowledge among organizational

members.

Develop knowledge and share it!

The main mark of effective leaders is how many effective leaders they leave behind. As they know that they are cultivating leadership in

others, whom can move the organization even further after the current one leaves his mark.

Change

Whether you introduce the change – a better procedure, a service-delivery improvement, redesigning work, merging work units, designing a new product line or introducing a new piece of technology – or whether it’s imposed on you, the ability to manage change and make it happen rapidly and smoothly is one of the keys to organizational vitality, renewal and success.

All Team Members Play a Role In Change

Great leaders that guide a company through necessary changes don’t do it all by themselves. They bring all team members together and leverage their talent pool in a collaborative manner.

Leaders are Key Drivers of Change

They play a critical role in preparing people for it, and then leading them through it. No matter what your specific job, managers everywhere now need to be more change-adept. Organizations nowadays expect people to step out of their functional role and handle a formidable array of changes as part of their daily work – often with little preparation for it. In a word, we all need to become change leaders.

Change Capabilities

Many managers overlook the need to develop change capabilities in themselves or in others. Their assumption often sounds like this: 'I’ve been managing this organization for years – so I certainly know how to change it!'

Key Practice Areas for Enabling Change

Resistance to Change

Resistance to change manifests itself in many ways, from foot-dragging and inertia to petty sabotage to outright rebellions. The best tool for leaders of change is to understand the predictable, universal sources of resistance in each situation and then strategize around them.

Reasons Employees Resist Change Loss of control. Change interferes with autonomy and can make

people feel that they’ve lost control over their territory.

Excess uncertainty. If change feels like walking off a cliff blindfolded, then people will reject it. People will often prefer to remain mired in misery than to head toward an unknown.

Surprise, surprise! Decisions imposed on people suddenly, with no time to get used to the idea or prepare for the consequences, are generally resisted

Everything seems different. We are creatures of habit. Routines become automatic, but change jolts us into consciousness, sometimes in uncomfortable ways. Too many differences can be distracting or confusing.

Loss of face. When change involves a big shift of strategic direction, the people responsible for the previous direction dread the perception that they must have been wrong. Leaders can help people maintain dignity by celebrating those elements of the past that are worth honoring, and making it clear that the world has changed.

Concerns about competence. Change is resisted when it makes people feel stupid. A period of overlap, running two systems simultaneously, helps ease transitions.

More work. Change is indeed more work. Those closest to the change in terms of designing and testing it are often overloaded, in part because of the inevitable unanticipated glitches in the middle of change.

Ripple effects. Like tossing a pebble into a pond, change creates ripples, reaching distant spots in ever-widening circles. The ripples disrupt other departments, important customers, people well outside the venture or neighborhood, and they start to push back, rebelling against changes they had nothing to do with that interfere with their own activities.

Past resentments. The ghosts of the past are always lying in wait to haunt us. Old wounds reopen, historic resentments are remembered — sometimes going back many generations. Leaders should consider gestures to heal the past before sailing into the future.

Sometimes the threat is real. When new technologies displace old ones, jobs can be lost; prices can be cut; investments can be wiped out. The best thing leaders can do when the changes they seek pose significant threat is to be honest, transparent, fast, and fair.

Continued

Diagnosing the sources of resistance is the first step toward good solutions. And feedback from resistors can even be helpful in improving the process of gaining acceptance for change.

Employees Resist Change Conclusion

5 Steps to Lead Through Change

1. Give Direction2. Provide Protection3. Clarify Roles4. Manage Conflict5. Shape the Norms

Give Direction

One of the most important responsibilities a leader has is providing direction for the team. This seems obvious but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes leaders think they are providing clear direction for the team, but this can sometimes be more of an assumption than reality. I know because I’ve failed at this in the past. Communication and repetition is critical to ensure that all team members know the plan and what their specific roles are for contributing to mission success.

Provide Protection

Organizational changes within a company can be scary for the team especially if they are unclear why the changes are being made. All good companies have to adapt as they grow. It’s a great problem to have, but it is the responsibility of the leadership to help the team understand that the change is a positive necessity. Protecting the team from external threats and maintaining a confident attitude will help the team stay focused on their responsibilities instead of updating their resumes.

Clarify Rules

Adaptive change requires auditing of existing systems, roles, and responsibilities. This process can often result in essentially rebuilding the entire company by redefining job descriptions, consolidation, elimination of overlap, and creating greater efficiencies. All of these activities will mean running a better more profitable business.

Manage Conflict

Positive conflict is not only healthy, it’s imperative. Passive aggressive behavior or simply avoiding conflict only results in toxicity and things not getting done. Address conflicts as they arrive. Challenge existing processes. And maintain order as the company evolves so the team knows that a little bit of chaos is sometimes inevitable.

Shape the Norms

As a company experiences change, there will be many things that it should stop doing, and many things it should keep doing. Leaders need to ensure that certain norms are maintained in order to keep the company moving in the direction dictated by the overall vision. These norms can be anything from certain ways the company does business to culture protecting activities that support the value system.

Change is Vital for a Business Success

As markets evolve and new technologies emerge, companies require leadership that can foresee the need to adapt and continually be auditing existing processes and organizational structures. Those companies that get this right continue to grow in value. Those that don’t become stagnant and sometimes fail. It depends on the maturity of the leadership in the organization and their ability to bring team members at all levels together in efforts to evolve.