Scaling Leadership

Chapter 12 Practices That Transform Leadership Change Is Simple, Change Is Hard

If you want to change yourself, your leadership, or the leadership system of your organization, we know what works. It is straightforward to explain and understand the basic mechanisms of changing oneself, and that’s what we do in this chapter. But don’t be fooled: It is hard to change deeply grooved patterns in how we show up every day in our lives, and our leadership.

Transformation—fundamental change—is an acquired taste. It is not for the faint of heart. It is, in the mythic traditions, a heroic journey, a spiritual boot camp. It takes hard work individually, and it takes more hard work to do it collectively and at scale. If we pull it off, our leadership becomes a competitive advantage. Change and transformation are only worth the effort if there is something more or higher to gain or create for which our current level of leadership is too small. Then it is not only worth the effort; it is worth committing our lives to.

We are currently working with two leadership teams within one large corporation. These two teams combined are responsible for all the organization’s revenue. One of these leadership teams has fully embraced its collective development and the challenge of increasing its capacity and capability to transform the organization. The team’s momentum is palpable and synergistic as each member lifts the entire group’s effectiveness.

What are they doing? They are experiencing the amplifying ...