It’s Lonely at the Top! – an epistle on the leadership of change

Delivering change requires a great deal from those who are tasked to lead it. It can be a very lonely place and a bruising experience for the leader.

Trip ups and pitfalls are strewn allover the road to change. Sometimes the obstacles seem insurmountable. However, to successfully lead and deliver change can be the most rewarding and exhilarating experience for the leader.

Those who have led change and seen it through to successful conclusion truly understand the meaning of the HR buzzword “resilience”. They can pass a knowing and respectful nod to others who have similarly experienced and likewise truly understand.

A key question for us in HR is how do we best prepare our leaders for the travails of leading change? How do we bolster the much needed “resilience” to hold them steadfast throughout the process? In my experience, even the most experienced leader of change has room for learning.

Do we send our leaders on a some sort of week- long leadership course at a management school or similarly respected training provider? This may well provide support to the leader through exchange of new ideas and approaches. However, I would challenge that the benefits will inevitably be limited no matter how practical and experiential the approach of the course. That is in comparison to the alternative option.

Through my own experience of personally leading significant organisation change and supporting leaders to drive forward is that a bespoke and one-to-one tailored programme of executive “coaching and mentoring” delivers the best results. To have a suitably qualified and experienced individual to work on a personal basis with the leader over a period of several weeks or months can be the most powerful process of support. Depending on the particular needs of the leader, this might be a coaching approach (helping the individual to identify their goal and the route to achieving it) or a mentoring approach (where the mentor has been there, seen it, done it in terms of leading change and can support in that capacity although similarly using coaching techniques).

At Online HR we are all about “Lighting up your business success through your people”. Nowhere is this more true or important than in supporting leaders via executive coaching and mentoring to achieve their best in the leadership of change.

If you would like to chat further, please give us a buzz on 0131 341 2550.

Thanks for reading!
George