Most people must learn to make difficult changes to their
thinking and behavior before they can transform their habitual
efforts into successful efforts. Leading your organization toward
success means encouraging a large group of people to make difficult
changes to their thinking and behavior. This is changing when
change is hard.
It's never easy to change the comfortable and familiar ways in
which people have learned over time to think, feel and behave.
Consider the development phase of the talent cycle as an example.
Many seasoned lawyers shy away from giving direct face-to-face
feedback to less experienced lawyers about what they are doing
wrong and the workplace behaviors and work products that are
acceptable. Instead of mentoring, a lawyer may choose to provide
written feedback on a brief that makes the brief look like it
returned from a bloody battle with life-threatening injuries. On
the flip side, instead of thinking of the written feedback on the
brief as a gift and clear indication of what the seasoned lawyer
wants to see, the less experienced lawyer may interpret event as
unfair and unhelpful criticism. We gravitate toward familiar ways
of thinking and behaving, regardless of their usefulness.
Gravitating toward the familiar is common and shows up in the
data we notice and how we make sense of it. For example, lawyers
learn the art of targeted noticing. They begin with a position and
notice the data that can support or undermine their position. A
vast amount of data goes unnoticed. In today's world of volatile
and uncertain change, this is a problem for a leader, who is tasked
with designing and implementing an organizational strategy to
improve performance.
Today, the success of any organization depends on leaders who
think and act differently when it comes to noticing and making
sense of data. We need leaders who are adept at collecting broad
intelligence. This means that we need leaders who have the skills
to notice as much as possible and make sense of the data in
multiple ways, because we do not yet know what is and is not
important. Invariably, doing so requires collaboration among people
with diverse perspectives and leaders who are adapt at developing
and managing this level of organizational diversity.
Although we may think that leadership is the exercise of formal
authority to direct others with clear communication, that style of
leadership is not sufficient, especially for leaders seeking to
collect broad intelligence. We have learned to think that we are
all equal, which has many pros and one con. The formal authority
previously termed leadership is no longer as powerful as it used to
be. When everyone is equal, nobody is an expert and nobody has
enough power to assume his or her clear directives will be
followed. Astute leaders know this and, consequently, learn the art
of contextual leadership.
Learning from mistakes
Sometimes the de facto leaders of an organization have
followers, people who will fall into line and respond with
behaviors that are aligned with the wishes of leaders. More often
than not, they have a variety of "others" in the organization, many
of whom have their own strong agendas driving their behavior. Some
"others" are followers, while other "others" are bystanders and
obstructionists. Some of these people are easy to identify, while
others are hidden within the organization and only obvious using
social networking mapping software that can generate a visual
display that identifies the highly influential and connected
people.
Today's successful leaders spend less time trying to directly
influence others in their organization and more time becoming aware
of and adjusting the elements of their organizational context, such
as the visible and invisible structures that connect and organize
people and the processes that drive the decisions people make about
what to do and how to do it. These structures and processes have a
profound effect on organizational dynamics, politics and culture.
It has become a mandatory leadership skill to understand and change
organizational structures, processes, policies and culture.
The following example of effective contextual leadership was
offered at a recent conference. The chief talent partner and chief
talent officer in a global firm experimented with different ways of
structuring talent management processes until they found the
options that worked best for their firm. They caused a lot of
discomfort, which is actually an incredibly valuable driver of
intentional change, and made mistakes, which are part of an
effective strategy design and implementation process. They led by
aiming change at the elements of the context within their control -
the array of structures and processes that fell within their talent
cycle - and it worked. Contextual leadership includes a willingness
to make mistakes and cause others discomfort.
Contextual leadership is what it means to be a leader in today's
law firms, law schools and law departments. Do not expect deference
to expertise or formal authority, because the meanings of these
terms and the power, formerly associated with such roles, has
changed.
Expertise today means someone with a skill in high demand and
low supply in the marketplace. Expertise allows one to price one's
services without sensitivity to the effects of the downward pricing
pressures of commoditization. It also supplements the power of
formal authority to lead others. People will listen and follow the
directions of an expert because they assume that person knows
something they do not and is trustworthy. Expertise based on the
ability to collect data, analyze it in a linear, logical way and
use it in a rote or rule-based manner, is narrowing because it's
easier and cheaper for technology and a large group of people to do
the same thing. Thus, that type of expertise is not as valuable or
powerful as it was.
Formal authority also doesn't command the trust it once did
because of a cultural shift in the deference given it. Examples are
seen in decreased formality in how people address one another
regardless of age, hierarchical role or professional status, the
blurring of formal boundaries, the diminished sense of
organizational loyalty and the shrinking scope of the
"taking-care-of-others" attitude demonstrated by highly publicized
organization closings and massive job lay-offs.
Consequently, leadership that works is contextual. A successful
leader in today's legal industry is aware of every force exerting
influence on the thinking, feelings and behaviors of the people in
the leader's organization and aims adjustments at those
factors.
Susan Letterman White, JD, MSOD, is a Boston-based
organization development and change management consultant with more
than 25 years of experience working in the legal sector, consulting
sector, government and higher education.