Response to Team Change Makers: Understanding the Impact of Leader Behaviour

Response from the Team of Extraordinary Educators

Identify the Target Behaviour

First, you quoted Lepsinger (2010) who said “if you can’t name the behavior you want from people, you’re unlikely to get the change you need” (p.157) and observed “ the statement was absolutely not true.” It seems rather a bold statement to say it is absolutely not true when it is quite natural and necessary to help followers identify the behavior which keeps the person from achieving a goal or a change in particular. Lepsinger (2010) correlates the behavior with the goal (p. 157). The behavior stands in the way; it is a barrier which does not allow the person to achieve a certain goal, the change.

Lepsinger (2010) says managers identify a goal (the change) but sometimes fail to take the next step and help the person address the behavior (p. 157). For example, I had a secretary who every so often seemed to come across bossy and demanding. As I addressed the problem with her, she was not sure why people saw her this way. She realized this needed to change, which was her goal. I then helped her identify the behavior which made people see her as bossy and demanding. Some of her behaviors were, she failed to greet people in the morning, she kept to herself in her office, only talked to people when she wanted something, and she was very focused on policy and procedures and was not flexible enough with new staff members. As I helped her identify her behaviors, she then could address the behavior to be able to achieve the goal.

Second, you continue to say “it’s not about guessing what behavior is the root problem rather it comes down to leading by example.” Yes, you are right, we lead by example, but maybe the word guessing is not what Lepsinger (2010) had in mind. As I mentioned in the earlier example, addressing behavior is important, and as you said, it leads to example. If we have the wrong behavior, people will follow the wrong example. There is no guessing when you address a specific behaviour.

Third, about leading by example, you mention how Jesus lead by example. It is very true, but he also addressed the behavior. We have the example of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). Martha failed to make the right decision to sit with Him; Mary made the right choice and showed the right behavior. Jesus addressed Martha’s behavior. Also, Jesus over and over addressed the Pharisees’ behavior and their hypocrisy. The Pharisees failed to see their misbehavior. Leading by example is very important, but we also need to speak to each other about our behavior. You, yourself, quoted Northouse (2016) who suggests leaders need to find their voice and express it to others (p.174). Expressing is not imposing, it is addressing a concern, a behavior, which requires change in order to achieve a goal.

Fourth, you mention “researchers have not been able to identify a universal set of leadership behaviors that would consistently result in effective leadership” (p. 91). This does not mean behavior is irrelevant, which seems to be your argument. There is just not one type of behavior defined as the key to success for leadership. Behavior is still important in the process of achieving a goal.

Work to Build Trust

Trust is essential to moving forward with change in an organization to sustain long-term motivation to continue to support necessary changes.  Lepsinger (2010) effectively promotes the premise that leaders who put a modicum of effort into knowing and understanding their employees will garner greater positive response to required change within the organization.  “How you approach and interact with people at each level of readiness [for change] will have tremendous impact on the extent to which they will be open and receptive to your efforts (Lepsinger, 2010, p. 154). While your position diminishes the importance of listening and empathy, they are the first two characteristics of a servant leader and provide the foundation for ongoing success for a leader who “wants to serve first” (Northouse, 2013, p. 221).  An “authentic transformational leader is socialized leadership, which is concerned with the collective good…and transcend their own interests for the sake of others” (Northouse, 2013, p. 187).

There are times when the leader will need to make a firm decision without aggregate consultation; leaders need to be able to make decisions, but enduring “success requires the committed efforts of many, and good ideas alone are not enough to get that commitment” (Hughes, Beatty, & Dinwoodie, 2014, p. 146).  While it may not be prudent for leaders to sit down with every follower and listen to each grudge, complaint or idea (Change Makers, 2018), a process through which employees can contribute and consult with leadership is necessary for broader buy-in to organizational change.  By using a more distributed style of leadership where employees can have access, voice, and input to company direction, change, and development, trust relationships are formed, and change becomes a mutual focus.  “It is good to have a business strategy, but it is much better for the business to empower all employees to actively contribute to the execution of the strategy. In this way, the organisation becomes focused on its strategy” (Ungerer et al., 2016, p. 255).

