Can Leaders Change their Spots?

- Andy Habermacher

I remember a few years ago now speaking to a country manager of one of the largest multinationals on the planet. We were discussing a coaching assignment I was about to take on with one of his senior managers. What struck me about the conversation was how this particular leader kept on repeating the phrase, “It's in his DNA”. I did object to this and gently drew his attention to the ability of people to change - he was unconvinced.

The question is then: Can people change? Can bad leaders become good leaders? Isn’t it all hard wired anyway?

According to this Harvard Business Review blog, not only can leaders change their spots, but bad leaders can become good leaders. In this particular study 96 managers from a data set of 545 were considered to be worse than 90% of their peers. Enough in short to completely derail their careers. However, with interventions, 75% of these “bad managers” were able to not only improve enough to be noticeably better, but to be better than the average.

In my field of expertise, neuroscience and personal development, I can also vouch for this. The brain is much more flexible than most people think: everything you do, think or say is a chemical reaction in the brain and these chemical reactions will stimulate further growth of those brain cells you are using and shrink those you are not using. Moreover, when brain cells communicate with each other, there are a number of processes that not only enable them to grow more together, but to increase their efficiency and to operate in so-called ”cell assemblies”. These are high speed circuits, and this is habit. Habit, including bad habits (and with this we can include bad leadership traits) are simply highly efficient brain circuits which will kick in default if nothing else takes the brain’s attention.

Knowing this highlights two things:

1. Habits are hard to change
2. Habits can be changed

So how can we turn bad leaders into good leaders?

You may think that I may say, as an executive coach, "send them to an executive coach." That indeed is half the answer, but, as John pointed out in his blog, that is dependent on a number of factors and in particular: the leader must want to change in the first place, and there must be the support for this within the company. If these are present then you will need:

1. Attention and awareness (the leader must be aware of their shortcomings).
2. Work with a coach (or mentor or even a good boss¹) who can challenge their assumptions and target their attention on better behaviours^2.
3. Doing new actions that will help to promote and start to fix the behaviour patterns that may be deeply embedded.
4. Time - change takes time. In the study mentioned above the time period for change was upwards of 18 months.

I have been passionate about enabling changes in behaviour for more than a decade now and know that change can take place - the problem is that most people are looking for a quick fix. If a leader wants to change and the company supports this and is willing to invest (financially and in time), then change can come to the vast majority. The real question is not, can a leader change their spots, but are they and the company willing to invest their time, energy and money into this?

You may also be wondering what happened to that senior leader I mentioned at the start of this post. Did he change his spots? Yes he did. He engaged fully in the coaching process (which was key to the success) and improved his ratings amongst his peers and subordinates on all key dimensions. He has now taken on a more senior role with more responsibility in another organisation. The country manager, however, didn't. But that is another story for another post!


Source:chttp://global-executive-coaching.blogspot.ch