Leadership Wisdom of the Week #3

”You do not change people by shouting at them.”

– Mma Ramotswe (The Double Comfort Safari Club, Alexander McCall Smith)

This quote comes from one of my favourite fictional characters, private detective Mma Ramotswe. She solves crimes and tackles human conflict through a deep—and sometimes philosophical—understanding of human nature.

With this quote, she captures the essence of change leadership. Most change leaders are not looking for immediate obedience or short-term changes in behaviour, but rather long-term changes in thinking and behaviour that lead to people taking responsibility for creating sustainable change. In most cases, we need people to understand the change, the reasons behind it, and the consequences it has on our ways of working. This will enable people to independently implement the required changes in their work.

When looking at change from this perspective, we notice that change leadership is actually almost the opposite of shouting at people. When done properly, it involves:

• Genuine interest in understanding other people’s viewpoints, motivations, concerns, and worries
• Patience to explain everything related to the change in detail—and to repeat it again and again
• Willingness to answer questions before, during, and after the change
• Belief in other people’s ability to come up with solutions on the way towards the shared direction

And yes, you may need to make tough decisions and be direct in your communication with the people affected by the change. But even this you can do without shouting—and with respect and empathy for the people involved. Most changes depend on people adjusting their ways of thinking. And you don’t achieve that by shouting at them, but by understanding that people need to make sense of the change in order to start implementing it independently.