The practice of reflective listening contains a two-fold benefit for a leader.   The first benefit is to help the leader hear what employees are saying in the midst of emotional reactions.  As Lepsinger describes, “it is the best way to show acceptance and empathy…and helps you to overcome the natural instinct to debate with people who are resistant to change (2010, p. 159).  The second noticeable benefit is how reflective listening creates a strong trust relationship without taking the focus off the need to change (Lepsinger, 2010).  In listing destructive habits of unsuccessful leaders, Lepsinger includes the need to “create an image of knowing everything, but fail to learn the implications of decisions or listen to other viewpoints” (2010, p. 33).  The strong vision and supportive structure necessary for facilitating change stem directly from reflective listening, empathy for and among employees, as well as making strong decisions when necessary. “Influencing others strategically is virtually impossible is you don’t have trust in your relationships” (Hughes et al., 2014, p. 163).

Explore Issues of Importance and Confidence

As per your post, Lepsinger (2010) writes “getting people to articulate the importance of a change and their confidence in their ability to make the change themselves increases the likelihood that resistance to change will diminish” (p. 118). While I agree with Reeves (2009), along with change comes some level of loss and change will meet resistance because of the loss, I do not agree that Lepsinger’s approach is “useless” as you suggest. Lepsinger is not saying the chances of resistance to change will be 100% abolished; he is saying when a person has the right level of confidence and realizes the importance of the change, perhaps there is a chance for the resistance to the change to be lessened as he uses the word “diminish”. Diminish means to make less or become less and thus Lepsinger (2010) is not suggesting change will never face resistance.

“The onus is also on the leader to provide a reason for the change” (Change Makers, 2018, LDRS 501).  Lepsinger (2010) tells us the leader provides the reason for change by posing questions which promote the intrinsic realization of the reason for change. “By encouraging her to focus on and discuss the areas in which she feels competent, you can help her see that she does have the capability to make the necessary change.” (Lepsinger, 2010, p. 119). While it is important for the leader to guide the teacher through loss and then purpose, the leader is not solely responsible for the process. Lepsinger (2010) also writes, “the most successful organizations ensure there is a proper balance of centralized and decentralized responsibility, and that people at all levels have the freedom to take actions to achieve results. This improves responsiveness, accountability, and allows change issues to be managed right where they happen” (Lepsinger, 2010, p. 150). In order for the individual to be held accountable, they also need some level of responsibility in the process of change. In my personal experience, a leader cannot convince someone of the reasons for change. The realization of the reasons or need for change have to come from within. A leader cannot change someone who does not value the need or reasons for change. Lepsinger (2010) writes, “It takes shared goals and clearly defined roles; these provide the foundation upon which cooperation and coordination can be built. In addition, people must be held accountable—for fulfilling commitments, meeting obligations and taking responsibility for doing their jobs properly. This requires a combination of direct leader behavior and systems that encourage and reinforce the appropriate behavior among employees” (Lepsinger, 2010, p. 25). It is the responsibility of the leader and the employee to believe in the importance of change and have build the confidence to implement the change. It is not solely the leader who is responsible.

Your post also enlightens us on Knights (2009)  “change leaders should propose new ways of teaching only if they’re confident they will have a positive impact on student achievement” (p. 509).  Lepsinger (2010) writes, “I think we can all agree: most employees approach their work with good intentions. They want to cooperate with colleagues and co-workers. Few people will consciously sabotage their own livelihood” (Lepsinger, 2010, p. 25). In reference to Lepsinger’s writing, why would a leader propose new ways of teaching if they were not confident they would have a positive impact? If a leader did this, they would lose trust and people would never believe in their mission or vision. Sometimes, there are changes which may not directly impact student achievement. For example, in my organization, one of the more recent changes implemented was having every teacher change their personal files from drives within our own computers, to a drive on google so information, files, and ideas can be more easily and conveniently shared and organized within the division. Although this took time, guidance and encouragement from the leader, it resulted in teachers being more organized, able to access files from anywhere which is more efficient, and created an increased level of collaboration within the school. All of these things have a positive impact on teaching efficiency and efficacy. “More important, when teaching practices improve, there is every reason to believe student achievement will improve as well” (Knight, 2009, p. 513). Although the change from personal drives to google drives does not directly impact student achievement, it improves teaching practices which does affect student achievement. A good leader would not implement changes which are not focused or aligned with the mission, vision and values of the organization, or aren’t backed by research and data.

