Its personal!

# Chapter 262

The senior leaders must lead change personally. - Masterminds

Unfortunately what seniors leaders invariably do, in my experience, is lead us in telling us the changes that are going to be. They themselves rarely if ever change a single thing. The Masterminds quote above is about showing and doing, not telling. Showing and doing is actual leading. Telling is more about power and control, far less about leading. I would add to the above statement that the senior leaders much change personally.

If you have been in the workforce as long as I have, then you have definitely spent far too much of your life sitting in meetings attempting to fill in all the blanks on the newest change coming to the organization. Seriously, I have logged 100’s of hours in this process! AND have yet to see and live a single moment of the promised change that would come from all our efforts! Don’t get me wrong, I have experienced change in organizations, but not by the leaders telling, only by the leaders showing and doing. That becomes a change that we can all live and breath and experience. Leaders don’t need to guide us through some proposed change in vision or mission, they need to live it, model it, share it, teach it, inspire it, be the change themselves. Then watch it happen across the org!

Our current organization is a great example. Once the telling leader got fired, we have a showing and doing leader in charge. The changes are slow and steady and wonderful. The org has never had less problems nor more revenue. Not sure that it always works out this well for everyone, but am certain that it begins, if it is to ever start, with leaders that lead by showing and doing.