If your change effort is truly transformational, you must assess whether your leaders’ mindsets, style, and behavior fit the requirements of your future organization. If they do not, then you must decide how to support your leaders to change. This task’s purpose is to help you do this. We cannot emphasize the importance of this task enough! It is the source of making your organization’s transformation conscious...and successful!

To engage in this work, your leaders must first explore what mindset is, how it impacts results, and how it is a central driver of the organization’s transformation. (For a detailed discussion of this, see “Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today’s Transformational Leaders” by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson, Published by Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, Copyright 2001, ISBN: 0-7879-5645-7.)

Once your leaders understand and accept the definition and power of mindset, style, and behavior, they can explore a range of topics to drive their development in this track. This exploration will assist them to determine how they must change to be more successful. Ultimately, they must commit to undergo the personal development required of them and demonstrate the importance of this kind of personal change to the rest of the organization. The Info Sheets and Articles in this task introduce some of the key topics they must address.

Be aware! Discussing the concept of mindset and behavior as a thirty minute agenda item in an executive meeting does nothing to actually change the leaders. In fact, doing so often creates the trap that executives think they have “handled” the issue. Even if your leaders agree that shifts in mindset, style, and behavior are needed, you (or they) cannot force or mandate these changes. Both leaders and employees have to experience the benefit of shifting their mindsets and then choose to change themselves. This is accomplished through personal transformation training, tools, techniques, and ongoing practice. The Info Sheets in this task introduce many of these concepts, but you will need to engage competent and experienced facilitators to put these concepts into practice with your change leaders.

The content of this task will likely be central to your overall strategy for building your leadership’s capacity to lead change. To complete this task, you may be sending leaders through special training or engaging them in specific development work. The Info Sheets, Tools, and activities available here will assist your efforts.