Why is organizational leadership so vital when you shake things up?

Businesses always have to go through phases of profound changes that shake things up from top to bottom. This may be due to a large number of reasons: increasing competition, legal changes or adapting to the newest trends in the industry, changes in the business model, and many others. Usually, these phases are defining moments: the future of the business is usually at stake.

One of the main elements that determine an organizations’ ability to adapt and make internal changes is its leadership. Here we’ll discuss the degree of importance leadership has to implement organizational changes.

Organizations exist in a dynamic environment: they have to adapt to constant changes in legal provisions, client preferences, technology, stiff competition and much more. This means that deep internal changes are necessary from time to time to be able to overcome and take advantage of the environment. Leaders have the responsibility to identify when their organizations need to change and what particular changes they need to implement. If a leader does not welcome change, he or she is not a leader but a mere manager, an operator. The ability to know when to initiate processes of change in organizations and how to conduct them is one of the major challenges leaders face.

There are three main globally-accepted premises when discussing organizational change: First, it is constant; second, leading it is one of the most difficult tasks a leader faces, and third, the large majority of organizational change plans fall short from their purposed objectives.

Let’s focus on that last point. Why does this happen? There are many reasons. Resources are usually thin, there are contradictory competing priorities in a zero-sum game for resources (money, personnel, etc.), they implicate learning new systems and processes, they produce fear and fatigue, and executives face problems they’re not accustomed to.

As you may notice, aside from the first two, most of the reasons why organizational leadership fails to implement change are mostly psychological. This means the leader needs a good deal of emotional intelligence to lead the boat to a safe harbor during these periods.

A determined mindset to thrive during organizational overhauling needs diverse elements. First, leadership alignment on how to execute the plan, which leads to a proper articulation of the changes an organization, needs to change.

After this first step, the leadership must connect with the team on an emotional level to be able to manage periods of stress and fear. People usually reject change at first, especially when they face issues they have never dealt with.

When you maintain good communication with the rest of the team about your vision, the necessity to adapt and the plan, and you connect with your team, you increase accountability and maintain trust as you are seen as a reachable and transparent leader.

So, to conclude, and after showing the significance of organizational leadership, there’s one key takeout from the relationship between the leadership and times of change: leading profound changes in a business always begin with a mindset change because it means that the organization needs to take resources from one area and move it to another, which is generally met with resistance.