Change Management: a key leadership success factor!

The greatest myth for a leader is to think, “I have arrived”. Organizational landscapes are always changing, bringing along with them new problems and new possibilities.  Therefore leaders can’t afford to stop growing in their ability to manage change.  Change management is one of the key competencies for leadership success for it navigates people through the maze of changes that arise in any organization’s journey.  Sometimes these changes occur intentionally through strategic initiatives and other times they occur as a by-product from the constant shifts that occur in our world.

When it comes to intentional change through strategic initiatives, one fatal mistake regularly made by leaders is to elevate content over context.  Every change initiative involves new strategic information (content) and this is usually the key focus.  However, if the attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours of employees are not considered adequately enough throughout the implementation of a strategy, it is destined to either fail or be wrought with unnecessary conflict and obstruction.  Hence leaders need to constantly grow in their capacity to develop systems and processes for change, along with tactically aligning people to a vision, informing, involving and communicating clearly with others throughout the process.

In regard to change brought about simply as a by-product of existing in the global environment, leaders need to have their change radar switched on at all times.  Leaders must cultivate a conscious awareness of events and circumstances around them that will impact upon themselves and the people within their organization.  There needs to be time taken to contemplate potential shifts from stimuli to their organization.  Effective leaders need to regularly analyze their organizations for circumstances that could negatively impact upon their staff and prepare them to navigate positively through to success.

I have found that oft-times leaders do not distinguish between ‘change’ and ‘transition’.  Change refers to the alteration of circumstances around us from our external environment, whereas transition is the internal experience that people undergo as a result of external change.  The key here is to realize that change can be implemented quite rapidly, but people can vary significantly in their capacity to catch up with the changes.  This is where leaders need to be aware of factors such as: spectrum of early to late adopters, values alignment, role impact, change credibility, work demand, previous change disappointments, personal/social impact, career path, loss of perceived benefits and constant open communication.

In conclusion, to be a successful change-agent one needs to keep cultivating a number of competencies.  Leaders need to keep alert to the constant shifts occurring around them and preparing others to navigate the terrain.  They must increase their capacity to plan change initiatives, along with contingencies more effectively.  Leaders need to appropriately involve others according to their levels of influence, in discussions, decisions and the necessary information required for successful implementation.  Effective leaders cast a clear motivating and engaging vision worthy of investment for others to engage their energies.  Quality change-agents acknowledge the positive contribution of past approaches and reveal how they are no longer appropriate in achieving optimum outcomes.  And finally, Effective leaders create a positive environment, listening, coaching, supporting, modelling and discussing with individuals their journey through the change/s.

David Allan – Certified Executive Coach (MBus) www.executivesuccesscoaching.com

P.S. why not complete an online assessment on your change management effectiveness and receive a PDF giving you strategies for improvement?

Leadership empowerment: what is it and how do you achieve it?

There is quite a bit of talk today about the need to have empowered employees within the workplace.  Unfortunately that is often all it is – talk!  But what are the benefits and how do you accomplish such a task?  Let’s start by discussing the benefits of having more empowered team members.  Business environments change so rapidly today.  There is a need to develop more empowered employees in order to keep up with today‘s fast-paced fluctuating global environment.

In order for organizations to remain adaptable to customer needs, front-line employees must be given more authority and flexibility to make on-the-spot decisions.   Research in the area of empowerment has revealed that increased empowerment produces greater organisational success factors.  These factors include employee contribution, innovation, organizational commitment, expands latent talents, increases capacity to accept change, and increases employee retention.  These benefits are all necessary traits for improving organisational success.

Having discussed some benefits and hence the desirability for greater empowerment let’s investigate what we mean by the term ‘empowerment’.  There seems to be a plethora of definitions but for me the best way to discuss empowerment is to break it up into two dimensions.  Hence, empowerment can be summed up by looking at both its internal and external aspects.  The technical definitions that describes these two aspects are psychological empowerment (internal) and leader-empowering behaviours (external).

Psychological empowerment is made up of four facets, a sense of real meaning in one’s work, a sense of making an impact through the contribution you make at work, feeling competent about your capacity to do your work, and a sense you have freedom to make choices that effect your work.   Research indicates that not only do psychologically empowered employees perceive themselves as more effective, increasing their confidence, but also that employees with whom they work assess them as more effective.

Leader-empowering behaviours exhibited by leaders to empower those whom they lead have been defined by six specific activities.  They are:  delegation, accountability, self-determined decision-making, information sharing, training for greater competency, and coaching for innovation.  Furthermore a connection has been shown between these six behaviours being exercised by leaders and their subordinates increasing in the four facets of psychological empowerment.  Leaders who exhibited these six traits, as determined by their subordinates, created a dynamic which allowed for their subordinates to feel more empowered (psychological empowerment).

