To Lead Change, First YOU Have to Change

About a year ago, two professionals reached out to me from Berlin. Christoph Zohlen and Dr. Torsten Breden were launching a new consultancy based around a powerful idea:

Business transformation starts with leadership transformation.

It's easy to misinterpret this statement. They don't mean, first you get new leaders.

They mean, first leaders pursue their own personal transformation, and then they work on changing their company.

This is an audacious idea. But the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

Imagine that you have been CEO of a company for eight years. During most of this period, your leadership team has remained mostly intact. Competitive pressures now dictate that your firm needs to be, let's say, more nimble and responsive. 

You launch a change initiative. Viewed with objective eyes, the initiative basically entails employees below your leadership team's level doing things differently. 

It will almost certainly fail. Why?

YOU.

You're going to be the same leader. Your leadership team will be the same. Collectively, you run the place. If you don't change, your company won't change.

Aside from Christoph and Torsten, no one seems to have the courage to tell a CEO that she or he must first undergo a personal transformation.

But it's true.

Here's another truth: most of us want other people to change.

We want to do the same things but get better results. We want "luck" to turn our way, or we secretly hope that the person in front of us in the coffee shop will be the one who provides us with:

a. A new job

b. A new customer

c. More funding

d. True love

You aren't any different than your CEO. (If you are the CEO, this is doubly true.)

Your results won't change unless you change. Waiting for other people to change just won't work.

Thanks to Torsten, Christoph and the team at Radius-1 for sharing this idea with me.

Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter for entrepreneurs. Learn more at Kasanoff.com. He is the author of How to Self-Promote without Being a Jerk.