Reorganizations. They create a demanding and disruptive environment that tests leadership capability and stamina. The rapid pace of change can also overwhelm teams. Roles, responsibilities, and the company’s future become unclear. The unintended consequence? Doubt seeps in, lowering morale and productivity.
It’s an experience we’d all rather forget. Yet, it is a chance to show and assert our leadership skills.
Change is the Norm
Research shows that, on average, Fortune 500 companies restructure every 3 to 5 years. Let’s do the math: in a typical 35 to 40-year career, a leader will face about ten reorganizations! I experienced nine over a 15-year span alone.
I am coaching several leaders through change—some small, some systemic. Each of them is facing a test of their leadership. Organizational change can affect trust, resolve, focus, and confidence. It can also impact decision-making and your capacity for strategic thinking. It may even challenge your identity, values, and ethics.
It’s game time for an executive coach and those whom they serve.
When the stakes are high, inspiring stability and confidence is vital. When chaos looms, how you show up defines your leadership. As an executive, you must lead with grounded strength.
Be the Lion and the Roar
A leader’s core responsibility is to drive sustainable growth, yet growth necessitates change, and change often requires letting go of an employee, a team, or an entire division. Scaling down teams can trigger our instinct to isolate and protect ourselves. It can limit our ability to lead with presence and empathy. This protective stance blocks critical leadership gifts: vulnerability, transparency, and compassion. They are crucial to building trust and psychological safety.
Leading from a stance of grounded strength is a way forward.
Think of Mufasa and Sarabi from The Lion King. They show strong, grounded leadership. Mufasa’s leadership is wise, honest, and responsible. He leads with a balance of authority and compassion. Sarabi, while more understated, embodies quiet strength and resilience.
Being grounded shows humility, openness, and self-control. It means being reliable, approachable, and not boastful. It also reflects a deeper connection to one’s community and values. Showing strength reveals assertiveness, decisiveness, resolve, power, detachment, resilience, and confidence.
Balance is Dynamic Range
To balance these opposites, a leader must embrace both limits of being human. They have the capacity to be ruthless and meek. They must confront and tame the shadow side of their personality to use the gift from it to lead.
Kevin Dutton’s book Wisdom of Psychopaths explores the dark side of success and how psychopathic traits can help in some contexts. Dutton says, “The qualities that set psychopaths apart also lend themselves to exceptional leadership.” Dutton concludes by saying that psychopathic traits are not all bad. These traits include fearlessness, charm, and ruthlessness. In fact, these traits can be very useful in the proper doses and contexts. Yet, the key to harnessing them is balance.
When leaders master their extreme edges, they become resourceful, gain influence in the trenches, and know when to be a hammer and when to be a hug. I call this “leadership dynamic range.” They balance power and humility, are unwavering, centered, principled, and have deep roots.
Lead the Change
Organizational strategy and design are usually not the cause of a troublesome rollout. It’s people and how those people communicate and lead. You, not the plan, make or break the success of an organization’s implementation.
When the path forward is unclear, many people freeze. They become defensive, resistant to change, or, worse, disengaged. Team members often revert to survival mode. They focus only on their own roles and ignore the bigger picture.
Reflect on your communication and engagement style under significant stress. Are you more like King Mufasa, strong and grounded? His son Simba, who avoids responsibility? Or his brother Scar, who is ambitious and selfish?
I don’t judge. I have done and experienced them all. It’s human. Each experience has given me insight into being and acting like the leader I will follow. What I want for you is a conscious choice.
How will you impact others during the following significant change in the organization? Will you want to keep your head down? Will you want to get through it no matter what? Or will you want to stand in the balance of grounded strength?
Envision the Followers
The way out of this fog? Vision and clarity. This includes both the change implementation vision and your leadership and engagement vision. Your leadership vision is far more critical, as how you lead will flow from your chosen style.
As an executive, you must have a clear plan, communicate it well, and get everyone moving in the same direction. Clarity indeed cuts through the noise. Yet, when people trust that the leader is both strong and compassionate, they follow. They commit when the path is clear, and the leader leads from grounded strength.
Your Game Plan
- Be Transparent: In uncertain times, clear communication builds trust. Take the initiative to address concerns about roles, responsibilities, and the company’s direction. Be open about challenges. But reinforce the vision and purpose of the reorg. This will build your team’s confidence. It’s like Mufasa’s wisdom and integrity in guiding Simba.
- Create Psychological Safety: Embrace vulnerability and compassion. They are vital in facing the emotional and practical impacts of change. Sarabi’s quiet strength shows the importance of being approachable and supportive. Create a safe space for team members to express concerns. This will help maintain morale and productivity during the reorganization.
- Be a Decisive, Grounded Leader: Balance assertiveness with humility. In times of change, project calm strength. Make decisive moves and maintain control. Yet, doing so from a place of self-awareness, as Mufasa and Sarabi showed, will help you lead with integrity. It will ensure your decisions are firm and aligned with the organization’s values.
The Master Wisdom Key
When reorganization hits, be a leader who leads from grounded strength.
Among many others, Mandela, Gandhi, Eisenhower, and Ginsburg were great leaders and influencers. They were courageous, with integrity and strength. They faced change and challenge with fortitude and conviction. They sought to inspire others to lead in times of significant change. Each quote below speaks of an aspect of grounded strength.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” ~Nelson Mandela
“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight—it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” ~General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Fight for the things that you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” ~Ruth Bader Ginsburg
What is your commitment to being a leader that embodies grounded strength?
Questions? Let’s Connect Now.
The Lion King. Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, Walt Disney Pictures, 1994.
Dutton, Kevin. Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.