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2016-01-21 09:32:36
Ryan W. QuinnRobert E. Quinn
January 07, 2016
Leadership development and change management tend to be top priorities for many
organizations. In spite of this, a majority of organizations tend to fall far
short of their goals for both. One major reason organizations struggle is
because they treat both leadership development and change management as
separate rather than interrelated challenges. Cultural changes cannot happen
without leadership, and efforts to change culture are the crucible in which
leadership is developed.
For better results, organizations should coordinate their leadership
development and change management efforts, approaching them as one and the
same. True leadership involves deviating from cultural expectations in ways
that inspire others to choose to follow. What s more, leadership is not the
sole responsibility of the C-suite. Managers at all levels of an organization
must overcome resistance if genuine cultural change is to occur. Thus, change
initiatives which require a deviation from a dominant set of norms and
behaviors are the best learning environments for star managers to develop
leadership skills, as well as a necessary component of a successful
culture-change initiative.
How then, should organizations go about integrating their change management and
leadership development initiatives? We recommend an approach that is both
top-down and bottom-up.
The bottom-up part of the integrated development and change process requires
potential leaders throughout the organization to engage in a process of
learning how to enact a desired change in an organization s culture in the
everyday experiences of organizational life. For example, one company suddenly
found itself audited at the request of their largest client and were told that
they needed to change their accounting procedures. In response, many employees
insisted that the changes could not be made by the demanded deadline. They were
impeded by cultural beliefs around how quickly the organization could mobilize
and complete complex tasks. Janet, a member of the task force assigned to
handle the requirements of the audit, was participating in leadership
development training at the time. Using a leadership tool we developed called
the fundamental state of leadership, she decided to reach out to employees who
had a stake in the new requirements to understand their perspectives (rather
than wait for others with more authority to tell her what to do). She gathered
new information and discovered their fears, while simultaneously coming to the
realization that the deadline could be met. With this new understanding, she
was able to help other employees question their beliefs and come up with
creative ways to streamline the accounting procedures so as to meet the
deadlines.
As part of a class assignment from her leadership training, she also reflected
on the experience and used her own (and others ) reflections to inform her
subsequent plans and actions. Eventually, more and more of her colleagues began
to accept the importance of the accounting changes and their accompanying
deadlines, and were participating in creative action. Their actions led to
bottom-up change: the emerging culture and accounting policies could not have
been planned in advance, but came from the ideas and actions of motivated
employees and were uniquely suited to the local challenges they faced. Janet,
however, was more than just a change agent in this one situation. Her planning,
acting, reflecting and planning again demonstrated true leadership.
But a bottom-up process is unlikely to work unless it is also embedded in a
top-down learning process. A top-down process creates structure and motivation
for employees to maintain engagement in the change/leadership development
process. If done well, it also provides emotional and social support potential
leaders, because deviating from cultural expectations can be a lonely endeavor.
A successful top-down process begins with executives clarifying desired results
for change management/leadership programs. For example, executives may want to
change accounting procedures or inspire creativity in order to become more
efficient, as in Janet s company. Or they may want to lower barriers between
departments or create financial stewardship throughout the organization. The
goal depends on the organization and its situation, but what is important is
that it is specific (ideally, with a measurable outcome) and accepted by all
members of the executive team.
Once the goal is clear and accepted, executives can identify potential leaders
throughout the organization to engage in the leadership development/change
management process. These may be executive team members, people in key
positions, people who have shown a passion for this specific change, people who
are deemed to be high potential, or some combination of these
characteristics. Many variables about the type of change program could drive
the decision about which potential leaders to include, such as strategic, the
number needed for a critical mass, the need to stage the change process, the
amount of support that can be provided, geographical dispersion, the diversity
of expertise or demographics involved, and so on.
Selected leaders should be given structure, accountability, support, and
motivation as they engage this process but also the freedom to create their own
solutions, as Janet did with the help of the accounting team. The objectives of
the change and development effort, the scope of initiative, the time frame, the
type of support to be given, and the rewards for success should be made clear
when invitations are extended. Classes can offer advice but the key is to
instill a plan-act-reflect cycle and then support managers as they learn on the
go. The attention of senior executives and the needed financial support should
be guaranteed; a worse-case scenario is for a fledging leader to have the rug
pulled out from under them partway through the change and development process.
Once the structure and motivation is secured and outlined, potential leaders
can launch their repeated efforts at creating experiences that enact the new
objectives using the plan-act-reflect cycle. Ideally, reflections could be
shared so that potential leaders learn from each other as well as from their
own efforts.
Change management and leadership development programs have a woeful record at
most organizations. In large part that s because they come up against a common
challenge deviating from a dominant culture (the true test of leadership) is
very difficult. Tasking managers with driving bottom-up cultural change will
provide leadership training in itself. They will require top-down support to
succeed.
Ryan W. Quinn is an associate professor of management at the University of
Louisville College of Business.
Robert E. Quinn is the Margaret Elliott Tracy Collegiate Professor of Business
Administration in the organization and management group at the University of
Michigan s Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor.