Leaders on Trial…
If there is something that offers certainty, it is change. It is clear; it is the only certainty.
Human heads generally deny change and therefore the uncertainty that precedes it. Some people tolerate it better than others.
But in general stability is sought and if things go more or less, it is preferred that "nothing changes". Impossible thing, since everything changes; in us and in the Universe we inhabit.
Change is experienced as uneasiness or in more extreme cases, as a declared threat to survival.
When the change is abrupt, adaptation to it is decoupled - it takes us a while to adapt - and we are "behind the change" trying to make it not without difficulty.
It happens that the abrupt change produces an enormous emotional upset: it raises the psychic tension and this clouds the vision of "what is happening" and therefore of the decisions that have to be made about it. The solutions thus move away from the possibilities of action and repair.
But each person sees the same change differently. When it comes to work teams, each one will have their different vision and opinion of what is happening and this in accordance with their mental model.
The different economists in the face of the global financial crisis - for example - could not agree on the form of the evolution that it would have (U; V or L); after several months they still can't do it…
In the case of companies - especially - the change usually has other trims: although they suffer the abrupt change in the market; it is also sought in relation to its growth.
In the latter case there is a difference; It is controllable, with which tension appears but… stimulating.
One could then differentiate between two exchange rates:
- The wanted (endogenous) The not wanted (exogenous).
When it is exogenous, control of it is lost at first and an adaptation movement is necessary that leads to locating itself in the new reality.
In the best cases "it can be done with it" and even produce innovation from it. It begins like this, to be controlled. For example: a new product line that responds to that particular change.
Could it be that emotional intelligence consists in the acquisition of a certain maturity, capable of understanding that not everything is lost in a change and can even be gained with it?
Let's see what happens in work teams in the face of this phenomenon:
The teams are an excellent support network to transit exogenous change.
The team members, although they have different visions of the change, also put together a reference system; the team is a place of belonging and an affective network.
This network achieves the shared idea that this change that appeared is not as terrible as it appears and something can be done with it. Let's say: it changes the individual interpretation of what is happening and in this way improves the overall emotionality of the team.
Leadership - especially in these circumstances of exogenous change - will have a key role and the leader will see his figure strengthened or weakened according to the way he stands before him.
It is a test that confronts him with his loneliness (that of decisions) but it is from there that he must promote the containment network that the team means.
This network in turn will then support him in his role. It is a circular motion.
In a good team the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. Creativity is reinforced by the bonds of solidarity that recover emotionality negatively affected by the crisis for the team.
Positive emotionality is the first thing to recover in these times to avoid continuing with an apocalyptic vision that prevents observing and from there design and plan the actions that lead to a better port. Even with storm. And the human network - primitive gregarious instinct - is the best resource.
A Japanese proverb states:
"None of us is as smart as all of us."
