Successfully guiding organizational change in today’s chaotic marketplace requires not just a new way of thinking, but also a new way of leading.
The traditional ways of leading organizations served the purpose of allowing leaders to achieve the results we have historically witnessed, until now. As coach practitioners and organizational leaders, we must recognize that these strategies and tactics are no longer sufficient in a modern and continuously evolving world.
Leaders need to assess, update, and expand their leadership maps. Existing beliefs about leadership in organizations were influenced by years of mechanistic thinking. For example, traditional leaders pride themselves on “getting the job done”; they recognize individual performance; they are preoccupied with power and politics; and they focus on short-term results. They make decisions solely based on the observable facts and “rational” information.
In order for change agents’ views of leadership to be congruent with the new way of thinking, they must expand their perspectives. They must not only value individual performance, but also team performance. They must search for purpose, value and ethics in their lives, including their personal lives. They must allow themselves to make informed decisions by taking into consideration their intuition or “gut feelings.” Today’s leaders must not only develop themselves from the outside; they must seek to recognize their internal wisdom and values and peel away the layers to get to the essence of who they really are.
Leaders who guide organizational change, and those who guide these leaders as well, must explore and expand their roles beyond those of planners, organizers, staffers, directors and controllers to more sophisticated functions:
Visionaries
Servers
Warriors
Merchants
Below are some insights into these more complex “expanded” roles adapted from Peter Koestenbaum, who developed the paradoxical Leadership Diamond model:
Visionaries
The Visionary clearly sees the big picture; the entire landscape. Rather than viewing life from the ground like a mouse (nose to the grindstone), the Visionary soars like an eagle who sees the landscape with sharp eyes and how the parts of the whole interrelate.
Servers
The Server pays attention to what touches the heart and what has meaning in peoples' lives. The Server reaches out to people through empathetic acts of service to others, including himself or herself. The Server understands the meaning of dignity and respect — you affect them and they affect you.
Warriors
The Warrior is action-oriented, but not in a controlling way. Rather, the Warrior has the courage to act in service to others. Courage means taking initiative, being a self-starter, alert and choiceful. The Warrior is like a tree that is firmly rooted in its vision and values, yet is able to bend and be flexible in how it takes action to enact its vision.
Merchants
The Merchant deals with reality, focusing on facts, data and numbers, avoiding temptations of wishful thinking and sentimentality that is not consistent with one's vision and values. The mmerchant is aware of the acceleration of change and makes decisions about how to expend resources in the context of reality mindful of the vision values.
In my experience working with organizational leaders and coach practitioners, I know that all four of the new leadership roles are already present in each one of us. But, in the process of evaluating and adapting our leadership skills, we must ask ourselves, “How much do we access these roles and how congruent are we when enacting these roles?”
Are our actions consistent with our vision? Are we serving those who are important to our vision and necessary to implementing the organizational change we intend to manifest?
About the Author
Dr. Laura L. Hauser, MCC, MCEC
Founder, Leadership Strategies International
Dr. Laura Hauser, MCC, MCEC, works with organizational leaders and their teams (and the professionals who support them) to build healthy workplace cultures. She is an internationally-recognized thought leader and researcher in the highly specialized space of team coaching. Using art and science, she teaches, coaches, supervises and consults in a way that expands mindsets and capabilities needed to navigate through disruption. Laura has been honored for her contributions to the coaching profession. She is the developer of the Team Coaching Operating System®, an ACSTH coaching school accredited by the International Coach Federation. Contact Laura by email or on LinkedIn.
When referencing this material, please acknowledge the source: ©2020 Dr. Laura L. Hauser, MCC, www.leadership-strategies.com
Comments