Change Leaders: You Don’t Need to Know It All!

Nothing like a little true story to begin an article — this time I tried my hand at rhyming!    

The Leader … a poem

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who’s the smartest of them all?
Well, at least who’s the smartest in the room?
Me, of course! In real life and on zoom!

I’ll always show you I’m in charge
My reach is long, my staff is large.
I don’t smile much – I’m like a rock.
I’m the leader and you’re my flock.

I know what you know – only moreso, so there!
Just agree with me and you’’ll not have a care.
Do as I say, don’t ponder or fret,
My door’s always open, except on days I forget.

Feedback’s a great thing I’m quick to agree
I’ll give it to you, just don’t give it to me.
So while in my view I am a great boss
Chances are when I leave you won’t feel it a loss.

See how serious I am, can you see?
I’m the leader, just follow me.

Is this anyone you know? Let’s call him Walt. If you asked “his people” — up and down the line, members of his leadership team included — they’d (only privately) say: “Yeah, Walt likes being the smartest person in the room. So, it’s always hard to … [pick one: disagree; say what you really think; ask questions because you don’t want to look stupid or seem like you’re challenging him; etc.].“

Walt was smart. And driven. He had a booming voice and what we often call “presence.” He was a towering guy with sweeping gestures and confidence in his voice. He made an entrance, took up lots of space, and always sat at the head of the table. Walt never had a doubt: Things were black and white, cut and dry. He wasn’t given to leaning back in his chair to stroke his chin and say, “let me think about this for a second…” or “what do you guys think?” He didn’t convene a meeting — he ran it. He was ON…Immediate. No pause. No OFF switch. Just ON all the time. If you had a question, he had the answer. Note: not “an” answer — “the” answer. Walt got to where he was because he knew his stuff, got things done, knew how to get heard, and how to get his way. People in his organization called him “boss,” and when he wasn’t in the room, they referred to him as “the boss.” I kept thinking Frederick Taylor might have liked Walt.

Is Walt a change leader for our times? Hmm… With responsibility for ~250 people — mostly SMEs (subject matter experts) — Walt manages a major change initiative involving use of artificial intelligence. In the process, some questions emerged about his behavior. For example:     

• Can Walt lead? Even if he is the smartest person in the room, if Walt is busy proving he knows more or better, he is parenting — not leading. His job isn’t to compete with his team — it’s to enable them to flourish. Like an orchestra conductor, his job is to cue his team members so that while each plays his or her instrument with enviable proficiency, they are making music in synchrony and together are able to prepare for what’s next. If he’s built a strong team, Walt has people around him who know a lot about a lot of things that he doesn’t.     
• Can Walt build team strength? Asking questions isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a strength that Walt should cultivate in himself and among his team. Questions don’t mean you’re dumb or uncertain, but they do help slow you down so you aren’t as quick to judge or presume. Be curious. Test a notion. When people aren’t afraid to ask why or how or what if, learning happens. And when learning happens, change can happen. The thing is, Walt needs to create a space that’s “safe” to make way for learning and change to occur.
• Can Walt lead change? A little humility goes a loooooong way. Lack of humility shuts things down. News that you won’t listen spreads like wildfire. New ideas, outside-the-box problem-solving, experimentation — they go underground, and then what do you get? Compliance instead of creativity, order-taking instead of engagement. 
• Can Walt resist being in hot pursuit of certainty? Leaders who acknowledge uncertainty but are not immobilized by it build trust. Being able to deal with not-knowing and knowing simultaneously and still take action requires reflection and self-knowledge and the ability to listen to the people around you. That is not (yet?) observable in Walt.
• Can Walt change? The challenge Walt faces is that he’s in love with knowing. Not even with being “right” or being “smart,” but with the wonderful safety of “knowing.” That inures him to signals that what he knows may not be “wrong” as much as insufficient or irrelevant (anymore). Oh boy! That one’s a biggie. 

Certainty can blur vision, especially for those who lead change. How do you lead into the unknown, with the map you and your team created to guide the way ahead and yet be willing, and know when, to step outside of the path you’ve created in order to manage, learn about, and optimize what’s emerging? And yet, that is where we are. That is what change leaders must be able to do, to ask themselves: “What’s the question we aren’t asking that we need to ask?” Our times demand leaders to collaborate. Convene, not coerce. Lead, not parent. Ask as much as they assert. Change as much as they ask others to change. To be smart — and humble. And to listen.

Nina Kern is principal of InterrogativesWork, LLC, a change advisory service dedicated to helping clients and consultants plan and implement organizational change. She has supported a wide variety of organizational change efforts — from digital transformations and functional re-alignments to the stand-up of enterprise risk management programs, PMOs, performance improvement initiatives, org-wide policy and culture change, and more. She has an MS in Organization Development, an MA in Communications, graduated from both the Johns Hopkins Fellows in Change Management Program and Georgetown University’s McDonough School’s Change Management Advanced Practitioner Program (CMAP), and is ProSci trained.  More of Nina’s writings on organizational change can be found on GovLoop, Change Management Review, and Government Executive.

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