Level Up Leaders Inc.

View Original

Leading Leaders Through Change

It’s one thing to master your craft and entirely another thing to teach it.

When I first stepped into a Director role (Julianne here 👋), I quickly experienced my limitations in training the trainer — or in my case, leading the leaders.

The work I was overseeing forced me to zoom out my lens. And the questions I needed to ask myself had to shift to meet this new demand.

- What do I delegate?
- What do I help my leadership team prioritize?
- When do I step in to support a supervisor and their staff?
- When do I give them the space to learn within their roles?
- What happens if a supervisor's story is different from the therapist’s?
- +more

There wasn’t a framework available then to help me conceptualize the competencies of my leadership team.

I was looking for a shared language and vision. To have a way to talk through next steps in our leadership team the way a clinical team walks through a case using a modality.

I wanted to sustain trust with my employees now that I was once removed, while also supporting my leadership team in preserving the culture of trust that I had so carefully cultivated.

Being a leader in mental health means you are an educator. You are training the next generation of leaders. To support your leadership team in disseminating information to their direct reports, they must have what they need to confidently share information while maintaining their authenticity.

Our leadership framework is partially inspired by all the errors we've made, and partially inspired by the success and retention of our teams. We can laugh about most of the errors now, but we assure you, at the time, those moments ended with us in tears and feelings of defeat. 

Nothing quite prepared us for how employees respond to change management and how these moments impacted our long-term work culture. Change is a constant in any business, but especially in our mental health field. 

We found that change management theories offered us a strategy for logistics and operations. Yet, they missed the mark or entirely left out the parts where you have to introduce it to your employees in a way that supported your work culture versus derailed it.

The parts where you have to hold your employees accountable, capture their attention, get their buy in, and ensure they are well trained and resourced.

What your employees might need to hear at your group practice will be different than another practice because each group of employees is different, along with your unique work culture.

 Tact, the 5th element of Cultivate TRUST, is about knowing how to use your influence. It's about acknowledging employees where they are at and tapping into their intrinsic motivation.

 When supporting you and your leadership team through the next change process, discuss the following with your leadership team…

  1. We just reviewed a significant process change. Can you summarize for me what you have understood thus far?

  2. What support do you need support around messaging? How do you plan to share this with your direct reports?

  3. What concerns do you think your direct reports will have when they hear this?

  4. Is there a story or analogy we can provide them, so they understand the "why."

  5. How can we ensure your direct reports have what they need to execute this process change?

  6. How will you set up your meeting so they can really be present and hear you?

  7. Who can support you to ensure this process is being followed?

  8. Who can our employees go to if they have questions or need help?

 

Where do you get most stuck in the change management process? What about your leadership team? Let's meet for a complimentary consult; we'd love to support you,.