See, Solve, & Strategize for Successful Change

BY: Sandra Horton

As a thought leader, business success coach, and self-led leader, I focus on change management and leadership development. I assist people in creating paths of change in business and leadership, identifying their purposes, strategies, and systems in order to uncover blocks, misalignments, and inefficiencies. After identifying the problems, I develop pathways to build new powerful, genuine connections between people and processes, which leads to positive growth and change. My mission as a self-led leader is to empower leaders to become Conscious Leaders.

Recently in the healthcare sector, I have witnessed firsthand how, at various levels, leaders have expressed their frustration and burnout from the sheer number and nature of changes they have had to initiate and complete over the last three years. Through our Covid-19 global health crisis, I have seen an unprecedented, severe, and rapid impact on people, demonstrating that adversity can bring out the absolute best or painful worst in leaders.

What surprises me most in listening and working with these leaders is their attitude toward change and their ability to self-lead.

Actually, there is no need to look too far to understand this. According to Mckinsey & Company's recent CEO Excellence Survey, a leader's focus must address and "identify disruptive technology, the economy, and the geopolitics concerns...[along with] navigating the HR challenges and the War for talent... and the increasing shifts in the way we work". In organizations of various sizes, the leaders have to deal with the trends and terms that will significantly impact how leaders establish, lead, and organize their organizations in 2023.

So, what is required of leaders to orchestrate these complex issues?

Again, from my experiences, leaders need to develop a positive change mindset post-Covid-19 time: a "mindset" that allows them to bring in innovation while challenging the status quo and avoiding the return to old habits and ways of doing business. That being so, let us dive into three parts of unlocking this mindset by having leaders self-lead into behaviors that ultimately support them to see, solve, and strategize change successfully.

SEE the Negative Impacts of Constant Change

Many of my change conversations over the last few months have shown that leaders are still feeling the continued pressures that result in stress-induced heightened responses to business circumstances. Becoming aware of the perceived rational or irrational fear, one key knowledge area I endorse leaders to explore is in the researched Stress Response Cycle by Hans Selye.

Unfortunately, many in the healthcare sector have progressed from alarm to resistance and finally find themselves exhausted. I have ascertained this holds true for other leaders in various industries. Today, leaders must build better, more effective ways to mitigate these factors to reduce stress overall.

As a self-led leader, I confront and accept my own vulnerabilities when the negative impacts of stress get too much. Committed action through reading, studying, and applied learnings around the "what," "why," and "how" my brain works yields critical new insights and potential shifts in personal mindsets. I have guided numerous leaders to take daily brain actions to reprogram their conscious and subconscious minds.

Historically, if we fail to tackle and reset, our incredible mind will continue to do what it always has done. A quote that Einstein shared with the world plays out even now as truth: "If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got."

Therefore, give yourself time to challenge your leadership style through your thoughts and behaviors. Explore how you think and understand the correlation of your thoughts with your actions. While your subconscious mind loves to support you, ultimately, it seeks to keep you safe and alive. This is why it is important to make an effort to focus your attention on answering basic essential questions and move forward intentionally.

Consider for yourself now:

Where do you find yourself in how you react to everyday challenges at home or work? On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the absolute highest reaction and 1 being no or calm response), where are you on this response-to-reaction continuum?

Scrutinize your last crucial conversation. It may have involved key challenges in business or personal finances, system inefficiencies, or recruitment problems. What and how did you respond in the moments of the conversation? Take time to do a personal inventory of your actions that may need to be addressed. In what ways did you check in with yourself? And, then gauge how you were interacting with others?

According to Sjöblom et al., "being able to narrow the mental balancing act to successfully finding in your “working life...the need for a balanced and sustainable approach to work versus excessive stress and mental overload [is] impairing employees' working capacity and well-being". You can easily do just that by building and enhancing your own knowledge of your inner mental processes.

It is easy to see that you could get overloaded, so you then learn to balance your emotional states when confronting work and life challenges. But what happens when you are constantly bombarded with new information and emotional threats, real or perceived?

The key is to get ourselves out of an autonomic fight-flight response in order to understand the underlying emotions, beliefs, and external triggers. One of the best ways I advocate for leaders, as a certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner, is to thoroughly examine valid and compelling Emotional Intelligence.

