{"id":30109,"date":"2023-01-12T22:25:56","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T06:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30109"},"modified":"2023-01-15T11:31:11","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T19:31:11","slug":"leadership-when-change-is-dynamic-and-unpredictable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leadership-when-change-is-dynamic-and-unpredictable\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership when change is dynamic and unpredictable."},"content":{"rendered":"

The covid19 pandemic was as brutal as it was merciless in forcing everyone across the globe to change. Life became unpredictable as people lived in fear and uncertainty, not having a clue of what to expect or do. If change management is leadership, then everyone was forcibly conscripted into leadership to manage the most unpredictable and fearful change. From confusion and extreme fear of the future, people soon realized that it was inevitable to adapt to the most unpredictable environment that the world was turned to be. Razzetti in his book Remote Not Distant<\/em> explains the change that the pandemic has brought to the workplace culture in many organizations, which we have to accept as inevitable.[1]<\/a> Razzetti is a researcher, author, consultant, and CEO & founder of Fearless Culture, a cultural design consultancy.<\/p>\n

Leadership in any environment, calls for change management to use organizational strengths to minimize or eliminate external threats and address internal organizational weaknesses to maximizing on opportunities, in order to achieve the objectives of the organization. We operate in a very dynamic, volatile, and unpredictable world where change is a constant, and failure to manage change, in this case, the culture of the organization, is one of the biggest reasons for the failure of organizations, governments, families, and individuals. During the covid19 pandemic, there have been countless victims, who were destabilized or completely failed due to the challenges that came with covid19 but there were also countless success stories of organizations that not only survived the pandemic but thrived and have emerged stronger and more successful. As others gave up and gave in to fear and desperation, successful organizations were able to adapt to the new environment and creatively come up with strategies and tools to manage the challenges that change brought about. Razzetti who speaks in different business forums to many leaders has been advising business executives to embrace a pandemic-driven shift towards doing work outside of an office setting. One of the changes that are a consequence of the pandemic is a situation where employers have embraced the idea of people working from home, which used to be an exception. Things have turned around and working from the office which was the norm, is slowly turning out as the exception instead. The office work culture has changed and people are working both in the office and others from the comfort of their homes. As people were locked down at the onset of Covid19, hope was that this would only last a short period of time but days turned into weeks, weeks into months and people had to continue on with life. What started out as survival tactics of people working from home has now been embraced as a strategy by many organizations, facilitated by technology and strategic leaders have adapted to the new reality that Razzetti refers to as “Remote not distant.”<\/p>\n

As a case in point, when the pandemic set in 2020, as an organization, our Christian schools for vulnerable children were closed by the government alongside all other schools across the country. We had to be creative to adapt to the new environment because we could not neglect these vulnerable children. Instead of burying our heads in the sand and neglecting the vulnerable children and their families, we opted to reach out and engage the students using technology. The engagement of the students by their teachers and social workers, with activities that kept the children busy, and thereby kept them away from risky behavior were very instrumental in saving from many risks. We were able to save many children from getting involved in antisocial activities that put their lives in danger.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Change is quoted by Tod Bolsinger as the crucible upon which leadership is formed and strengthened to develop tempered resilience.[2]<\/a> The change brought about by covid19 has definitely been the crucible upon which many leaders have had the opportunity to be “tempered” in their resilience. Adaptive leadership is the way to overcome rapid and unpredictable change as happened during the pandemic. The change affected both secular and religious organizations in equal measure. As Christian leaders, we also have to embrace change and creatively adapt to the new environment and respond creatively to minister to a bleeding society. The cases of depression, emotional instability and mental instability have increased during and after the pandemic and calls on the church to respond accordingly, in line with the missional obligation to “give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute,” (Psalms 82:3). We had to be adaptive in using technology to provide counseling sessions virtually. Many people resorted to buying things online that were delivered directly to people\u2019s houses, and these new ways of doing things have now become the new normal, as people have become adaptive and achieved great success while others have failed for their failure to be adaptive to change. Most of the strategies and tools that we used at the onset of the pandemic and the ensuing period, have become our new normal and have helped the organization to make great progress.<\/p>\n

Razzetti has encouraged businesses and other executives on embracing new ways of doing things. He particularly has an interest in the combination of both normal office working and remote working. He is full of praise for remote working, which he says if done well can lead to staff satisfaction and productivity while strengthening corporate teams and the company as a whole.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s done thoughtfully and deliberately, he argues, remote work can increase employee satisfaction and productivity while also strengthening corporate teams and a company as a whole.\u00a0 As I pursue my doctorate, I realize that I have to be adaptive to embrace change and and flexibility as I use different research methodologies in adaptive leadership approach.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Razzetti, Gustavo. Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture that will help you Thrive in a Hybridge Workplace. (Bridgeport, Chicago, Illinois. Liberationist Press, 2022).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Tod Bolsinger. Tempered Resilience: How Leaders are Formed at the Crucible of Change. (Westmont, Illinois, USA. IVP, 2020).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The covid19 pandemic was as brutal as it was merciless in forcing everyone across the globe to change. Life became unpredictable as people lived in fear and uncertainty, not having a clue of what to expect or do. If change management is leadership, then everyone was forcibly conscripted into leadership to manage the most unpredictable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2260,2081,2512,2493],"class_list":["post-30109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adaptive-leadership","tag-lpg11","tag-pazetti","tag-remote-not-distant","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30109"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30154,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30109\/revisions\/30154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}