5 Tips for Leaders Navigating Change
No matter where it falls on the continuum between purely personal and purely professional, change is always challenging. In our current context where the only constant is the upheaval of the norms we’ve grown accustomed to, I often find myself reflecting on the toll that change takes on myself, my family, my peers, and my colleagues. Despite this, I am fortunate to have been steeped in change throughout my entire life and have received mentorship and guidance on strategies and techniques to help manage and mitigate the negative aspects of change while focusing on the transformative parts. These strategies and techniques have been invaluable in helping me navigate and adapt to change, and I believe they can be beneficial for others as well.
1. Be transparent
Transparency requires careful consideration of your audience, but it is the best policy to have with your team so that information flows into your team and feedback flows out of your team to be shared with other leaders. By being open and honest, you can build trust, make people feel heard, and prevent them from being surprised by leadership decisions. It’s important to share the information you have, even if it’s not complete or perfect, as this helps create a culture of trust and openness that is essential for success.
2. Be an active listener
Active listening is a skill that involves paying attention to what someone is saying and responding in a way that shows you understand and care about their message. This skill helps build trust and rapport between people, making them feel more comfortable and secure being candid about their concerns and feedback which will help you with making better informed decisions.
3. Raise concerns and feedback
Situations are rarely immutable, and the feedback and concerns from you and your team are crucial in shaping change and making it more palatable. By reflecting on your concerns and the concerns of your team, you may find that some of them fall away after being examined critically. However, it’s the concerns that persist and set off alarm bells that are often worth raising with others in order to work towards a resolution and ensure that your perspective and the perspective of your team are taken into account. To do this effectively, be specific and provide concrete examples of the issue at hand, suggest potential solutions or alternatives, and be open to hearing other perspectives.
4. Give yourself time and permission to reflect and live in your concerns and worries
I find catharsis in giving myself time and space to ruminate in challenging situations. I set aside 45 minutes to just live in my own head. Feel those worries, those tangents, those worst case scenarios. When my time is up, I take a couple of deep breaths and let it all go. I then think critically about my concerns and worries. What makes sense to share? What are my next steps from here? Then, it’s time to address those worries and find a path forward. It’s important to give yourself permission to feel, but it’s equally important that you give yourself permission to move on.
5. Setting boundaries between your work and the rest of your life
To find refuge from work-related challenges, it’s important to set effective boundaries around your personal life. For me, this means timeboxing my workdays and disconnecting from work when I’m not working. Taking a few deep breaths at the end of the day, turning off notifications, and mentally letting go of work helps me transition from my professional identity as Brandon, Director of Engineering to my personal identity as Brandon, father and husband. These two distinct mindsets provide both distance from work-related issues and truly restful time away that ultimately allows me to consistently perform and focus in a sustainable way. In order to be confidently able to disconnect, I’ve set clear expectations with my colleagues that they can feel free to reach out to me via SMS if they need me urgently for any reason.
Navigating change is difficult and often comes with unique curveballs that even the most resilient of us will duck away from. While change is inevitable, the ability to effectively manage change can be the difference between being a good leader and being a transformative one. If you take away nothing else, please remember to: be transparent, set boundaries, and let yourself feel(but give yourself permission to move on).