Conduct a Pro/Con Analysis

Team Change Makers place conducting a Pro/Con Analysis as a waste of time, and employees “must be able to adapt to the change quickly regardless of their feelings of readiness” (Change Makers, 2018, para 11) when the organization implements a changing plan. This viewpoint is inadequate in four aspects.

First, overlooking people’s feelings will eventually lead to the failure of the change. Change works “only if it is accompanied by transition” (Bridges, 2009, p. 9). Transition, which addresses psychological feelings, will make change unmanageable if it is mismanaged. Leaders need to recognize it is not the change itself people resist, “it’s the losses and endings that they have experienced and the transition that they are resisting” (p. 24). Strategic leaders should “create a climate where others feel freer to share their feelings” (Hughes, Beatty, & Dinwoodie, 2014, p. 137) and acknowledge how the change will affect them to diminish the resistance and gain a collective understanding and solid commitment to the company.

Also, ignoring the employees’ feelings jeopardizes corporate culture for being disrespectful to the staff. The company’s culture, “The way we do things around here” (Cameron & Green, 2015, p. 301), “reflects the vision and strategy and the experiences people had in implementing them” (Kotter, 2008, p. 8), serves as the sound foundation of Transformational Servant Leadership pyramid (Atha, 2018) and predominantly influences the final results of change. Respect holds a significant place in both corporate culture and leadership style. The three behavioral dimensions (Hughes, Beatty, & Dinwoodie, 2014) emphasize the factor of respect in building the strategic influence capability in the corporate culture. Additionally, respect was in the list of the characteristics of servant leadership and implies in the refined traits such as listening, empathy and servant leadership practice (Page & Wong, 2000).

Further, it is not wise for an organization to unemploy the staff who “cannot align their personal values with the organization’s mission, vision, and values” (Change Makers, 2018, para 11) in the period of change. Heraclitus states “the only thing that is constant is change” (Giesecke, 2015, p. 4). Especially living in the so-called VUCA environment (Ungerer, Ungerer, & Herholdt, 2016), most of the leadership skills and interrelated thinking stances are preparing the managers to deal with changes and help the organization survive. Effective leaders need to build on consolidating company cohesion and helping staff better align with corporate MVV. In the light of corporate culture where people experience first hand whether they fit in or not (Kotter, 2008), managers and leaders could do much better than letting the employees resistant to change go by resorting to open communications, skillful relationship management, and so on.

At last, the Pro/Con Analysis mainly assess to what extent the weight and level others assign to the change and the readiness (Lepsinger, 2010) rather than “personally coaching every member of every team in an organization in their readiness” (Change Makers, 2018, para 11). Getting to know on which level the employees are is vitally crucial for strategic leaders to facilitate and adopt appropriate approaches to periodically help the staff understand the vision, cope with the feelings, and move towards the results. Indeed, personally coaching every member is both time-consuming and labor-demanding. While gathering the reflective results of the Pro/Con Analysis, which is different from individual coaching, is imperative and strategic for an organization to make change happen eventually.

References

Atha, D. (2018, July 30). Transformational servant leadership for results – Day one:

Introduction-Foundational faith, values and ethics [PDF document]. Retrieved from http:

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Bridges, W. (2009). Managing transitions: Making the most of change. Philadelphia, PA: De Capo Press.

Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management (4th ed.). Croydon, Great Britain: Kogan Page Limited.

Change Makers. (2018, November 7). Understanding the Impact of Leader Behaviour -Against (6.1) [web log comment]. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/seabreeze/2018/11/07/understanding-the-impact-of-leader-behaviour-against-6-1/

Giesecke, N. M. (2015). ‘The Only Thing That is Constant is Change’–Heraclitus, circa 500 BCE. ASA Newsletter, 79(9), 4-5.

Holy Bible: New International Version. (2001). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Hughes R., Colarelli-Beatty K. & Dinwoodie D. (2014) Becoming a strategic leader.San  Francisco: Jossey-Bass Second Edition.

Kotter, J. P. (2008). Corporate culture and performance. Simon and Schuster.

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Northouse, P. (2013).  Leadership: Theory and practice (6^th ed.).  Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Page, D., & Wong, T. P. (2000). A conceptual framework for measuring servant leadership. The human factor in shaping the course of history and development, 69-110.

Ungerer, M., Ungerer, G., & Herholdt, J. (2016). Navigating Strategic Possibilities : Strategy Formulation and Execution Practices to Flourish. Randburg: KR Publishing. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.student.twu.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1427028&site=eds-live