Leading Change: Four Tips to Keep Your Organization Nimble During Disruption

Organizations often face disruption, and to be nimble during disruption means embracing change and leading your company through challenging times. It is about establishing leaders and individual contributors who make it their purpose to step up, propose new ideas and implement transformations to make your organization strategically agile.

“Leaders are made … and not born.”

Four Tips For Leading Through Disruption

Leading change through talent shortages and disruptions in supply chain, sales, distribution or cash flow takes resilience and quick, efficient reaction. A company can be nimble in various ways. It starts with effective leadership and training and taking multiple approaches to uphold leadership.

1. Ensure Your Leaders Are Visible, Approachable and Authentic

Leading your organization through disruption requires visible leadership. Visible leadership means your management team connects with employees, customers, vendors and investors with authenticity, purpose and energy. Absent, vague and unapproachable leaders and messaging create insecurity, stress and mistrust and a platform for misinformation.

2. Establish a Culture of Open Communication

To empower your leaders to steer others through disruption, equip and encourage them to have candid conversations:

• Encourage contrary points of view: Ask your workforce to speak up and share solutions if they detect problems
• Avoid rehearsed dialogues: Employees engage and respond to authenticity over rehearsed speeches. Start communication by asking the workforce what is on their mind, what stressors they face and what they believe may be positive catalysts to overcome disruptions
• Request feedback continuously: Your leaders should be receptive to feedback even when they do not act on every piece of advice

3. Cultivate Grit and Resilience in Your Teams

Developing grit and resilience takes practice and the commitment not to overreact when disruptions occur. Encourage your leaders and teams not to respond to or send inflammatory emails or blame each other when challenges arise.

Cultivate an environment where mindfulness is valued, and difficult conversations are respectful and constructive.

4. Be Strategic and Not Shortsighted

Agile leadership goes beyond being reactive. It requires a strategic response. Your leaders and workforce may be bogged down with the problems in the here and now. Leading through disruption requires figures of authority to balance short- and long-term goals to create a nimble organization.

Learn More About Leading Through Disruption

The Center for Leadership Studies (CLS) has been building nimble leaders for over 55 years. We have trained more than 15 million managers across 35 countries and deployed our innovative Situational Leadership^® Model in over 70% of Fortune 500 companies. We know what it takes to create effective leaders who reliably work through disruptions.

Contact us to learn more about leading through disruption.