Leading Change from the Front Lines
Gretchen Reid, Founder and CEO of Integrated Growth, facilitating a Leading Change workshop
Empowering Your Emerging and Middle Managers to Drive Organizational Change
While I know many of our readers are experienced executive leaders, I recently had the opportunity to guest-star on the #7 ranked Canadian podcast, Trench Leadership: A Podcast from the Front, with host Simon Kardynal.
Simon’s podcast lends advice, inspiration, and tools to help emerging leaders face challenges and find their way as they work through the squiggly, often messy path toward becoming an authentic leader.
Whether this resonates with you, or if you choose to share this with your next level leaders for their development, we hope to impart some valuable lessons about leading change from the front lines. One thing we have been focused quite a bit on lately is the Leadership Pipeline, developing and supporting leaders through career advancements and helping them find their ‘right’ fit along the leadership pipeline.
Along those lines, Simon and I sought to answer the question, “How does an emerging leader lead change from the front lines of an organization?”, which, of course, led us down all sorts of roads as we attempted to fully dissect the question; we considered what it really means to be a leader, how leadership is found in every role throughout an organization, how change threatens different people in different ways, how to engage others around your vision, and more.
While there are so many ways to answer this question, we found, once again, that leadership and effectively leading change really comes down to one simple foundation — being human.
Start with Alignment
One of the stories I often tell when I’m asked how I was inspired to work in leadership development is that of a childhood experience observing my father and his career.
When I was nine years old, my dad moved us from our home in Massachusetts to upstate New York for a career change. I remember this time in our lives very distinctly, because not only did our location change, but in some ways, my dad changed too. I couldn’t help but notice that the easy-going, fun-loving guy I called Dad had become visibly stressed and more rigid in our new setting. I didn’t understand everything at a young age, but I learned later that his new job as head of sales and part owner of a manufacturing firm really took a toll on him; unlike his old job in real estate — which matched well with who he was, his values, his interests, and how he liked to communicate — his new role was misaligned. He was stressed out, felt unheard, and was out of line with his values at a fundamental level.
This experience made it clear to me that being successful as a leader is measured by WAY more than your title. First and foremost, it’s measured by how well that job aligns with who you are, and what makes you thrive as a person. This alignment gives voice to our authentic leadership and ripples outward to everyone around you.
In short, alignment makes you effective in life, including in leadership. My dad’s experience taught me the importance of this, and also reminds me to this day of one of my core leadership mantras: Be. Do. Have.
In other words — when you bring your authentic self to your work, you will do and say the things that are necessary to lead your team through any kind of change.
And alignment goes further than yourself. As an emerging leader it is important for you to understand and be aligned with the direction of your organization. More on that…
Know Where Your Power Lies
One of the biggest adjustments I see (and have lived, myself) for emerging leaders is understanding and being comfortable with the power they hold, while also owning the responsibility that comes with it.
The thing about being a new leader is that you may lack the experience of being in that position, which oftentimes means that you feel immense pressure to also be a “good” leader (though I must say, in my experience, this never entirely goes away, and it probably shouldn’t). Managing these types of expectations for yourself can be overwhelming to say the least. But instead of letting yourself be consumed with worry, a question I suggest emerging leaders ask themselves is, “Am I operating by default or am I being deliberate in my actions?”
When you’re making decisions or operating by default, you’re acting subconsciously. You’re going through the motions, doing what you think or assume you should do or is expected of you, without really understanding whether or not what you’re doing makes sense in the given situation. However, when you operate deliberately, you’re taking action to reach specific goals, while understanding how your decisions align with supporting your team and organization. To put it simply, you’re mentally and energetically engaged in your decisions in order to bring about the best outcomes.
As a leader, this is where a large part of your power lies — in understanding how you support and affect others and in staying actively engaged in the work you’re connected to.
Earlier on in my career, I was piloting a leadership development program for our organization. During a meeting with our COO, she asked me why we couldn’t run the program for other locations at the same time. I told her that the program was in a beta stage and we were planning to see how it went in its first iteration before offering it to others.
While what I told her was completely true, I quickly realized that part of my rationale was coming from a place of default; it was a pattern of thinking that I had not challenged. Upon my awakening, I went to my supervisor and asked him what he thought about us running the program in multiple locations simultaneously. To my surprise, he asked me what I thought. And it was at that moment that I realized — this is my decision. I’m the one running this program, and I’m the one with the knowledge and insight and feedback from others that will help me determine whether we should replicate it elsewhere and when.
That moment was a big deal for me; it was when I realized that I had true power as a leader, and that I could trust myself to make good decisions based on my knowledge and the evidence at hand. That I could make a deliberate choice for the benefit of all involved.
Long-story-short, I decided to move forward with rolling out the program in multiple locations simultaneously, despite it being in beta mode. And you know what? It was an astounding success.
