What is the Role of Leadership in driving change in an organization
The Value of
EMOTIONAL
INTELLIGENCE
in Transformational Change
BY DANIEL JENSEN, EdD, AND MARK BOJEUN, PhD
John Kotter’s book Leading Change (Harvard Business
Review Press, 2012) reported that 70% of change
initiatives in organizations fail.
As technology and the global marketplace evolve,
organizational change has shifted from a “nice to have” to a
business necessity, forcing organizations to become more
adept at transformational change management (a change
in organizational strategy and processes designed to be
organization-wide).
Yet, if Kotter is correct, 70% of organizations would continue
to suffer failure when implementing change. Why is this
so? A key reason many organizations fail is the lack of
emotional intelligence in leaders and change agents. Here,
we’ll discuss reasons for change failure, the use of a team
approach to initiating change, and the value of developing
emotional intelligence to deal with conflict and resistance.
WHY TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE FAILS
Companies evolve as markets, consumers, technologies,
and product needs shift, with the resulting organizational
change ranging from minor adjustments to companywide processes. Regardless of the size and impact of the
change, staff members are impacted. The change itself can
create tremendous fear, strife, and anxiety in employees.
12 I AMA QUARTERLY I SPRING 2017
Successfully managing change has become a core
competency for organizations. Companies most likely to be
successful in effective transformational change are the ones
that no longer view organizational change as a discrete event,
but instead see change as a constant opportunity to evolve
the business. They anticipate change, have a culture that
embraces it, are well prepared, and have discipline in their
execution and follow-through.
The CEO or other leaders at the strategic level of an
organization can direct and plan change. However, it is the
responsibility of mid- and direct-level leadership and teams to
implement, adjust, guide, and measure the change initiative.
Kotter suggests that associating major transformation with
one highly visible leader is a dangerous belief. He stated,
“No one individual, even a monarch-like CEO, is ever able to
develop the right vision, communicate it to large numbers of
people, eliminate all the key obstacles, generate short-term
wins, lead and manage dozens of change projects, and anchor
new approaches deep in the organizational culture.”
While a single leader is dangerous and often ineffective,
multiple supporters of change at various levels in an
organization contribute to driving successful change
initiatives. Supporters and key players in transformational
change are “change agents” who assist transformation by
focusing on effectiveness, improvement, and development.
They generally operate under a leader’s future vision,
seeing the potential for successful transformation and
understanding both the impetus for change and the
proposed future state of the environment after the change
is completed. They work with others in the organization
to communicate the need and direction for change, while
listening and understanding concerns, obstacles, and issues
surrounding the proposed change.
The change agent communicates and adjusts the vision
based on the challenges identified and works to ensure that
change successfully delivers the proposed outcomes. In
addition, change agents work with individuals and teams
in the organization to create additional change agents
and to overcome resistance where it is identified. In most
successful transformational change efforts, team-based
approaches to implementing, guiding, and measuring
change result in better buy-in and reduce the tendency to
functionalize, or “stovepipe,” change initiatives.
A TEAM APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
The purpose and structure of change management teams
is an important consideration in implementing effective
change. In short, structure should follow purpose. Often,
organizations will charter existing teams to implement
change to defray costs in terms of time, personnel, and
funding. However, if the team is not structured to achieve the
defined objectives, the long-term costs will be much higher,
particularly in terms of operationalizing and institutionalizing
the organizational change. The following are considerations
when organizing a change management team:
What is the team’s purpose in the change management
initiative—what does success look like? Team members
must have a clear understanding of the team’s purpose and of
what, specifically, they are responsible for to achieve success.
For example, a team may be organized to market and promote
the change initiative. Another team may be responsible for
developing the implementation plan and so forth.
Based on the purpose, what type of team is appropriate
and who should be on it? The purpose and composition
of the team must be congruent. For example, if the team
is responsible for marketing and promoting the change
initiative, it may be appropriate to have representation from
customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders that are
external to the organization.
According to Robert N. Lussier and Christopher F. Achua in
Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development (5th Ed)
(South-Western Cengage Learning, 2012), there are various
team types that can facilitate change initiatives:
Functional teams. Members belong to the same functional
department and may focus on their area of expertise rather
than the overall organizational change initiative.
AMA QUARTERLY I SPRING 2017 I 13
“Members are from different
functional departments,
with some members from
outside the organization.
Cross-functional teams
promote ‘interaction,
cooperation, coordination,
information sharing, and
cross-fertilization of ideas.’”
Cross-functional teams. Members are from different
functional departments, with some members from
outside the organization. Cross-functional teams promote
“interaction, cooperation, coordination, information sharing,
and cross-fertilization of ideas,” write Lussier and Achua.
Virtual teams. Members are geographically dispersed,
requiring team meetings and actions through electronic
means.
Self-managed teams. Members are cross-functional and
have a wide latitude in making decisions and defining team
responsibilities. Team leadership is often rotated depending
on the task and required expertise.
Managing change requires a clear focus on key factors that
can be identified and qualified as a change management
formula for success. Change management consultant
Rick Maurer, in his Building Capacity for Change Sourcebook
(Ingram Book Company, 2000), offered the following formula
by David Gleicher for “Successful Change” in organizations:
SD x V x FS = C
____________
Resistance
SD stands for Shared Dissatisfaction; V is Vision; FS is First
Steps; and C is Successful Change.
Transformational change often benefits most from a hybrid
approach, such as a cross-functional, virtual team where
communication channels are opened across multiple
perspectives. Again, the purpose drives the structure and
type of change management team.