Having defined empowerment and its various aspects and elements, how does one go about creating increased empowerment?  One research project has revealed that executive coaching which specifically worked on enabling leaders to use coaching skills in their leadership, saw an increase in their leader-empowering behaviours and an increase in psychological empowerment within both the leaders and their subordinates.  The executive coaching that was exercised set out only to equip leaders in the use of executive coaching skills.  A model was used which enabled leaders to coach their staff using a contracted relationship, conduct a gap analysis, develop and action plan to fill the gap, resource them for success and gain ongoing feedback.  So how does one implement an empowering process?  Simple, a quality coaching process is an effective method for empowering leaders to not only feel empowered (psychological empowerment) but to be able to empower others in their work. A good coaching process clarifies the way forward, holds people accountable, enables them to take responsibility for their own direction, opens up the way for greater communication, increases competency, and expands innovative opportunities.

David Allan – Certified Executive Coach (MBus) www.executivesuccesscoaching.com

Emotional Intelligence – How to improve it!

Emotional Intelligence (EI) – that is, the capacity to work effectively with your and others’ emotions while engaging in human interactions.  EI is demonstrating itself to be a critical factor in leadership effectiveness.  Increased numbers of empirical research studies are being produced that reveal outcomes that can no longer be ignored by serious leaders. Some of the key measures associated with emotional intelligence that are being examined are job satisfaction levels, job effectiveness, the contagiousness of moods and physiological responses to others (heart rate, health).  Studies show that the emotional intelligence of the boss directly affects employee job satisfaction levels, and this in turn impacts upon employee turnover.  Furthermore when a boss brings a negative mood to the workplace through displays of irritability, and anxiety it takes away from a climate of enthusiasm, which diminishes work effectiveness.

In contrast, when a boss is able to exude an optimistic and enthusiastic mood it impacts positively upon innovation, productivity, team work and increased resilience to difficult circumstances. With a greater number of research studies demonstrating the positive impact that increased emotional intelligence has upon business results, it is becoming more difficult to ignore this element of leadership development.  The good news is that leaders can improve and grow in this area. I have worked one-to-one with leaders to achieve this very thing.  So where do you start to work at improving this area?  There are a number of options available to you.  You might want to look at taking an assessment to assist you in this.  I offer them on my site at www.ExecutiveSuccessCoaching.com.  You may want to read up more on the four elements of emotional intelligence and select one that you know needs more work and set some goals for yourself, or perhaps ask those you are leading for their perspective, either directly or through a 360 assessment.  The most logical place to start improving emotional intelligence is to increase your own self-awareness, for it is the building blocks to EI.

Key variables that align well with evolved EI are awareness of your own  personal values, taking opportunities to reflect and knowing your strengths.  When you are clear on your values – your inner guiding life principles – then your decision-making is automatically simplified.  You are able to confidently say ‘no’ to opportunities that don’t match who you are, or have become.  And you are able to quickly distinguish between opportunities worthy of your investment.  One exploratory question I have found helpful in working with leaders to increase their awareness of their values is, “What is so important to you, that if you didn’t do it, you would consider your life a waste?”

Leaders who know their strengths are able to construct their life and business in order to cater for their strengths and potential growth areas.  They openly acknowledge their weaknesses allowing those areas to be addressed in any organizational strategic planning.  They know how to build teams around them that will complement their strengths and growth areas, which will create greater effectiveness.  There are some great assessment tools available today to assist leaders in this process of discovering their behavioral strengths, which will also enable them to learn how to flex their style with people who are different.  I recommend increasing your self-awareness in this area.

The final area that is vital for increasing self-awareness is learning to take the time to reflect over your responses to others.  Optimally it is best to reflect before making decisions so you don’t simply react but you make a measured response.  Sometimes we emotionally react and after the fact we know that we haven’t demonstrated emotional intelligence.  Instead of beating ourselves up, these are the times to intentionally practice reflection.  Use a journal if you want to get serious and write down your thoughts.  Ask yourself, “What just happened?  “What was going on for me in that emotional encounter?”  “What hot buttons were pressed, and how could I have responded?”  “If a similar encounter were to occur in the future, how would I pick up on it – what would be the indicators, and how could I recognize them as red flags in order to respond appropriately next time?

As you can see this type of growth doesn’t happen over night, which is why one-to-one coaching is effective to improving this competency.  As you become more aware of your own inner responses and what triggers negative reactions, it is only then that you can make alternate decisions to a better you.  I have given you a number of possible paths to improving one area of your EI, so which one are you going to take?  When are you going to get started?  This area is critical to effective leadership, so don’t ignore it any longer – start today?

David Allan MBus Professionally Accredited Coach LinkedIn