Your leaders have been trained. So why are they struggling to lead transformation?

You run really effective leadership development programmes in your organisation. People progress through the levels from first time-manager training right through to your senior executive leadership programme. 

The feedback is excellent. You have trusted providers. The content is practical – delegation, feedback, commercial acumen, even a module on leading through change. The language gets used in the business.

So why are your leaders struggling to lead during your transformation?

They are overwhelmed, reverting to old behaviours, frustrated about the resistance they see. There are tensions between department or regions, there’s no time to be innovative or reflective, and more decisions are being pushed up the ranks. 

Is your leadership development programme to blame?

The rubber hits the road

Leadership programmes inevitably prepare people for change in the abstract. The tools are easy to use (and useful) at the time the training took place, prior to the transformation you’re currently going through. 

People emerged from the training into a workplace that was familiar – “We have these meetings and we have these relationships and we are working on these projects, and I can see how to apply what I learnt to the world I know. The ideas about leading through change are really helpful too. We’ll keep those in mind when change hits us”.

But when you’re in the middle of disruption, deadlines are intense, you’ve got your day job PLUS the various transformation workstreams and you’re trying to ‘take people with you’ at the same time it’s not so easy to think back on that module on managing stress or having difficult conversations. 

Even if you can remember the content, now feels like a very bad time to try something new. The work takes priority. ‘Sophisticated leadership tools’ are put on the backburner. 

The issue isn't necessarily that the original learning was wrong. It’s that the context has changed what it costs to use it. 

Under pressure, we play safe

When we are uncomfortable, feeling under threat or dealing with unknowns, it is human nature to seek safety. So much is changing, why would you add more change by trying a new approach, changing your habits (which have served you well in the past), or taking time for you and your team to step back and reflect. You may not like what comes up…adding even more complexity and discomfort to an already shifting situation. 

This is when we look for someone to blame – another part of the business not pulling their weight. Or we revert to providing answers because it’s the quickest way to get into action. Or we push decisions upwards because making them ourselves when so much is at stake feels inappropriate. 

Your leaders may know what to do. That doesn’t mean they will do it in this moment. Instead they will do what feels safe.

Transformation Leadership is different

Not only that, but what leaders need during transformation – the tools, the mindset, the support – is different to what they need for a known world. 

When they are expected to get their people excited about the new strategy at the same time as restructuring the business (including making redundancies) it feels tone deaf to use what they learnt in that presentation skills workshop. 

When they themselves are struggling with the workload or the pace or the behaviour of their boss (who is also under huge pressure), that workshop on ‘managing up’ feels hugely risky. 

When they can see their people are struggling with workload and starting to crumble under the pressure, how can they ‘push decisions down’?

Sometimes the environment in which they are operating makes it much harder to apply what they’ve learnt.  

Transformation development needs to help leaders work with the behaviour that is actually showing up now, and understand what is producing it, rather than giving them another generic model of good leadership.

Transformation Leadership Development needs to be different

Transformation Leadership Development isn't just more training.

It creates space for leaders to work on what is actually happening now. Where is the friction? Is it something in their own behaviour? A relationship that isn't working? An organisational condition making the desired behaviour difficult? What have they already tried? What else becomes possible?

Then they go back into the work and experiment.

A regular drum beat of sessions creates a cadence:

Experience something difficult → bring it into the room → think about it with others → understand what's happening → draw on what you already know → add something new where necessary → try something → notice what happens → learn → repeat

This is a different conception of leadership development.

Space to think together isn't a nice extra during transformation. It is part of the intervention.

Those aren't simply things we are teaching. They're things they're practising while doing the work of transformation.

And this doesn't make previous leadership development redundant. Quite the opposite. The more sophisticated participants already are, the richer this work becomes. If they understand coaching, trust, feedback, curiosity, systems thinking and influence, wonderful. We don't need to teach it all again.

Instead we can ask:

What does this situation require from you? What's stopping you doing it? What are you assuming? What are other people experiencing? What's happening around you? What do you already know that might help? And what don't you yet have?

Then we bring in new thinking, models or techniques in response to the problem…rather than because Module 4 says today is influencing.

Your leadership programme worked. What do you need now?

The leadership programme may have done exactly what you asked it to do.

But transformation changes the questions.

Leaders don't simply need more knowledge about how to lead. They need opportunities to work out how to lead here, now, in this situation, when the answers aren't obvious, the old habits are seductive, and the organisation itself may be making the desired behaviour difficult.

That's when leadership development stops being preparation for the work.

The work becomes the leadership development.

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If you want to discuss this approach and how it might work in your organisation drop me a line blaire@thatpeoplething.com and we’ll get a meeting in the diary.