14 I AMA QUARTERLY I SPRING 2017
USING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
TO MANAGE CONFLICT
Organizational and team conflict are inevitable, perhaps
more so during times of transformational change because
of resistance to the change initiative. Leaders at all levels
must understand that positive conflict drives innovation,
communication, and team development.
A perceived lack of conflict may be an indicator that team
members do not trust the leader and/or that complacency
has become the team norm—members do not care if the
change initiative and the team goals are achieved. It is the
responsibility of the leader to handle conflict in a manner
that is conducive to achieving the team goals and, ultimately,
implementing the change initiative.
While large, high-impact changes most often are actively
managed, smaller adjustments often have a direct impact
on productivity numbers. Yet even the most minor change
can create a negative impact on staff, further compounded
by the number of changes or adjustments and the length of
stabilization periods between change.
Organizational change can be intimidating, creating fear
and concern in team members. The fear of the unknown,
comfort in the status quo, concerns about relevancy after
change, and concerns for the future are intimidating to
workers and create a level of resistance. This resistance
to change is demonstrated in various forms, such as
decreases in output, attrition, transfer requests, infighting,
sullen hostility, slowdown strikes, and, of course, the
communication of functional and process reasons why
the change will not work. Regardless of the scope of
change, there is always a subset of individuals who,
intimidated by change, resist all attempts to transform their
organization. Change resisters can be found at all levels of
an organization and are often a product of previous change
efforts in the organization.
Managing resistance is a crucial success factor for
implementing organizational change. Recognizing the fears
and concerns that resisters have provides an opportunity for
greater insight and potential improvements in the affected
processes. The aim is not to convert resistors, but rather
to respect their opinions and bring to light the limitations in
the innovation so that these issues can be addressed frankly
and honestly, resulting in improved effectiveness of change.
While converting every “resister” may not be a realistic goal,
leaders who listen and understand the concerns vocalized
may gain greater insight and potentially improve the vision
for change based on issues identified giving voice to the
concerns identified.
A first step to handling conflict is determining if it is
functional or dysfunctional. Functional conflict is centered
on achieving the team’s purpose, goals, and objectives. It
can be healthy and productive if managed effectively. The
team leader should facilitate and encourage functional
conflict. Dysfunctional conflict is a barrier to achieving team
goals and objectives. It is centered more on personality
differences, and it can cause significant damage to teams
and the change initiative if not resolved. Both types of team
conflict require attention from the team leader, who should
encourage functional conflict and directly address and
resolve dysfunctional conflict.
To effectively manage team conflict and change resistors,
leaders and change agents must develop and apply the
competencies of emotional intelligence. EI is “the ability to
recognize and understand emotions in oneself and others,
and the ability to use this awareness to manage one’s
behavior and relationships,” according to Travis Bradberry
and Jean Greaves in Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (TalentSmart,
2009). Experiencing change is an emotional event for many,
so assessing and developing emotional intelligence is a
leadership skill needed to address resistance.
Bradberry and Greaves identify two emotional intelligence
competencies—Personal and Social—along with four
associated skills. Those skills are Personal Competency:
Self-Awareness and Self-Management; and Social
Competency: Social Awareness and Relationship
Management. High-performing leaders continuously
work to identify and improve their emotional intelligence
competencies and skills as well as assess the emotional
state of their teams. Recognizing the anxiety, concern,
or stress in team members enables a leader to elicit
information around a change and, where necessary,
to modify the approach to change.
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, in
Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence
(Harvard Business Review Press, 2002), contend that
in order to create effective communication and improve
change results, “the leader has to pay attention to the hidden
dimensions: people’s emotions, the undercurrents of the
emotional reality in the organization, and the culture that
holds it all together.”
Paying attention to organizational and individual hidden
dimensions requires leadership to particularly focus on
Bradberry and Greaves’s Social Competency and the skills
of Social Awareness and Relationship Management when
engaged in a change initiative. Social Awareness, the authors
say, is the ability of leaders to “pick up on emotions in other
people and understand what is really going on with them…
perceiving what other people are thinking and feeling even if
you do not feel the same way.”
This skill is particularly important in recognizing silent
change resisters. Vocal and expressive resisters can be
easily identified. However, the silent resisters are difficult to
identify and, consequently, can undermine change initiatives
through actions that may be unknown to the leadership.
Developing Social Awareness facilitates the identification of
these resisters and enables leadership to manage potential
barriers to the change initiative.
Bradberry and Greaves say that Relationship Management,
the second skill associated with the Social Competency of
emotional intelligence, is the ability of leadership to “use
their awareness of their own emotions and those of others
to manage interactions successfully…this ensures clear
communication and effective handling of conflict.”
Successful organizations embrace change as opportunities
to evaluate and improve process, procedures, and
structures. These organizations look to their leaders
to identify and support areas for improvement, open
communication channels, positive and healthy conflict
resolution strategies, and cross-functional development
processes. The most effective leaders leverage their
own emotional intelligence skills to provide a safe and
secure environment that decreases the fear and concern
associated with change by demonstrating their own
support and through empathetic listening and opening
the channels for communication that allow resistors to
express concerns. AQ
Dan Jensen is an independent consultant specializing in strategic
planning, leadership, education, and training. He is currently involved in
Department of Defense training and education programs with General
Dynamics Information Technology; Strategic Learning Consultants, LLC;
and INTECON, LLC. Jensen is also a member of the Corporate Faculty at
Harrisburg University of Science & Technology.
Mark Bojeun is a professor of project management and leadership and
a frequent speaker on leadership, program, and project management
around the world.
AMA QUARTERLY I SPRING 2017 I 15
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