Successful change initiatives are often aided by collective organizational anxiety as the need to address a burning platform rallies employees to the cause. But when leaders fail to manage both their own and others' emotions and worries, that anxiety can trigger 'defensive organizing,' in which the transformation initiative itself stalls as managers and employees engage in finger-pointing while the status quo persists. Research points to ways that leaders can do better. 'I feel set up,' said the CEO of a professional services firm, breaking the long silence after his presentation. The transformation he had envisioned ' and his executive team had championed and worked on for three years ' had failed to deliver returns, and the hope that his leadership had once inspired had soured into blame. We witnessed that scene toward the end of a four-year study of the leadership team that strategized and implemented that firmwide transformation. It was the anticlimax of a drama that we have...
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