2. Why are we talking
about this?
• Everyone in this room has a role in change leadership. We can share in this
challenge and share our experiences.
• Being a change leader is difficult. Inspiring staff, coalition/REOW members,
stakeholders to change their communities in ways that have never been seen
and in the face of opposition can be a daunting challenge.
• Increasingly complex communities and problems require talents, creativity, and
leadership of everyone.
4. “A leader is someone who
helps people get where
they want to go…by seeing
the opportunity for getting
there.” –Otis White
5. Acknowledgements:
Adapted from “Leadership Development Academy” by Ellen B. Kagen,
MSW, Georgetown University, Leadership for Systems Change,
sponsored by ODMHSAS Systems of Care.
Today is just a brief overview.
6. Management Vs
Leadership
“ Leaders have people follow them, while managers have people who
work for them. A successful business owner needs to be both a strong
leader and manager to get their team on board to follow them towards
their vision of success” – go2HR
“Leaders lead people. Manager manage tasks” – changingminds.org
7. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
8. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
9. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
• Stable
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
• Unstable
10. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
• Stable
• Safe
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
• Unstable
• Hard
11. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
• Stable
• Safe
• Consistent
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
• Unstable
• Hard
• Uncomfortable
12. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
• Stable
• Safe
• Consistent
• Calm
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
• Unstable
• Hard
• Uncomfortable
• Anxious
13. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
• Stable
• Safe
• Consistent
• Calm
• Order
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
• Unstable
• Hard
• Uncomfortable
• Anxious
• Chaos
14. What kind of
leaders are we?
Management
• Stable
• Safe
• Consistent
• Calm
• Order
• Status Quo
Management and leadership create different experiences and feelings
Leadership
• Unstable
• Hard
• Uncomfortable
• Anxious
• Chaos
• Resistance
15. 10 Habits of a ‘Change’
Leader (Unnatural Leader)
If you want to learn more….”Unnatural Leadership: Ten New Leadership Instincts” by
David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo.
16. #1
Refuse to be a
prisoner of
experience
Steps:
1. Use teams of individuals with different types of skills and
experience to encourage creativity and breakthrough
thinking.
2. Conduct or participate in brainstorming sessions.
3. Set goals and objectives which encourage creativity and
innovation.
4. Recognize and reward suggestions for continuous
improvement.
5. Prevent fear of failure from blocking opportunities for
breakthrough thinking.
6. Learn how to overcome your own fears of “doing the
wrong thing” and taking prudent risks. Practice asking
yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
17. #2
Expose your
vulnerabilities
Steps:
1. Admit your mistakes.
2. Encourage people to talk about how work is affecting
them.
3. Be willing to express your fears.
4. Create conversations with back and forth dialogue.
5. Engage in meaningful dialogue with people who aren’t
part of your group.
6. Adopt and encourage a learning mentality for parts of the
organization that you and your team don’t know much
about.
7. Make time for reflection and self discovery for yourself and
your team.
18. #3
Acknowledge
your shadow side
Steps:
1. Adopt a learning attitude toward your vulnerabilities.
Anticipate situations that give you problems and mentally
rehearse for them. Talk to others who have faced what
you are facing and get advice from them. Watch people
you believe handle the situations well.
2. Learn to look at negative feedback and criticism as
potentially useful information that you need to
understand more fully.
3. Think about how you handle high pressure situations and
identify ways you can handle them more effectively.
4. Solicit feedback from others regarding how you handle
stressful situations.
5. Make a point to observe how other leaders deal with
stressful situations.
6. Encourage your direct reports to acknowledge their
shadow side, and provide coaching and feedback that can
help them learn how to manage negative consequences.
19. #4
Develop a right-
Versus Right
Decision-Making
Mentality
Steps:
1. Use the paradox management tool for decisions that have
no real long-term solution.
2. Avoid trying to answer questions when there is no
solution just because you believe people can’t handle
uncertainty.
3. Pay attention to changes in the external environment that
can have an impact on a significant paradox you are trying
to manage.
4. Work on clarifying what is important to you (for example,
your values and beliefs), so it can be applied in situations
where the data available do not provide a clear direction
5. Be open about the existence of paradoxes, and teach how
to manage them.
6. Challenge yourself to understand the upside and
downside (the competing forces) for each decision you
need to make.
20. #5
Create teams
that Create
Discomfort
Steps:
1. Encourage people to say what’s really on their minds.
2. Don’t withhold your ideas and opinions, even if you don’t
agree with others.
3. Hold open monthly meetings with no agenda. Encourage
people to ask questions and communicate barriers
interfering with their effectiveness.
4. Spend time with your team to analyze barriers to timely,
honest, and clear communications.
5. Create task forces and project teams comprising people
with different experiences, skills and abilities.
6. Avoid shooting the messengers with bad news.
7. Make sure that all sides of an important issue get
examined. Assign someone to be the devil’s advocate
8. Design meetings that encourage group discussion and
debate.
9. Survey the team at the end of the meeting to assess how
effective it was (e.g. was everyone’s voice heard?).
21. #6
Trust others before
they earn it
Steps:
1. Spend time getting to know your direct reports as
individuals.