Daniel Goleman was the researcher who popularized Emotional Intelligence in his book “Why EQ matters more than IQ”, and research into this field of study offered many findings linking EQ to various positive business outcomes. Two of the four key pillars of Emotional Intelligence (Self-management and Self-awareness) align with recent self-leadership work originally initiated by Charles C Manz and furthered by the work of Marieta Du Plessis. Regardless of the leadership model, the core remains that leaders today need to go within and build their self-awareness to navigate and bring positive self-change and success.

In their recently released article "Self-Leadership and Innovative Behavior: Mediation of Informal Learning and Moderation of Social Capital", Kang H. et al. noted that "Self-leadership is a voluntary and proactive behavior or a way of thinking, defined as the tendency or ability of individuals to lead themselves in challenging situations. One where leaders activate and fulfill their greatest potential by being present, consciously aware of themselves, and knowing how they can best show up for their employees of the business.

SOLVE Leadership Challenges by Changing What is Seen or Not Seen

How many times have you witnessed, experienced, or received an emotional outburst, neurologically called "amygdala hijacks," over the last three years? Leaders who, consciously or unconsciously, choose to use avoidance behavior caused by challenging, stressful situations or facing feelings that are uncomfortable (while being expressed as procrastination, passive aggressiveness, or rumination) do risk not being able to fully self-lead themselves and others.

By not dealing with or correctly solving underlying personal concerns, leaders take their "stories" or ways of thinking and acting into the business culture. No leader wants to create a toxic workplace willingly, but it continues to occur repeatedly. To understand more of this concept, I recommend readers analyze "Managing Your Emotional Culture” by Sigal Barsade and Olivia A. O'Neill.

STRATEGIES a Leader Needs to Implement.

What is required today is the need for leaders and organizations to do a RESET - one that entails a renewal through Observation, Reflection, Engagement, and Connection with a full system alignment to respond more consciously for growth and change. Leaders from various levels (highest to the lowest) are invited to accept the opportunity, embrace it, and adopt a new pathway to change.

Further, to successfully RESET, leaders must consistently practice daily these FOUR strategies and become more self-led. The frame is meant to be applied to all levels of personal, team, and organizational change. Commit to the right action to change, and you will easily develop a new positive change mindset. 

Self-led leaders understand that to thrive in this complex environment, adoption and acceptance of change both personally and professionally are required. A positive attitude plus a change mindset are essential to balancing everyday leadership life's stressors.

It starts with seeing, solving, and strategizing by asking better questions and directing our thinking with positive actions based on a new set of cues across multiple systems. RESET, do your daily practice, and Walk the Cube for Change now!

To learn more about becoming a self-led leader, check out www.sandrahorton.com for more information on the services I offer to leaders, teams, and businesses.

About the Author:

Sandra J. Horton is a Business Success Coach, best-selling author, motivational speaker, and creator of The Leadership Heart Podcast. With a remarkable career spanning 25+ years, she creates pathways through integrity that build trust across teams, organizations, and sectors for growth through Change and Project Management.

As a Business Success Coach and a certified practitioner utilizing the EQ-I 2.0 tool, she helps people discover hidden parts of themselves by raising Emotional Intelligence. She empowers people by gaining intelligence over their emotions through her one on one and team coaching sessions. One of her breakout tools is her RESET – Walk the Cube Model™, which allows clients to See, Solve, Strategize, and learn how to change and grow easily.

Presently, Sandra is a Project Leader in Virtual Healthcare to forge transformation across the healthcare system. She also supports empowerment through her The Leadership Heart podcast while collaborating with Dr. Sujata Ives on their book Activate Success: Be a Leader in Your Niche ™, launching in Fall 2023.

Sandra has an M.A. in Leadership and holds certifications in Emotional Intelligence EQ-i 2.0 and PROSCI Change Management. She is a Project Leader, Virtual Healthcare at Fraser Health Authority. Sandra has collaborated on two books, the international bestseller, Voices of the 21st Century and Growth Strategies for the Hungry Entrepreneur, published in 2019. As a motivational speaker and strategist, she also offers customized workshops, retreats, and team-building sessions.

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