The Leader – Dealer of Hope and Change

Leadership is about creating a compelling vision and looking to the future, almost with the uncanny ability to look around corners and see what is there towards the horizon.?Effective leaders map out the future and most of the mapping has to do with making organizational changes and strategic decisions about the business that will ensure an exciting future. ?So, an effective leader is an active change agent with the courage to withstand resistance.?Leader’s challenge, in an organization is to convince themselves (sometimes) and the employees / stakeholders (most of the times) that change is good for them and the company. ?

So, what is Change!!?Change is a wide term, however; I like this definition of change:

"a modification to a person's environment, situation, or physical/mental condition that results in circumstances that challenge their existing paradigms."?

What this definition implies is that we tend to define how our world is supposed to work. Whenever something happens in our personal world that is inconsistent with the way we feel the world should be, we encounter change.

Let’s face it. Most of us become comfortable in our environment and the natural inclination is to resist changing that comfort level (remember that we are still 96% animalistic). So most of the times we either go into the fight or flight or freeze mode (human instinct to change).

This is where Leaders comes in to play.?It is about having the emotional courage and unwavering hope to convince employees/stakeholders that change is good for the organization and them as well. Undoubtedly, the latter is the harder part, as all of us react differently to change.?Among the reasons many resists are:

1. Fear of the future: This provokes many emotions, mostly common anxiety. It is okay to be anxious, but as the old adage goes, “This too shall pass.”
2. Fear that we might fail: Not an uncommon feeling when we are stepping off into uncharted waters.
3. Dissension and disagreement: Employees/Stakeholders often have different viewpoints.
4. Loss: All change creates some kind of loss. In this sense, some may be losing certainty or influence or comfort zone and therefore resist any movement for change.
5. No Trust: If the employees/stakeholders don’t trust the leader, then there will be tremendous resistance to the change.

While dealing with resistance and fear is often necessary, it’s rarely enough to make successful change and transition.

Here’s a quick story (Fact): For many years, it was widely believed that human beings could not run a mile in less than four minutes.?On May 6th, 1954, Roger Bannister in Oxford, UK ran a mile in three minutes and 59 seconds.?Less than a couple of months after Bannister’s historic run, John Landy broke the record again. By 1957, 16 more runners had broken through what once was thought to be an impossible barrier. ?Today we have thousands who has broken that record.

Organizations behave in a similar manner. We often find widely held “four-minute mile” equivalents, like “unattainable business / growth goals” or “unviable strategic changes”.?Before the broader organization can start believing that the impossible is possible, one person or a small number of people must embrace a new perspective and set out to challenge the old way of thinking.

Of course, when push comes to shove, driving it down the organization’s throat may work, but I would argue only in unusual circumstances.?Great leaders look out over the landscape and assess how he or she can best achieve the change.?

Think about it. Change is always about people and it can be minor or major in scope. It can involve the entire organization or just a part of the organization.?It may be relatively easy (in terms of time) or it might be a multi-year initiative or project.?Each of these assessments will require different strategies for initiating the change.

Planning for change is as important as deciding and initiating the change. At the end of the day, we all want to achieve more and grow both professionally and personally.?

Change management at turbulent business phase is one of the difficult challenges, leaders have to pace. Often we see failure when one does not plan the change.?So some points to be pondered are:

1. Assess the degree of difficulty (Know that not everyone thinks alike).
2. Plan carefully for implementing change. Assess the speed at which the organization can absorb change. Going too fast can be more painful than the change itself.
3. Determine whether this is top down change or bottom up change. From experience, most change comes from the top but turning it around and getting the bottom part of the organization to take a leadership role in effecting change goes a long way to having the change initiative be successful.

Like most of our business initiatives, change initiatives usually take longer and may cost even more to implement and often the planed goals may not match initially.?That is not reason to give up.?Getting others to see your point of view and act upon it is never easy. Sheer grit and persistence goes a long way.???

For those folks who are going through a change, Keep Hope:?Perhaps you're just moving to a New Role, New Project or starting a New Business vertical, or Changing the way you work or something awful happens in your business / project or you have a pressing attrition condition.?These events may seem black and white, and not necessarily similar, but they all require adjustment in the way you conduct your day-to-day life.?We never know exactly what we’re going to get, which often frightens us.?Coping with change well, rather than losing our mind, only requires an adjustment on our outlook and a little evidence of surviving various circumstances.

All said, I dedicate this article to Mr. N R Narayana Murthy. I love NRN though I have never worked with him or Infosys. ?Shout out for this man who never gives up.?

An inspiration among leaders. The actual dealer of change and hope – The Leader.?