Change in the context of… leadership

Uncertain, change-filled time requires the Leader to manage with shorter, more temporary time and work structures, spend increased time re-telling and re-vising the group's story to keep people aligned when they might quickly fall out of sync, and increase a coaching approach to their engagements with everyone.

Among other things leaders have a role in shaping, keeping and telling the story of the business to their charges. The story telling keeps the group on the same track and gives everyone the basis for their own story about where they have come from, where they are now and where they may be going. Our own story gives us a sense of our place for a time. The duration of the story and its effectiveness depends on the amount of change and uncertainty we face. The more uncertainty, the shorter the duration. In uncertain times, the leader will be spending more time telling the story more often. We could say that the uncertainty makes it harder to tell a good story. Surely that is true. Such is the challenge.

Leadership in uncertain times requires mastery of the art of the temporary structure. Temporary structures are built on what we actually know and last no longer than the point at which we will know more. Temporary structures must be designed to give us some needed stability to get things done as well as to enhance our learning so the next structure can evolve.

Leadership in uncertain times requires the mastery of saying "I don't know" in a useful way. Saying "I don't know" is not an admission of weakness. It is a statement of fact which leads to the next question: "How will we proceed in order to know a bit more?"

Leadership in uncertain times requires the mastery of inviting another person's truth into the room without hearing it as wrong or something to be corrected or fixed. When there is no uncertainty (not a likely occurrence though useful for making a point) objectives, methods and timing are completely known and we will be operating completely in voice 3. Nothing will be under development and nothing will be ending (I said it was unlikely). As uncertainty increases, Voice 2 must emerge to come up with some adjustments. Reinvention requires exploration and possibility thinking, acts of drawing out and calling forth rather than directing and controlling. With even more uncertainty, a sense of stability has been lost and Voice 1 emerges. Something is perceived to dissolve. Chaos is felt and seen. Worst fears unfold. The leader is tasked with listening, sanity checking and demystifying the worst fears as well has holding the occasional wake.

I refer the leader here to my discussion of Change and Coaching, as the coaching attitude is a requirement for these times.