Leading Through Change in 4 Steps
Approx. 5 minute read
To say that 2020 was a year of disruption and change is to understate the obvious. Our daily lives, from educating our kids, managing our health, and working from home, to simple social rituals like dinner with friends, underwent rapid multi-dimensional change. Changes anticipated to take years occurred in months and, in some cases, weeks and even days.
Much as we might like to think of 2020 as an anomaly, it may not be. In fact the conditions for accelerating change have been building for years. COVID-19 simply laid bare a 'new normal' of change, marked by three dimensions (Chima & Gutman, 2020):
It’s perpetual — occurring all the time in an ongoing way.
It’s pervasive — unfolding in multiple areas of life at once.
It’s exponential — accelerating at an increasingly rapid rate.
In this increasingly fast-changing world, the strategic need to change is clear: without doing things differently, our company is unlikely to succeed, or last. It is well documented that effective leadership is essential to successful change; however, in order to support our staff in this time perpetual, pervasive and exponential advancement, we must first understand what steps we can personally take to lead successfully through change:
Step 1: Understand That Reaction To Change Is Normal
A significant aspect of change leadership involves cultivating a compassionate and empathetic mindset. When we are faced with an objective to accomplish and a predetermined set of timelines, it can be easy to start seeing employees who have difficulty accepting change as barriers or blockers. Bridges Model of Transition sees emotional response to change as inevitable. As changes happen in the external world, people move through a transition process. This occurs internally and is often slower than the external change. Understand that resistance to change is both normal and anticipated and start identifying who in your team is getting stuck in the first and second stage of transition. Once you are aware of who you need to spend more time on, you can implement the appropriate strategies to help move them to a point of new beginning.
Step 2: Remember the 3 C's of Change Leadership
As a leader, there are 3 key skills that will help to maximise your ability to lead effectively through change:
Communicate: Successful leaders communicated the “what” and the “why.” Leaders who explain the purpose of a change and connect it to the organization’s values or explain the benefits create stronger buy-in and urgency for the change.
Collaborate: Bringing people together to plan and execute change is critical. Successful leaders work across boundaries, encourage employees to break out of their silos, and refuse to tolerate unhealthy competition. Where possible, they also include employees in decision-making early on, strengthening their commitment to change.
Commit: Successful leaders made sure their own beliefs and behaviors supported change, too. Change is difficult, but leaders who negotiate it successfully are resilient and persistent, and willing to step outside their comfort zone. They also devote more of their own time to the change effort and focus on the big picture. To ensure you are modeling these behaviours, this means that you may have to get clarity around the 'why' of changes from your leader. If you can't convince yourself of the need for change, how will you be able to convince your staff effectively?
Step 3: Get Comfortable With Being Out of Control
It is important that we make the differentiation between change management and change leadership. Change management involves the process that drives change forward. These are controllable actions, plans and processes that will enable a given change. A mistake leaders make is applying the same mental models and rules to change leadership as they do to change management. Leading people is inherently messy and unpredictable. This is especially so when a change has an impact on something of value. By focusing our attention on trying to control people's emotional outcomes the same way we control the change management process, we stop approaching our staff with the curiosity and empathy required to unpack issues and concerns in the most productive way. By making a mental shift towards acceptance of the unexpected, leaders can focus on what is more important - shared exploration and understanding of the issue, validation and de-escalation of strong emotions and, ultimately, joint problem solving from a place of mutual empathy rather than opposition.
Step 4: Manage Your Own Feelings About Change:
Although leaders are often the drivers of change, we must not forget that we too will have a reaction to changes of any magnitude. At times these may be minimal and during others, these reactions will need some consideration and processing. Use the below 2x2 as a planning tool to identify how you're feeling about a current change, and how you expect to manage these feelings.
My current feelings regarding change are: | I will manage this by doing the following:
My colleagues need from me: | I will offer them the following support:
