Impact of Change on Leaders - and What to Do About It

by Denver J. Hudson

Imagine as a business leader and entrepreneur that you finally have your business in a state of stability and growth. You have a product or service that people want. You’ve invested your time and energy in creating a culture that fosters excellence in service and workmanship. You have sacrificed and worked hard. You feel that as a leader and business owner, you have “arrived.” You feel great about yourself, your life, and your future. Then, one day you wake up, poor a cup of coffee and discover that the world changed overnight while you slept. The economy shifted. As a result, demand for your product or service begins to decrease and costs begin to rise. You’re forced to lay people off, impacting the culture of your business. You work longer hours to manage the change, leaving less time and energy for your marriage and family. The personal impact of change begins to erode your work performance, your home life, and your personal health.     

As we all know, the world and business environments are rapidly changing. As change accelerates, the demands placed on us as leaders are accelerating as well. We hold the task of not only understanding the impact of change, but also facilitating changes in others as we work to adapt to the new environmental realities. As we focus on navigating change and leading others, it’s easy to lose sight of what is happening within us as leaders.  

One the most significant and least understood impacts of change is how it affects our identity. For decades, it was easy to draw our identity from our role in stable companies. In fact, you could be employed by the same company for your entire adult working career. Combined with the greater stability of marriages prior to the 70’s, it was easier decades ago to have a strong sense of identity from what appeared to be a stable world at work and at home.  

But today as change marches on with increasing vigor, those external factors that contributed to a stable identity are in flux. The company that you work for today, that gives you a strong sense of identity may not be there tomorrow, next week, or next year. And coming home to find that your spouse has decided to exodus your marriage is not uncommon these days either as leaders are often forced to work longer hours and therefore have less time for their families. Therefore, as a leader, it’s easy to find your own identity - our sense of who we are and what we do - in a state of flux as well.   

This new dynamic world is demanding something different from us as leaders: to begin a journey inward, and to create a strong, solid inner foundation from which we can lead, live and respond to our rapidly changing world. Put another way, today’s world is inviting us to go back to the basics and master the fundamentals that are critical to strong leadership and personal well-being. The increasing complexity of the world is demanding that we evolve as people and as leaders, that we anchor our identity not on something external to us, but on something within us. We are being challenged to develop an unshakeable inner character and strength that can weather the storms brought on by rapid and unpredictable changes.  

This invitation to turn inward applies not only to us as leaders, but also to those we are leading. Today’s quickly-changing world is demanding that more and more people take a leadership role, to be more proactive in contributing to the world around them. The day of putting leaders on a pedestal and expecting them to solve all the problems are rapidly ending. Today’s world is demanding that each individual step into a leadership role, taking more responsibility for who they are, how they show up, and how they are - and can - contribute to the company’s and world’s well-being and future. We are all being asked to grow up and achieve higher levels of maturity.   

Recently, my coach and I were discussing how many of the leadership development programs of today just aren’t that effective, as reported by leaders themselves. This is true, in part, because many leaders simply do not have a philosophy of leadership on which to ground their learning. We have substituted shallow “learning about” - which includes an arsenal of tips and techniques - for a deep embodiment of learning that is anchored in who we are as leaders and what we stand for. In other words, the typical leadership development program doesn’t get down into the BEING level of who we are as a person. We consume learning programs like we consume products: buy it, digest a little of it, get a small sense of accomplishment around it, and then discard it - moving on to the next one.  

This consumer-oriented approach to leadership development (sometimes called the “flavor-of-the-month” approach) adds to our sense of overwhelm and discouragement. As we play the flavor-of-the-month game of improvement, it’s easy to lose touch with the very fundamentals that lead to the evolution and maturing of our self as leader.   

So, how do we develop and evolve ourselves as leaders who can effectively lead in an increasingly complex world? How do we create an identity that is stable and powerful and yet evolves over time? My recommendation is to focus more of your attention and energy on mastering the fundamentals to effective leadership and living. These fundamentals provide a powerful framework through which you can process the changes occurring around you. And as you seek out new learning and develop your skills as a leader, the framework gives you something to anchor your new learning to, allowing you to more fully embody the learning and evolve yourself as a leader.  

These fundamentals I am speaking about include the following seven domains:  

(1) your Way of Being (Self Mastery) 

(2) your Way of Relating (Relationship Mastery) 

(3) your Way of Visioning (Possibility-to-Reality Mastery) 

(4) your Way of Valuing and Believing (Philosophical Mastery) 

(5) your Way of Living (Lifestyle Mastery) 

(6) your Way of Contributing (Legacy Mastery), and  

(7) your Way of Changing and Transforming (Evolutionary Mastery)  

When you achieve mastery in these fundamental areas, you are grounded as a leader who can stand in the midst of rapid change and provide powerful leadership while inspiring others to do the same.  

Mastery of the fundamentals is not an easy path. It’s a journey of growth and evolutionary development. It stands opposed to the consumer-oriented culture around us that focuses on quick-fix and instant gratification. It’s contradictory of the “flavor-of-the-month” approach to learning and development we see in many corporations today. And yet mastery of the fundamentals provides the inner stability and strength you need to evolve and stand strong in the face of rapid change and to lead with greater and greater levels of effectiveness.  

As the world in which you lead becomes more and more complex, you must become a commitment to developing and evolving yourself as a leader. In my professional opinion as a coach and teacher of these fundamentals, that is not possible without intentionally pursuing mastery in the seven domains mentioned in this article. Mastery in these seven domains leads to a inner grounding, and an identity that is created from within - by intentional choice and action - rather than by the uncertainty of changing circumstances. As you master the evolutionary growth of yourself as a leader, you are then equipped with the knowledge, skills, and character to bring the same to your organization and the world around you as a Leader of the Future.