Cultural shifts can be a scary time for employees in any organisation. Transformational leadership is a great way to build trust by working alongside your staff to enact change.
On Thursday 26th January we had the pleasure of hosting a dinner at The Ned in London with HR Leaders from across the public sector. During this fantastic evening we discussed leadership, company culture and adapting to change through a challenging moment in the recruitment landscape.
We were also delighted to be joined by our guest speaker, Blaire Palmer, who is an expert in organisational culture and the future of leadership. The following article on transformational leadership is the second in a series of posts by Blaire about how you can be the champion of values and change in your organisation!
The art of radical empowerment
Guest Post by Blaire Palmer
I hate to be the voice of doom but I don’t think I’m telling you anything new when I say that we live in a highly polarised society.
According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, only 30% of people say that they would help a person in need if they strongly disagreed about a matter of principle. Only 20% say they would live in the same neighbourhood as that person. And only 20% say they would be willing to have that person as a coworker. The same report says that the UK is at risk of entering the ‘severely polarised’ category and is verging on what it calls ‘entrenchment’, which means “I do not feel these divisions between people can be overcome”.
It makes it even more important that ‘Trust’ is high on your priority list when you’re thinking about culture and addressing the challenges facing you.
People already distrust authority figures, they don’t trust the news or social media, they feel the divide in society, and this can create a tendency to be wary of uncertainty, distrusting of institutions and cynical about information.
When people don’t trust, it’s harder to get them on board with change. They’ve been through enough and now you are asking them to change again. And they don’t 100% believe that you know what you’re doing!
Listen so hard you might change your mind
Before trying to convince anyone to change, we have to listen to them really hard. People are always trying to do the best they can. They do what they do and think what they think for good reason. In their shoes, you would be the same.
By listening you can step into their shoes and start seeing the world through their eyes. When you do that, you can often see why they were sceptical about your plan, saw risks that you hadn’t seen and, perhaps, had a better idea than you about how to solve this particular problem. It’s not enough to listen to understand, in order to better argue your case! You have to be willing to listen so hard YOU might change your mind.
Beyond listening to radical empowerment
Even that isn’t enough though. The next step is to test the limits of your willingness to trust by giving away your power! I call it Radical Empowerment. The person who will have to implement the decision becomes the final decision maker. Your job is to support them, give them access to the information they’ll need and help them learn how to make good decisions.
Empowerment is such a brave declaration of trust that you start to prove that, at least when it comes to working in your organisation, being trustworthy and being willing to trust, despite differences of opinion, or seniority, or age, matters. People are allowed to express their view and difference is valued.
Work might be the only place they feel like this, but they take that glimmer of belief that people can be trusted and that they are worthy of trust, out into their lives. And the multiplier effect of that is incalculable.
Need help with transformational leadership?
To find out how you can practice transformational leadership and support employees through times of change, check out more of our resources or get in touch today!
Blaire Palmer