2. Express your confidence in their ability to deliver results.
3. Experiment with giving others the benefit of the doubt
instead of doubting their ability to deliver.
4. Pay attention to how frequently you communicate your
faith in others through your work, actions, and attitude.
5. Challenge your assumptions about trust, and whether
your expectations are impossible for people to meet.
6. Be sure that your actions match your words.
22. #7
Coach, rather
than only Lead
and Inspire
Steps:
1. Set a goal to review the performance of your direct reports
regularly.
2. Set stretch goals for your team.
3. Identify someone you respect who excels at coaching and
teaching. Ask her/him to coach you.
4. After every conversation with your direct reports, ask yourself,
“Have I left them stronger and more capable than before?”
5. Learn about the abilities, aspirations, and ambitions of your
staff, and incorporate this knowledge into your work with them.
6. Develop a plan for assessing each direct report’s need for
coaching. Have each one prepare a list of areas in which
he/she thinks coaching would be helpful. Meet individually
with ach person and agree on a coaching contract.
7. Set a goal to review each direct report’s performance once a
quarter and provide feedback.
8. Don’t ignore performance problems; act as soon as they arise.
9. Talk to your direct report(s) on the level of involvement they
want from you in their work.
10. Learn how to be effective at giving and receiving feedback.
11. Set a goal for yourself to assess and develop a full understanding
of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and career prospects of each
of your direct reports.
12. Foster peer coaching by example; pick a colleague you trust, and
coach each other.
23. #8
Connect instead
of Create
Steps:
1. Reward people based on their ability to connect to others.
2. Stay informed by being out in the marketplace and in touch
with customers, competitors, analysts, and academicians.
3. Develop principles that influence everyone in your organization
to work toward the same goals.
4. Identify colleagues whose support is important to your success,
and make it a point to have regularly scheduled meetings or at
least informal conversations over coffee/tea or lunch.
5. Think about departments and organizations that could benefit
from knowing what you are doing, and share information with
them.
6. Form a community of practice around a shared purpose. Check
out suppliers that have web-based products and services for
connecting people, such as particiapte.com,
communispace.com, or placeware.com.
7. Set a goal to learn about the priorities of other departments and
functions.
8. Develop a plan for taking a short-term assignment in another
functional area.
9. Arrange visits to other companies to benchmark best practices.
10. Look for assignment with exposure to multiple business
functions.
11. Don’t stay in your office. Make sure that you are connecting
with people and building relationships.
12. Seek out best practices both internally and externally.
24. #9
Give Up Some
Control
Steps:
1. Learn how to influence others effectively in a matrix structure
by building cross-organizational relationships with key people.
2. Engage in a meaningful dialogue with your team about your
style. Encourage constructive criticism and avoid defensiveness.
3. Use a more informal and spontaneous interactions to check in
on important projects.
4. Set a goal to empower your staff, and give them the freedom
to fail.
5. Pay attention to how much your staff micromanage their
teams/workgroups/coalitions.
6. Make a point to respect boundaries of others by not insisting
that people drop what they are doing and respond immediately.
7. Recruit top players who can be given independence to meet
their responsibilities.
8. Refrain from sending too many e-mails asking for status reports.
9. Spend time confronting your own anxiety about why you have
difficulty letting go.
10. Let go of control by creating clear performance expectations.
Agree on checkpoints and milestones.
11. Don’t schedule meetings impulsively unless absolutely
necessary.
12. Pay attention to how much you trust your team, and don’t be
afraid to delegate the tough issues.
25. #10
Challenge the
Conventional
Wisdom
Steps:
1. Be aware of the assumptions you are making every time
you make a key decision or take important actions.
2. Identify the obstacles that are standing in the way of
challenging the conventional wisdom of how things are
done in your organization. Set objectives, and take action
to overcome these obstacles.
3. Make time for activities that will help you gain new
perspectives on your work, including putting yourself in
new situations, listening to people with different points
of view, and exposing yourself to the ideas of first-class
thinkers.
4. Enroll others in challenging worn-out assumptions and
crusading for change.
5. Spend time reflecting and challenging basic assumptions
about doing business.
6. Set a goal to act with courage, and challenge conventional
wisdom.
7. Make a point of bringing new, energizing ideas and fresh
perspectives into your team.
27. “We are the leaders we
have been waiting for.”
28. Possible Activities:
• What are some of the challenges of leading staff,
stakeholders, and/or coalitions to change your
community?
• What is working when leading staff, stakeholders,
and/or coalitions to change your community?
• What’s the biggest thing you can do to lead your
staff, stakeholders, and/or coalitions to have a
vision for change?
Editor's Notes
How do you view your current role/style?
How do your staff/coalition see your current role/style?
The authors observed that leaders who are truly effective display characteristics that are not usually considered traditional traits.
They also noted that successful leaders display behaviors often considered unnatural in leadership circles.
New research is making it clear that rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can consciously develop new behaviors and new habits.
What is required is for us to step out of our comfort zone and begin to habituate those new behaviors, which may require us to stretch ourselves initially until it becomes the norm
Our ability to recognize our stretch zone enables us to begin to create new learning opportunities towards unnatural leadership.