{"id":718,"date":"2011-01-27T06:24:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T06:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com"},"modified":"2016-06-08T20:43:32","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T20:43:32","slug":"do-your-leaders-have-the-mindset-to-succeed-at-transformation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/free-resources\/do-your-leaders-have-the-mindset-to-succeed-at-transformation","title":{"rendered":"Do Your Leaders Have the Mindset to Succeed at Transformation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back to all Free Resources<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 View PDF Version<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Dean Anderson
\nLinda Ackerman Anderson<\/h3>\n

During a four day leadership retreat, the CEO of a large client of ours spontaneously blurted out, \u201cI get it! We have based our entire business strategy on the assumption that we need to take a defensive posture in our market. What would our strategy look like if we assumed instead that we could aggressively\u00a0grow<\/strong> our market rather than have to deal with it shrinking?\u201d That \u201caha\u201d was the beginning of a five year change effort that produced over 100 million dollars of net income from\u00a0new\u00a0business ventures. Quite the opposite of a shrinking market!<\/p>\n

The turning point for that company was the CEO\u2019s shift of mindset. When he and the other executives altered the way they perceived their circumstances, they found the road to success. It was in front of them all along; they just couldn\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

Most transformational change efforts fail because the leaders do not have the mindset required to see what is necessary to succeed<\/strong>.\u00a0Their beliefs, worldviews and assumptions about people, organizations and change keep them from accurately perceiving and understanding the dynamics they face. Consequently, they respond with strategies and tactics that do not match the transformational reality that challenges them. They make poor decisions, rush headlong into the unknown, skip necessary change tasks, or trigger resistance in employees without ever knowing they are doing so. When their change efforts flounder, and they cannot figure out how to right the ship because they do not understand the storm they are in.<\/p>\n

Many traditional leadership beliefs and assumptions limit success in change. The belief that \u201cspeed is paramount\u201d causes leaders to push change faster than employees can assimilate it, thereby making it actually go slower. The belief that \u201cthere are not enough resources\u201d causes leaders to skimp on change, or overlay the change on top of people\u2019s overflowing plates, which impairs their ROI. The assumption that they must \u201ccontrol the change at all costs\u201d often causes leaders to request and rigidly follow a predetermined project plan, when success requires frequent course correcting of the plan as circumstances shift. The belief that \u201cmy primary responsibility is to ensure that my part (department, region, process) excels\u201d causes turf battles and competition across boundaries that hurt the overall enterprise. This orientation to the \u201cpart over the whole\u201d also keeps leaders from integrating their change initiatives, causing redundancies and chaos that waste enterprise resources and slow the change. Does any of this sound familiar?<\/p>\n

The CEO in the example above made assumptions about his changing market and his organization\u2019s skills to deal with it. When he became conscious<\/strong> of the beliefs and assumptions he used to formulate his conclusion, e.g., to take a defensive market strategy, he realized that they were not founded on truth, but rather on fear. With this awareness, he was able to move beyond his fear and do what his organization needed to succeed.<\/p>\n

This example is a powerful illustration of one of the most fundamental change leadership skills:\u00a0introspection<\/em>. Leaders must have the ability\u2014and willingness\u2014to look in the mirror at their own mindsets to discover why they see things the way they do. Only then can they assess whether their perceptions accurately portray reality and what is needed to transform their organizations successfully.<\/p>\n

Jim Kouzes, friend and author of the\u00a0Leadership Challenge<\/span>, and one of the foremost researchers on leadership issues, recently told us that among the lowest scoring dimensions in his leadership assessment are \u201cself-reflection\u201d and \u201crequests for feedback from others.\u201d In other words, leaders don\u2019t look inward very often. They are too busy looking outward.<\/p>\n

The problem lies in the fact that leaders, like all people, process the concrete information they acquire about their external world through the \u201cinvisible\u201d lenses of their values, beliefs and worldviews. Their internal world, or mindset, determines what they see in their external world, and how they respond to it.<\/p>\n

Most of this internal \u201cprocessing\u201d occurs unconsciously, behind the scenes of one\u2019s own mind. Consequently, most people are not aware of these internal filters or the profound impact they have on how they perceive and evaluate the changes they face.<\/p>\n

Quite frankly, however, misguided assumptions are never the real problem. Being\u00a0unconscious\u00a0of them is the true culprit. And because leaders possess such power and authority, their \u201cunconsciousness\u201d can have far reaching negative impacts.<\/p>\n

Human resource executives can play a critical role in assisting leaders to develop the necessary self awareness. Make self mastery and personal change a center stone in all your executive and change leadership development programs. Formally help your leaders become\u00a0conscious\u00a0of their mindsets so they, and your organization, do not get blind-sided by their unconscious assumptions.<\/p>\n

What new level of success could your organization achieve if your leaders were more skilled at self awareness, and open to addressing their mindsets to produce breakthrough results from change? The leverage for transforming your organization, and its performance, just might hinge on the leadership mindset factor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back to all Free Resources\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 View PDF Version Dean Anderson Linda Ackerman Anderson During a four day leadership retreat, the CEO of a large client of ours spontaneously blurted out, \u201cI get it! We have based our entire business strategy on the assumption that we need to take a defensive posture in our market. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":13,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1469,"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/718\/revisions\/1469"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/changeleadersnetwork.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}