Elif Suner, MBA, M.Ed, MCC | Enrichia.
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Change is one of those concepts that has been in use by many people in workplaces for quite a while. However, it usually comes in cycles, like waves, followed by a recovery stage, like calmness in the ocean.
In today’s reality, change is constant. Changes overlap with each other and even turn in different directions before organizations find a way to navigate them. There is no time to prepare a PowerPoint deck. Change is no longer an event to navigate; it is the environment we lead in.
For many years, leaders considered resilience a superpower to navigate change. The calmness of the ocean was the time to recover and rest, ground the team/self to be more resilient and gain energy. But when there is no more time for a break to regain energy, change fatigue becomes one of the most obvious realities in workplaces, and it requires more questions and a different space to navigate.
Change fatigue shows itself in different forms: It can look like not being willing to participate, reacting instead of responding, not owning the problem and pointing fingers, being disengaged, resisting new ideas or, on the opposite side, controlling the results of change. Change is tiring, especially for some people. When there was time to ground and relax, it made change more bearable, but now, when there is no time to rest, it can result in these kinds of behaviors.
The more change fatigue there is in the system, the more emotional capacity leaders need to stay in the problem space before jumping into solving the problem. It’s about strengthening their emotional capacity to stay with uncertainty. Leadership capacity may increasingly be measured by how long we can stay with uncertainty without rushing to manufacture certainty.
The problem-solving approach has never created a proven success story when leaders are dealing with resistance and change fatigue. A problem-solving mindset needs some defined problems to solve. Labels can easily formulate the problem. In change fatigue cases, a person who challenges an idea or criticizes a method could be called to be resistant; one who does not make comments could be seen as disengaged. On the other hand, an employee asking too many questions about the details could be considered as slowing the team. Labels give us the comfort of certainty, but they can close the door to curiosity.
The leader is also part of the system.
There is one more person who goes through organizational change and experiences it, and whose experience is often ignored: the leader.
Leaders are not standing aside, calmly assisting everyone with navigating the changes. They are experiencing them just like everybody else.
They receive incomplete information coming from the top but are expected to provide clarity to those at the bottom. They may disagree with certain decisions but are responsible for implementing them. They may be concerned about their roles and responsibilities but are supposed to make other people feel confident.
And when leaders themselves get tired and become anxious, it means that their leadership changes as well.
What happens to your leadership when you are fatigued too?
Maybe you become more directive, less patient and silence starts looking like disengagement, or maybe you communicate more because you need certainty.
That’s where your mirror really appears as a leader.
The solution is staying curious without judgement or solutions. How could we practice curiosity and avoid labeling? What if leaders were to take the way they lead through change fatigue as a mirror of their leadership style?
Here are some hints for approaching change fatigue as a development of the emotional capacity of the leader.
Listen before you solve.
Listening is such an underrated but powerful skill. There are so many great developmental listening skill courses, but the best tool is asking one good question and then choosing to listen and stay curious.
What is the challenge for you right now? Where can you see some stability or even energy? What kind of support would be helpful for you? These kinds of questions can find their space in meetings, talked about without immediately addressing a problem or labeling/judging, while strengthening the muscle of listening and staying with uncertainty.
Listening requires a slower inner speed than finding a solution. Slowing down the inner speed while asking these questions can create a presence that we all need. Sometimes leaders need to slow down internally before the system can move forward externally. The added beauty of this is that slowing down to listen can also help us reach our goals faster by energizing our resources. Isn’t it almost like creating your own island of calmness in an ocean full of waves?
Be aware of your assumptions.
Our brain loves to judge, but when we return to our intentions, we can manage our inner judge! The superpower here is being aware of our own assumptions, as judgment often starts with assumptions. Use “I assume” more in your daily language.
Work on your emotional capacity like building a muscle. Whether through writing, journaling or going for a walk, reflecting can be a great way of understanding yourself and creating space.
Use change fatigue as a leadership mirror.
Leaders cannot eliminate change fatigue in our new climate. But they can develop awareness of their leadership style when they are surrounded by the waves of change.
When the waves are constantly coming, leaders may first ask questions like: What is happening to my leadership in the middle of these waves? Am I really listening to people, or am I solving the problem? Am I responding to what is actually happening, or to my own need for certainty?
Leading through change fatigue is not about becoming a surfer who can stay on every wave. It is more about accepting our humanity and developing the emotional capacity to stay present when there is no calmness.
And sometimes, what we see in others and name as “change fatigue” could be an invitation to look into our own leadership style mirror.
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