Leadership Transformation
the new desired mindsets and behav-
iors that are necessary to successfully
accomplish the transformation.
We all know that change is hard
— especially in successful companies.
People can become complacent in do-
ing what they already do, especially if
it has worked well in the past. But the
old corporate axiom “If it’s not broken,
don’t fix it” no longer applies in an en-
vironment of fast-paced technological
change. Successful organizations today
have to be constantly proactive, not
reactive and defensive.
Transformation requires the mit-
igation of fear. Mitigating the fear of
failing, the fear of not knowing what to
do, the fear of learning new skills, and
the fear of losing one’s position or job.
Change can be scary for employees —
especially for employees who do not
have the skills needed for the new way
of working, and especially for employees
who do not have significant financial
reserves to fall back upon if they find
themselves needing to change jobs. Peo-
ple cannot learn when they are fearful.
What has surprised us in our trans-
formation work is that leaders and
managers can be just as fearful of the
transformative change as employees.
For managers and executives, the fear
can be a fear of losing what they now
have (power, status, responsibilities) or
the anxiety about whether they have the
abilities to do what will be necessary in
order to lead in this new era. We have
seen leaders sink underneath confer-
ence tables when it was suggested that
they do a transformative pilot program.
The fear of not knowing can be big.
Managers and leaders can deal
with these fears many different ways.
Reflexive responses can be:
• The “corporate grin and nodding
yes” with the internal talk being “no way”
• Doing the minimal necessary to
buy into the change or transformation
initiative, hoping to make it to stock
option vesting or retirement doing
what one has done before
• Delegating responsibility for the
change initiative to a group, creating dis-
tance — not having direct responsibility
for the initiative so failure is not attribut-
ed to them
• Half-heartedly undertaking the
transformation, believing this initiative
— like many in the past — will blow
over
We have seen all of these attitudes
in the last few years inside very suc-
cessful companies that have embarked
on a major transformation initiative.
How does a leadership team get
to the place where they can admit
their individual fears and find ways to
support each other in acknowledging
and working through those fears? How
does a leadership team create a work
environment that makes it easier for
employees to deal with their fears? An
answer to these questions begins with
“the why.”
THE WHY
The first part of mitigating fear is
having a reason to embrace the fear — a
story that each employee can identify
with in answering the question: Why
should I change? That story is a story of
why the organization must change and
a story of why each individual needs to
learn new ways of working to enable
that organizational change. Employees
need to make meaning personally of the
Why in ways that that make sense to
them. That “making sense” must emo-
tionally connect with the individual.
Often, we need to help people find
the “WIFM” — the what’s in it for
me? Will it help me stay relevant? Will
it help my career? Will it help me a
better person or more successful in my
life? We don’t usually know what will
resonate, but ultimately the motivation
needs to come from an intrinsic place.
Conversations with employees individu-
ally and/or in small teams are necessary.
The company story and the common
individual whys must be continuously
discussed and referred to for a long pe-
riod of time until the new way of work-
ing becomes a habit. And the new way
of working requires people to embrace
their fears and to have the courage to
go forward. Change is hard. Helping
people buy in to change takes time and
effort by leaders and managers.
If people buy in to the Why then
they can move to “the how.” What
mindsets and behaviors will be needed
to accomplish the transformation? What
kind of work environment is needed to
enable those new mindsets and behav-
iors — both culturally and process-wise?
THE HOW
With respect to mitigating fear,
culturally the leadership needs to create
a “psychologically safe workplace”,
following the research of Professor Amy
Edmondson of Harvard Business School.
A psychologically safe workplace is one
where people agree to do no harm to
each other and to act civilly at all times.
It is a place where everyone can speak
up, be candid and have difficult conver-
sations without the fear of — or actual —
punishment or retribution.
It is a place where it is safe to
challenge the status quo, to challenge
each other’s thinking, to challenge
higher-ups’ thinking and decisions, to
admit one’s mistakes, and to say I don’t
know. A safe workplace should mitigate
corporate politics and internal competi-
tion, and it should enable collaboration,
teamwork and learning. In order for
that to happen, leaders and managers
need to empower people and ensure
their safety. Leaders need to show their
own weaknesses; they need to fail in
front of others and pick themselves
back up and try again. Initiatives and
trials need to be rewarded, not only the
successes, but the effort and spirit. At
some point this becomes the norm.
CONQUERING FEAR
Everyone is fearful — individual
differences are a matter of degree. And
what differs is how one manages his or
her fears.
Behaviorally, how do leaders enable
workers to overcome their fears? How
do leaders learn to personally embrace
and deal with their own fears? Lead-
ers need to become more human by
acknowledging their fears publicly to
others and encouraging their direct re-
ports to do the same. Having nonjudg-
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