Collective Behavior and Actions of Leaders
The key attributes of the desired culture of organizational effectiveness are created by leaders through the way in which they lead by a set of principles that are reinforced through the collective behavior and actions of other leaders. Leadership practices are the observable, shared behaviors that shape and ultimately define the organizational culture. There is a simple yet powerful relationship between the beliefs people within the organization hold and the actions they take. Their beliefs about how work should get done directly affect what they do. When leaders change people’s beliefs about how they should do their daily work and help them adopt the new beliefs the individuals will produce the actions you want them to take. Help people abandon unwanted beliefs and adopt desired beliefs. During change, no one wants to be told to change they want to participate in defining the change and engage in delivering the transformation. They need to understand the change and then have time to process the change through experience.
Neglect at your own peril
Processing change requires a conversation of talking and listening. Leaders listen to the team for key information and insights about their frustrations, worries, and doubts so as to lead them through the change process. Listening during change is important for the following reasons:
- It helps leaders understand how the team is experiencing the change by taking time to listen to their point of view
- It helps leaders to get feedback and find out about the problems before they escalate
- It facilitates processing. During change, it's important to have listening sessions as leaders pay deep attention for understanding. Practice silence and give time for others to talk. As a leader, it's essential to go beyond listening and actually hear what people mean
- Summarize for an understanding of what the other person is saying and then repeat it back to them as a question so they can correct any misinterpretations.
While there are lots of books on speaking,
there are far fewer books on listening
Leaders and employees need the time and space to be together to share, to listen, to reflect. They need to get to know one another; recall that leadership is relational. Effective organizations don’t encourage individual firefighters’ success over team accomplishment, instead, they encourage connected networks to emerge. Effective organizations don’t allow the natural competitiveness between different individuals to characterize the atmosphere of the team in which individuals want to come to “win” at the expense of the team. Leaders work alongside others to model a dynamic partnership of collaborative work.
