October 5, 2022

Leading Through Systemic Change

By Ken Giglio, Principal of Mindful Leadership

Change is inevitable and always unprecedented. What looks the same at the global, organizational, or personal level cannot be the same simply because there are no repeats in life. Nothing is static. Systems change changing people, and people make decisions that influence systems.

The most effective leaders I have coached can take the highest-level view (50,000 and up) of the systems in which they and their people operate. These leaders see their organization pushed and pulled by real-time world events, like disruptions to their supply chain due to war or severe weather events on the other side of the globe. They see and understand that global change is experienced differently at the individual and team level. Effective leaders have the capacity to notice when their team is overly stressed from organizational initiatives.

Here are some questions they ask themselves:

What does my team need to be both healthy and high-performing?

How can I negotiate with and influence the organizational system to help my team get the resources they need?

How can I communicate organizational changes in a way that motivates them and engages them versus overwhelms them?

Change is inevitable. What’s not inevitable is how we lead through systemic change. We always have a choice in how we respond to change. What are the questions you are asking yourself about leading through systemic change?