Leading Through Sudden Change

Leading people through change is challenging under normal circumstances. This pandemic is creating massive change for people, disrupting nearly every aspect of their lives. Emotionally supporting and leading our people through these changes is critical to maintaining their well-being, the viability of our organizations, and our communities’ ability to recover.

In this article we explore how to surface what is going on for people as they navigate numerous changes, what they need to feel emotionally supported, and how to help them move forward.

Change is Emotional

It is important for leaders to understand the range of emotions that people experience as they face change. The bigger the change, the heightened the emotions, and the greater the risk that people feel alone in their emotional response to what’s happening.

For example, your team may feel isolated working remotely. Some of this may stem from isolation itself. More likely, people are feeling isolated by the complexity of emotions triggered by abrupt changes to daily life. While separated, it’s difficult to get a sense of whether others are experiencing similar emotions. It’s easy to feel alone in our struggles to adapt.

In the current context, this model can provide insight into what our people may be experiencing as they face disruption in all aspects of daily life.

Emotional Journey of Change

On the journey to acceptance and commitment to a new way of operating, individuals tend to transition through four key phases:

• Denial
• Resistance
• Exploration and Acceptance
• Commitment.

At each phase, people experience a mix of emotions and require different support to help them move onto the next phase. Progressing through each phase is critical to people being able to sustain new ways of thinking and behaving required in the ‘new normal.’ It may be months before our teams are able to return to shared workplaces. Until then, how do we as leaders support them emotionally and help them to adapt to a segregated way of working?

How to identify where a person is at

First, we need to have a sense of where each person is at in the journey. As leaders, we can look for behavioural signs associated with each phase:

In my work with leaders, I often use the analogy that people are like icebergs – we only see what is above the waterline, their behaviours. What we don’t see are the deeper drivers of behaviours – the thoughts and feelings through which people experience and respond to the world around them. In the emotional turbulence of our current reality, leaders need to be willing and able to explore what is going on below the surface for their people.

Check-in to surface emotions

Behavioural signs give us an initial sense of where each person may be at in responding to the extensive changes taking place in their lives and across the globe. As leaders, we need more data to better understand where they’re at and what they need from us. The word emotion is derived from the Latin ēmōtus or ēmoveō, meaning ‘to move out.’ Emotions are meant to be expressed, not held in. Checking in with our people to understand how they are feeling does two things:  it helps us identify where they are at in the journey to acceptance, and it supports mental and emotional well-being by encouraging people to not bottle-up their emotions.

Check-ins are designed to lower the waterline and surface whatever feelings are coming up for people. Check-ins can be done as a team or one-on-one. I encourage you to practice both in the current context of uncertainty, fear and separation.

My go-to check-in questions are:

• How are you feeling in this moment?
• What, if anything, is keeping you from being fully present?

Role model by going first and sharing an emotion (rather than a physical feeling, such as tired) for the first question, and a worry or distraction that is on your mind for the second. Team check-ins work well when each person is encouraged to briefly answer each question, before moving onto the next person. As a leader, you then have more data about where the team is at, and where each individual is at, so that you can make choices about how to best support them.

Discussion Guide

With some sense of where each person is at, we are then able to ask more targeted questions to better understand what’s going on for people and how we can best support them. If there is fear or mistrust in the team, these questions may be more appropriate in one-on-one conversations.

Questions to create dialogue at each phase:

Denial – When in denial, people need information, a sense of where we’re going and a vision of the future that feels better than today. They may also need time for the reality of the current situation to sink in.

• What’s your current understanding of the resources I/the organization have put in place to support you and the team during this time?
• What else do you need to feel supported in our current work environment?
• Explain what to expect from you/the organization to support them/the team and things they can do to adjust.

Resistance – To overcome resistance to change, people need to express their fears/concerns and need these feelings to be validated.

• What, if anything, is worrying you or keeping you awake?
• What, if anything, frustrates you about the current situation?
• What are you finding most challenging in our current work arrangement?
• Ask open questions and keep people talking so they’ll tell you how they are feeling
• Listen and acknowledge people’s feelings
• Don’t dismiss or try to talk people out of their feelings. Empathize.

The purpose of understanding where they are at is not to problem solve, but to support each person to find their own way forward.

Exploration and Acceptance – As people begin to see possibility, they need to be able to ask questions and get involved in shaping the future.

• What, if anything, are you finding easier to manage or adapt to?
• What ideas or suggestions do you have that will help the team thrive in the current environment?
• Be encouraging and provide support.

Commitment – As people begin to feel a sense of stability or centredness again, they need a role to play, recognition and autonomy.

• What have you tried that you could share with the rest of the team to help others feel more productive/supported/centred?
• What have you found works well when working remotely that we could apply/adapt for when we are back in the office again?

Most importantly, recognize that each person on your team may be at different stages of the curve, and each will move through the emotional journey at their own pace. Some may adapt quickly to working remotely and the broader changes going on in society. Get them involved in supporting their colleagues and generating ideas to create a sense of team connectedness. Others may live in Denial or Resistance for longer and will need more of your time, attention and compassion.

As a leader, you are also travelling this emotional journey of change. Who and what have you put in place to support your own mental, emotional and physical well-being so that you have the energy and empathy to support your team?

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[1] Source: Jaffe, D.T & Scott, C.D, Mastering the Change Curve, 2nd ed. 2003