Leading Through Change: Leadership and Change Management
8 Min. Read
Despite change having been a constant in corporate life for many years, we’re not getting better at it. With 70% of transformations still failing, the majority of organizations are clearly doing what they’ve always done and expecting different results. And we know what that’s the definition of.
To be successful at culture change, you need to align change management (‘what’ is changing) with context-specific changes in mindset and behavior (how people need to ‘be’), starting with your leaders. If you lead through culture change vs. simply managing it, you will build an underlying resilience for change, which will make any transformations quicker, easier, and increase your chances of delivering their strategic benefits.
In this blog we’ll explore this concept in more detail, including what we mean by changes in leadership mindset and behavior, why they’re so important, and how you can lead through change to ensure your transformations are sustainable and successful.
What is change management?
Change management is a structured process that uses various methodologies, tools, and techniques that focus on the people side of change. It helps employees understand what is changing, the impact on them, and the benefits, with the aim of increasing knowledge, engagement, and adoption.
What’s the difference between change and transition, and the connection between them?
Change
Change is about what is practically going to be different – for example, your company is moving offices. In that sense, once your employees have physically moved to your new building, the change has been done.
Transition
Transition is psychological. It is concerned with the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of people as they go through a change. In the above example, you want your people to be excited and embrace the move, and that means you need to help them individually internalize the change beyond simply what’s in it for them. They must connect with it, and that’s where leadership comes in.
What are the qualities needed in a leader to successfully navigate organizational change?
1. Adapt behavior to the specifics of the change.
Even if your leaders’ behaviors are supportive of your desired culture, leading through change means they need to be willing to adapt their mindset and behaviors to its specific demands. For example, if your organization is going through a digital transformation, the behaviors required may be quite different to those currently exhibited.
Leading change is about understanding this context and dialling up the mindset and behaviors needed to successfully deliver that specific change. This requires flexibility, vulnerability, and humility. It means having the self-awareness to say, ‘This behavior I do on a day-to-day basis is not going to help with this change, so how do I need to behave differently?’
2. Courage to change.
At Walking the Talk, we describe courage as fear plus action. This is essential for any change. Your people may be fearful of the change. You as a leader may be scared. But it’s your job to remove that fear in yourself and others by taking action and creating courage. When you do that, you will unlock other qualities that make you more resilient to change, for example curiosity.
3. Balance empathy with advocacy.
Leaders have to strike the right balance between empathizing with their people about the impacts of the change on them, and genuinely championing the change. That’s hard to get right, because a lot of very well-meaning leaders will make assumptions about how their people are feeling.
The key here is to do your research, because if you’ve listened to your people, you will be able to address any of their concerns while still advocating for the change. That will enable you to help people go through their personal transitions.
4. Secure active sponsorship.
Research by Prosci, a global leader in change management, revealed the biggest reason for success or failure is effective, active, and visible sponsorship. These people need to be leaders because they must have influence, and in their role as sponsor they have to be regularly seen by employees, involved at strategically important times, reinforce other leaders and managers, and relentlessly promote the change.
What are the biggest challenges or pitfalls that leaders typically encounter during a large change or transition?
Switching between behaviors
To my earlier point regarding adaptability, leaders can find it hard to flex their mindsets and behaviors needed for a particular transformation. Let’s say that your organization is very innovation-led but, to use my previous example, you’re moving offices next month and there will inevitably be disruption to services.
So, while normally behaviors such as experimentation would be critical for your business, right now, to transition successfully, you need to focus on results. Your leaders need to be able to behave as required for the specific change you’re going through, and once that has settled, switch back to your normal cultural behaviors.
Unwillingness or inability to change mindset and behavior
From my experience in change management, and speaking to ex-colleagues and peers who work in this field, one of the single biggest reasons for failure is that leaders do not change their own behavior. They may have managed a change, but this is only superficial. The transition in their own mindset and behaviors, and therefore that of their people, has not happened. As a result, change is not sustained and it will probably need to be done again at some future point, causing even more fatigue and resistance.
To put it another way, if you successfully execute a change management plan and everyone is doing the activities they are supposed to be doing but you’re not seeing the business benefits, then what other reason is there except a lack of changed behavior?
