Leading in the Face of Change

I decided to start this blog as a way to reach other people like myself who develop people with the mission of empowering the entire organization. What better way to start than to talk about change. It is no secret that people like us who are in T & D are faced with a number of new challenges. Primarily, most organizations are experiencing hiring freezes and sadly layoffs. Leaders are now faced with a very harsh reality regarding having to take strategic measures to stabilize and retain their existing workforce. To further compound the situation, many companies do the stupidest thing in poor economic times, they cutback or eliminate the training and development division. So, if we take a moment to look at this situation from a systems thinking perspective, the larger cost may very well be paid when we actually come out of this crisis. The price we will pay will be that of large personnel gaps in the organizations we serve. Even larger than that will be even larger gaps in the skills needed to bring these organizations back up to speed.

One solution must be a true succession mechanism woven into the company's strategic plan. Many consider this problematic because if T & D departments are being reduced or eliminated, who is going to training, develop, and mentor this next generation of leaders. The truth is, business in general will lose many top leaders over the next two years. In fact, after speaking with an HR colleague this week, there are companies that are running with virtually no senior leadership at all. This is a large issue because in this instance, middle managers are running the show. I am not suggesting that this group of leaders are not capable of stepping up to the place, what I am suggesting is that many of these middle managers have skill-gaps that can only be filled with time, experience, and leaving a little skin at the ball field.

One of the greatest misnomers I encounter in my line of work is the misconception that succession development is limited to the "up-and-comer," this could not be any further from the truth. True succession is a continuum of development that starts with the hourly employee who needs immediate skill development to perform his or her job function through the senior leadership of the organization. In this instance, the discussion is not about embracing organizational culture but rather, it is all about development as the driver of that culture. Therefore, it is important to understand that development on a continuum means that the organization identifies skill gaps globally but train at each level of the organization's leadership change. For example, the communication set needed at the emerging leader level is quite different than the type of communication that takes place at the senior level. The same holds true for understanding change. In this respect, where senior leaders create the change, the front-line supervisor is charged with both the communication of the change at a very localized level, but supporting his or her employees through the anxiety that is associated with that change as well. One could argue that at the end of the day, it is the Front-line supervisor's ability to support the employee through dramatic changes in policy that drives retention and continued employee support and buy in to the company's mission. i will go even one step further and state that it is the emerging leader's ability to support his or her lateral colleagues through turmoil that positions the Front-line supervisor to be successful in his or her ability to keep the department stable.

How then does the organizational leader lead in the face of change? one may say by the seat of his pants. Wiser leaders would say by having a solid plan that not only addresses the organization's current needs, but the tomorrow's needs as well. The biggest issue the organizational sector is facing is retention issues driven by instability. Good leadership realizes the domino effect that is inherent to all organizations that are forced to layoff its people. Although it could be argued that in this market no one is going no where, the reality is, no matter how much you need the job, if you are pushed to a very high level of anxiety and in some cases depression, people will leave. Even if means takes a lower position and less pay. People need a sense of security in their lives and they will make sacrifices to have it. When this level of change occurs, leaders have to be fully committed to the transformational style of leadership. In other words, support and promote what the person does best, communicate constantly, and support and secure the entire organization by developing the remaining membership for tomorrow. If you are a member of a small to medium-sized company who does not have an in-house training department you must face the reality that you will have to spend dollars that you may not have to ensure that you are ready for the end of this economic crises.

Understand this, anyone can manage when things are stable and there is a lot of money floating around but true leadership occurs when thing are not so good and hard decisions have to be made to ensure that the organization will be here in the future. Remember, the future begins with developing your people today.