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Knowing Your Boundaries
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All rights reserved
By Beth Lanier
Ken Chapman & Associates, Inc.
Leading people through organizational change is a difficult task…especially
when the potential exists for your own position to be negatively impacted.
As
the leader, you are responsible for setting your employees up to be as
successful as possible in the new situation. You must
communicate information, build enthusiasm, provide direction and
training, and be available to listen to and encourage your employees along
the way. At the same time, you must lead by example – handling all of these
responsibilities in a way that demonstrates optimism, flexibility,
objectivity and courage. This is no easy feat, especially when you - like
your employees – are wondering, “What is all this going to mean for me?”
A
key ingredient to your leading others effectively through change is empathy
– putting yourself in their shoes in order to understand their perspective.
Empathetic listening is therapeutic. It allows people to voice their
concerns and work through their own emotions to a place of greater
objectivity about their situation. It would seem that empathizing with your
employees is easy when your own job is at risk since you are living through
the same changes they are. But the truth is, that may be the very time when
empathizing with your employees is hardest.
What
you may be tempted to do instead is to sympathize with them - to
share in their feelings and fears rather than simply understand and
acknowledge them. After all, you’re dealing with the same emotions they
are. It’s easy to commiserate. But don’t. Connecting with your employees
is critical to sustaining their trust. Your willingness to feel their pain
with them demonstrates your care for them as individuals. But if you
identify with them such that you begin carrying their pain for them,
you are no longer helpful. When you confirm your employees’ feelings and
fears with sympathy, you are enabling their resistance to change and
lowering their chances for success.
This
is an easy trap to fall into. Your employees may simply be telling you what
you’ve already been telling yourself. Act otherwise. As a leader, your
first responsibility is to model for them what optimism and acceptance look
like. Your second responsibility is to provide an environment that allows
them to learn to do the same. Your employees cannot move toward acceptance
if you are enabling them mentally to do otherwise. Nor can you maintain
your credibility as a “leader of change” if your employees think that you
don’t believe in it either. Maybe the truth is that you don’t. Maybe right
now you’re wondering the same thing they are: “What about me?”
That’s okay –
grieving over change is as natural for you as it is for your employees, and
everyone needs a shoulder to lean on when they are struggling. You should
be theirs, but they cannot be yours. As the leader, you have to stay above
the fray. Only then can you be viewed as the one able to make sense of it.
That said, you cannot ignore your own need to talk through your feelings.
So when you need some time on the therapeutic couch, just make sure it’s
with a peer --- never with a member of your team.
For more information about
Ken Chapman and Associates’ Leadership Development Programs, contact Ken
Chapman at 205.366.0265 or email Ken at
kchapman@leaderscode.com.
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