The Icky Work of Leading Change
To lead change, you need to be a politician.
When I shared that thought with a group of nonprofit leaders during a course on change management last week, there was an audible gasp. I asked what was going on. They said they understood the overall point—the need to understand others’ perspectives and accept their interests as legitimate—but the “politician” label didn’t fit with their self-conception as leaders.
While the audible reaction was a first (and a surprise), it was consistent with my overall approach in the change management course of provoking students to analyze who they are as leaders. The first two points I make in the class are:
Change is hard because humans are hard.
The course isn’t about leading change generally—it’s about YOU leading change.
I grounded the class in those points, rather than in frameworks and abstract concepts, because “change management,” by definition, implies friction. If everyone in an organization were naturally eager for change, the topic would just be “following through on decisions.” The conversation is essentially about what to do when others hear your logical arguments and still don’t do what you want them to. It’s politics. It’s conflict. It’s emotions.
When I suggested that leading change requires making the people you work with uncomfortable, it quickly turned into a discussion about the line between leadership and manipulation. When we talked about the need to analyze a group's power and politics while keeping that analysis to ourselves, it turned into a discussion about the values of transparency and integrity.
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see any solutions to those dilemmas when leading change—or really, when leading in any situation. If someone has both human values and an agenda they believe in, it always means swimming in the murky water of human emotions. It’s OK for it to feel icky. That discomfort is part of the work.
Leading change is fundamentally about understanding our leadership values and becoming an expert in the feelings leadership stirs up in us — and in others. The frameworks help, but that human knowledge is what’s essential.