Stepping aside
Sometimes, leaders might not have the skills or ability to demonstrate the behaviors required for a specific transformation. That’s ok. But we often see in these situations that leaders struggle to step aside and either hand over leadership of the change to others, or let somebody come forward and help to lead the change.
The fact is anyone can run a change management process. But to lead through change, you need to understand the context-specific mindset required, be willing to adopt and demonstrate the necessary new behaviors, and know when to lean in and when to step aside.
Failing to take a ‘balcony view.’
Most organizations we deal with have multiple changes happening at any one time. One of the challenges we see is that if a big transformation is occurring, the business can become myopic. It fixates on one change, and ignores all other changes going on internally and externally. Failing to take what we call a ‘balcony view’ can exacerbate feelings of change fatigue, because the sheer number of simultaneous changes haven’t been mapped, connected, prioritised, and phased accordingly.
Who is responsible for ensuring changes in the workplace are implemented correctly?
Change is a team effort across a whole organization, but there are three critical business areas I want to highlight:
- Change Strategy team. This team ensures a robust strategy and plan are in place, including stakeholder mapping and management.
- Leaders. The shadow of a leader is large. Their behavior determines everyone’s, so it must be supportive of the change.
- People managers. They are closest to their people, so they can add critical team and personal context for the change, and deliver messages in a way that will create the transition.
How can leaders determine an effective change strategy?
Before creating a change strategy and plan, you should:
- Identify the target culture needed for this specific change. Firstly, we need to establish the culture required for this change – what are the new mindsets and behaviors required?
- Do a diagnostic. This will help us better understand where the current organizational culture currently is vs. where it needs to be, what needs to change, and the size of the gap.
- Engage with your people. Not just through surveys or focus groups, but across your organization via people managers to understand fears, concerns, resistance, excitement, and potential champions.
What to include in your change strategy
From these activities you will be able to create a robust change strategy and plan that should include:
- Change Impact Assessment.
- Stakeholder Management Plan.
- Resistance Management Plan.
- Training materials.
- Communications strategy.
The key is striking the right balance between understanding the behaviors needed, aligning everyone on those, and mitigating resistance early, yet not overengineering your plan to the extent it doesn’t get activated. Culture change, including transition, can and should be simple and doable.
What is the top change strategy that we’d recommend?
Our proposed approach is called Leading Through Change, and it has three steps:
1. Shaping leaders into change leaders.
This is about supporting leaders on their own journey of change, while leading their teams through it.
When I worked in change management, every time we did a change it felt like starting from scratch. With Leading Through Change, we are building resilience to change regardless of its nature, which is a fundamental capability that everyone needs and is essential to successful organizational cultural transformations.
2. Building change resilience for individual contributors (your people).
Here we focus on your people, and building the skills needed to handle change for themselves. Indeed, resilience is a superpower, and especially when it comes to culture change. This mindset doesn’t mean the absence of fear, but having an underlying belief that no matter what happens, you can look inside yourself and find the tools needed to navigate it.
Like any mindset and behavior, it’s a muscle that takes daily exercise to build and maintain, but once you have it, it makes you better prepared, more confident, and as a result, change and transition become incalculably easier. But more than that, if you’re prepared to feel the fear and do it anyway, then you’re inclined to set, and achieve, bigger goals.
3. Coaching leaders through change
With the help of our unique proprietary Taylor Assessment behavioral map, we identify who’s best suited to lead your change, who may need extra support, and where you might have to bring in new hires.
Why seek the advice of a culture change expert for your change?
Leading through change is about connecting a traditional change management approach with an equal focus on the specific behavioral changes needed, and reinforcing this with support for your leaders and people. All transitions are personal, so by paying proper attention to how people need to ‘be’ and not just what they need to ‘do’, your organization will be futureproofing your ability to adapt your culture and deliver on your strategy, no matter what the change is.
Don’t know where to start? Our experts can help you transform your culture - we'll give you the tools to support your employees through every step of organisational change. Contact us to build a seamless strategy to achieve your goals.
Learn more about agile quarterly planning in our expert guide.