Will our choices always be astounding successes, especially as new leaders? Absolutely not. But leaders are built from owning our power and taking deliberate action, not from working from default mode or playing it safe.
Build a Change Team… and Support Them
Change can be scary for even the most experienced leader. But often, the leaders who take on the most pressure in organizations during large changes are those caught between working with those implementing the changes and those handing down the orders…these are your emerging leaders.
So how do you approach an organizational change as an emerging leader? How do you manage it so that you’re supporting your team, while also working through the process of becoming the leader you want to be?
A best practice is to build a Change Team. This group is made up of people at various levels — newer employees, tenured employees, employees who agree with the change taking place, employees who resist it, and employees whose roles will be widely affected. The point of the team is to have various perspectives that will help guide and inform you as you make decisions to implement the change as smoothly as possible for everyone, regardless of their position or perspective.
One thing that I always consider a top priority for any leader — new or experienced — is having the ability to fully listen to those around you. In fact, I think it’s one of the most important skills you can have as a leader, simply because it gives you access to other people’s perspectives. In turn, this helps you to make informed decisions. Creating a Change Team is an incredible exercise in practicing your listening skills, and shows others that you not only value and respect their input, but that you view them as vital components of implementing change effectively. And that goes a long way.
Speak So Others Can Hear You…and Do Something with It
Another thing about creating a Change Team, is that it gives you great practice in speaking so that others can hear you (and help you). When you work with people from different perspectives, responsibilities, levels of influence, and so on, you start to get a good idea of what’s important to them. It’s important that as a leader, you know how to speak to different people in a way that gives them the information that they actually care about so that you’re able to create real progress.
For instance, if you have members from operations on your Change Team, it might be beneficial to refer to how the new change will affect smoother logistics or operational efficiency, and to communicate even the smallest of details. If you’re speaking with a member of the Executive team, however, it might benefit you to keep information at a higher level (find more tips and tricks on speaking to executives, in particular, on our latest “Tea Talk with Gretchen”).
Wherever your team members are, as a leader, remember that it’s to your benefit to speak their language in order to be effective in this time of change and transition.
Know That Change is Different for Everyone
Lastly, when navigating change in your organization as a new leader, one of the best things you can do to set yourself up for success (or at least as smooth a change as can be expected) is to understand how people on your team relate to change.
As human beings with different experiences, everyone on your team is going to relate to an organizational change in a different way depending on what’s important to them. I like to talk about my husband and I as a basic example of this: my husband is of the opinion that “Change=Bad!”, while I am firmly on the side of “Change=Good!!”. This is simply because change means different things to both of us.
At Integrated Growth, in order to guide our own clients through the process of understanding how people on their teams might relate to change, we use a guide we call the SCARF Model, which stands for: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness. For example: Someone with longevity at your company might worry about their status that a new change might threaten; someone who is used to knowing the ins and outs of things or who is comfortable knowing the current status quo may fear no longer having the certainty that they typically lean on; along the same lines, someone with a deep understanding of current processes or operations, or alternatively someone with a role that allows them to make some choices freely, may be accustomed to having a lot of autonomy; people who have worked together for a long time or who have great rapport with current partners might fear losing the relatedness they rely on in their working relationships; and lastly, some people may be triggered by the issue of fairness of the change especially if roles and responsibilities are being adjusted and they feel they are on the short end.
As a leader, it’s important to understand who falls into which perspective, so that you can support everyone through their own personal transition in a way that addresses their greatest concerns: give those that fear a loss of status a role in implementing the change; schedule regular meetings to share updates with those that fear uncertainty; have open conversations on what can and can’t be controlled with those who crave autonomy; create systems for people to get to know and connect with each other to encourage relatedness; and communicate staffing and resource changes transparently while actively engaging people in the importance of their roles so that everyone feels valued and treated fairly.
At the end of the day, being a leader and leading change is all about being human. Align yourself with roles and organizations that support your values and who you are as a person. Make decisions from a place of purpose, information, and courage. Listen to people, respect their experiences, and meet them where they are. When situations don’t turn out perfectly, take the lessons you learn in order to make more informed decisions in the future.
Remember that leaders are built over time and through experience, so be kind to yourself as you navigate your leadership journey.
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AUTHOR – Gretchen Reid is the Founder and Chief Change and Leadership Architect for Integrated Growth. She has spent over 25 years coaching leaders and creating award-winning Leadership and Talent Development Programs, directly contributing to multiple awards for her clients, including Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, Forbes America’s Best Employers List, Forbes Best Employer for Diversity, and ASTD BEST. She is an Adjunct Professor of Change Management in the Strategic HR Masters Program, Denver University, University College. (MS, Career and Human Resource Development, Rochester Institute of Technology, BA, Psychology & Business Management, University of Rochester)