When the winds are howling- leaders must be the anchor in the storm

Whether we like it or not, people who have worked long and successfully in clearly defined hierarchies do not become agile teams simply by changing structures and optimizing processes. There is a catch: changing structures, processes and lines of communication actually changes the organization, but the people in the organization remain the same. People react to what they perceive threatening with over 10.000 years old patterns of flight and aggression.  In the corporate world, these patterns are called stress, frustration, obstruction, passive or active denial, or resignation, either literally or figuratively.
Employees are confronted with changes in their tasks, teams and colleagues. They lose familiarity to the unknown and uncertain. The promise of becoming better, faster, bigger and more important is a gamble on the future – you can win or lose. So how can people manage to integrate change into their lives, to be productive and to take others along on the journey? What does this mean for leadership?

Relationships build trust
The extent to which someone experiences change positively or negatively has a lot to do with subjective perception. In my view, the decisive factor for a positive experience is the quality of human relationships in the work place.  Good relationships create a solid basis for coping with change in a positive way.  For individuals and teams to accept the challenges and new roles demanded of them, trusted leadership at the helm is needed and crucially being able to rely on one another. In other words, to steer a ship through rough waters, requires both leadership and community. 

Agility demands resilience
Most of us have learned to function in siloed structures, a model creating efficiency for established routines but inadequate for the pace of business change today. For organizations to become more flexible and nimbler, new competencies are needed of staff: initiative, cooperation within and beyond one’s own team, learning and personal responsibility and a good degree of autonomy. That’s called agile.  Thriving on change goes with personal resilience, which I define as the ability to pursue well-being through mindset, composure, values and mental strength.

Agility and resilience are two sides of the same coin.
The more agility is required in the workplace – the more resilience is needed in the attitudes and behaviors of executives. Leaders must be the anchor in the storm, to take employees along the journey, to create meaning and trust. For this, they need to know themselves well in order to be credible. And they need to know their employees well, like a good football coach who orchestrates the interaction of the individual players according to their particular strengths and competencies.

Strengthening oneself and one’s staff is the next key competence of a leader. I observe five key traits which go with resilient leadership. They are different from the usually featured desirable behaviors of leaders. They focus on self-empowerment in order to empower others.

• Poised – you know your strengths, trust your abilities, face conflicts, see failures as important guides. Sometimes you win – but always you learn.
• Distinct – You have an opinion and contribute constructively. You have the courage to say yes and the courage to say no. You do so with appreciation and respect.
• Resourceful – you are the expert on your life, pursue well-being in a holistic manner, deal with difficult situations to find solutions and to develop perspectives. Work is more than a four-letter word.
• Purpose-driven:  You know and appreciate the meaning of your work, promote the togetherness and the respectful treatment of employees and people in general.
• Self-aware: You stand by yourself, your identity, your values, your Self with strengths, weaknesses and contradictions. You are confident and act authentically. You have the courage to be human.

Coaching for personal growth
Coaching can become a decisive factor to lead to a win/win situation for the individual and the organization. As opposed to standardized leadership trainings which primarily target behaviors, coaching works at several levels, including attitudes, values, identity and purpose.  But coaching is not for everyone. Being coachable requires readiness for self-reflection, willingness to question rigid assumptions about yourself and others and the desire to shift personal boundaries.  Working on your personal mindset and behaviors empowers you to take responsibility for your impact on others, helps you to grow as a leader, making you reliable, trustworthy and the important anchor people need in uncertain situations.