It is inevitable actually, that you will at some point in your career find yourself faced with the necessity to make a change that you don’t agree with, for whatever the reason. … and the reasons are unlimited. One reason might be that it just doesn’t make sense to you. Another reason might be that you fear the change will put delivery of a quality product at risk. Another reason might be that you fear the change will place even more responsibility on your shoulders. No matter what the reason is that you disagree with the change, it is legitimate, important, and normal.
Jack Canfield, co-author of the’ Soup for the Soul’ books, offers a simple “Success Principle”: E(event) + R(response) = O(outcome). I call this the ‘life equation’. When faced with unwanted change, the only thing that really matters is how you will respond to the change event (the E) – it’s the R in the equation that is so very, very important. How you choose to respond will affect how well you can perform your job. How you choose to respond will affect how easily you are able to create and maintain relationships at work. And how you choose to respond will affect your overall personal wellness – your physical health and your mind health.
Your aptitude for the skill of Positive Presence – your ability for a positive and energized mindset – determines the quality of your response. Your response, no matter what it is, must be such that you are able to maintain positive emotional energy. Your response must be such that you are able to maintain your strength, your health, your resilience and most importantly a positive healthy attitude. A positive “R”, a positive response, to the event, to the “E”, doesn’t mean you agree with the change, but it does mean that you will be a happier, healthier, and more productive person.
As a leader today you must learn how to see beyond the chaos. First, by understanding that change today is continuous, fast, and disruptive. In other words, you must become accustomed to the disruptiveness of change in your workplace – to do that, you must create a mindset that will embrace continuous change and thrive in it. You must understand that ‘it is what it is’. Then, you must understanding the dissatisfaction or problem that’s driving the change. As a human, one of our basic needs is to make sense of our environment.
Finally, you embrace the change (“I can do this!”. “Let’s get’r done!”). Only then, will your change-resistance decrease enough to allow you to move on in a healthy manner. This process necessitates a deep self-awareness – know your values – who you are – what drives you. This process necessitates that you have an inner strength that will move you through the process with a positive and energized mindset (rather than a mindset of frustration and resentment).
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Let’s face it, if we are not changing, chances are we’re not alive. Resistance to change is normal and natural. You see, the minute your brain realizes you are moving out of your ‘comfort zone’…it automatically sets off the famous “fright/flight/freeze response”, to some extent. This “fright/flight/freeze response” is otherwise known as the “stress response”. If you perceive the change as desirable or something you want, then your brain instantly shuts down the stress-response and the release of the stress hormones. So it is that being involved in the planning process of a change event, and having a deep understanding of the need for the change provides you with huge leverage for overcoming your change-resistance.
Influential leaders are highly practiced with the 
Human emotions are as complex as they are varied. In a span of one day, we all experience a significant number of emotional highs and lows. An average person in a high-stress environment may experience even more. Emotions do not take a break, and they are always present influencing our behaviour, performance, and relationships.
The understanding that a leader’s behaviour is the key predictor to organizational performance is a radical shift in leadership thinking. To develop a performance driven culture a key element must be to begin to focus not on the technical elements and processes, but to begin to consider the impact poor behaviour has on safety, quality and service. This shift must start with leaders at all levels. 
The knowledge economy and the subsequent ‘human’ economy as some refer to it, has presented the business world with the need for a huge paradigm shift on a global scale. As organizational success increasingly depends on the ability of the collective working brain-power of workforces to create and produce, the goal must be to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each individual. As this dramatic paradigm shift from mechanistic-to-systemic continues to unfold, leadership too must evolve to think systemically, to attend to values, to take a holistic perspective, and to focus on strengths rather than on weaknesses.
A number of factors contribute to the failure of leadership development programs today. Among these is the limited participation by senior leadership in the training and in holding people accountable for changing behaviour following the training. Limited participation signals a lack of commitment. As one common saying explains, “The difference between participation and commitment is like an eggs and ham breakfast: The chicken participated, but the pig was committed.”
A critical problem in management generally is scarcity of leaders who possess the necessary ‘Influential Leadership’ behaviours (the ‘mechanics’ or ‘tactical capacity’) that propel organizations to greatness and guide them through significant challenges. There are plenty of managers and leaders who possess superb technical, operational and financial skills and an acute understanding of system processes. But what is lacking are managers and leaders who have a deep understanding of the critical link between behaviour skills and performance excellence, and who have been trained in the 
When behaviour is identified as a critical piece of the performance equation – and studies of corporate success stories have proven its relevance time and time again – it means that behaviour skills must become part of the organizational total quality management plan. Just as we manage any process and skill for continuous improvement – so too, we need to build individual behaviour processes for improvement through continuous feedback unique to your organization, unique to your team, and unique to each and every individual.
Unfortunately, it is not unusual to see people in management positions that are clueless about how to deal with the dysfunctional situations and behaviours — the “people issues,” that occur daily and could consume upwards of 80 percent of a workday. And, again unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see ineffective and dysfunctional behaviours in managers themselves, particularly during times of chaos and crisis which are often just a typical occurrence in today’s complex and ambiguous work environments.