Leading Means Leading Change

Our own Jan Rutherford, CCO of 3t Systems, recently published an article in the Watercooler Newsletter about leading change in the new year and beyond.

"It’s that time of year when everybody talks about making changes. All business leaders are facing the usual challenges – transforming cultures, creating better processes, setting shorter sales cycles. All change has one thing in common – whoever is leading it needs to gain acceptance and commitment from the team.

Leadership is nothing if not change. As leaders, we know that creating positive change starts within. I learned much of what I know about leading change while I was in the U.S. Army, from ages 17 to 26. I saw people who held impressive ranks, but that didn’t always correlate with effectively leading and managing change.

People in business may think leading in the military is simple – just give an order and people follow! But that really only happens in combat – just a small percentage of a soldier’s time. In business, people often follow repeatable policies and procedures that can be trained in a course. In the military, assignments are short, so you’re always doing something for the first time. In some ways, there is more change in the military than in the business world.

Becoming a leader who inspires change isn’t easy. Even in the military, leaders have to work hard to gain commitment and acceptance. A friend who is a retired two-star general says, “If I had to give an order, I knew I had already failed.” In other words, if a soldier did something because “I said so,” the leader hadn’t gained acceptance or commitment along the way.

To inspire people to change, leaders need to be willing to change their own way of doing things. What does long-term change mean for you? Chances are you’re comfortable. Change requires some degree of discomfort, but great achievements require great sacrifices.

Successful leaders have a passion, and they’re willing to sacrifice the status quo to fulfill it. Think hard about what “sacrifice” means.  Now think about what sacrifice requires. It means giving something up so you can focus on something else. Leaders give their teams more and more to do, but they don’t tell people what to stop. Then they can’t figure out why so many change efforts fail. You yourself have to say “no” to some things, and that may be the hardest step of all.

A famous motivator, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, once said, “You are the same today as you’ll be in five years except for two things – the books you read and the people you meet.”  I’d add “and the sacrifices you make.” It would be pretty amazing if we all made a New Year’s resolution to sacrifice something so we could change something else – and inspire the will to change in others."



Read more here.