Leading Change to Overcome Complacency
One of my CEO leadership coaching clients change efforts in his company includes creating a sense of urgency and helping employees overcome complacency. Company leaders needed to change the culture of the company by helping employees embrace change and create a spirit of innovation.
The CEO believes that sustainable growth can only occur when employees embrace change and execute the rapidly evolving strategy. He is open and direct with his employees about the significant challenges the company faces and empowers them to come up with new ideas. Our current coaching work focuses on helping him inspire his people to overcome complacency so that the company and its employees can thrive in the economic recovery.
Complacency Is Rampant
Complacency is much more common than we think. In the current economic recession, you’d think that workers would be too worried about job security to be complacent. Sadly, the consequences of complacency seldom make a blip on their occupational radar.
People gravitate toward doing whatever alleviates their anxieties and worries, and they will go to great lengths to avoid discomfort. This usually means “Don’t rock the boat. Hang onto what used to work.” It’s human nature to cling to the familiar.
Often, complacency is invisible to managers and leaders, as well as the employees in its grip. You, too, may be complacent and not even realize it. That’s because success produces complacency and, for peace of mind, we often focus on success instead of our failures or gaps.
Complacency occurs on many levels: organizational, team and personal. An organization’s many years of prosperity may have ended a decade ago, but the complacency created by prosperity can live on — and the people involved don’t see it.
A smart, savvy manager may be oblivious to the extremely complacent individuals who are two levels beneath him in the organization’s hierarchy—so much so that his blindness will thwart his dreams of career advancement. People can easily live in delusional memories of success and be unaware that they are dangerously close to complacency. As humans, we simply like our well-established routines too much.
This problem is augmented by our tendency to replace a true sense of urgency and purpose with frantic activity and unfocused anxiety — what we call a false or misguided urgency. This phenomenon is as prevalent as complacency, but it’s more insidious.
Are you working in a company or law firm where leaders at all levels realize the organization needs to overcome complacency to be successful? Does your company or law firm provide leadership coaching and leadership development to help leaders overcome complacency to support change initiatives? During rough economic times, company leaders need to create a sense of urgency to help all employees embrace change.
One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “How can I instill in employees a sense of urgency to help them overcome complacency?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching and leadership development for leaders who lead change initiatives.
Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you create an organization that engages its people in transformational change efforts by overcoming complacency and creating a work climate of urgency. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision and mission of your company or law firm.
I am currently accepting new executive coaching and career coaching clients. I work with both individuals and organizations. Call 415-546-1252 or send an inquiry e-mail to mbrusman@workingresources.com.
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