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Panel 1
Kat (on the phone): Hermie, my team is getting mopey, and mopey doesn’t get the job done… Can you schedule a meeting to discuss boosting engagement and morale?
Hermie (on the phone): Right away, Kat!
Panel 2
Hermie (in the conference room): Oh boy! We’re finally going to talk about how I can make a significant impact! Just two more minutes…
Panel 3
Hermie’s eyes glazed over, but he still looks expectant.
Panel 4
Hermie glumly looks at the clock.
Panel 5
15 minutes later… his phone dings.
Hermie: OH! A voicemail from Kat!
Panel 6
Text from Kat: Can’t make the meeting. *Yawn* Apologies in advance.
Hermie grimaces.
This cartoon sadly comes from our personal experience throughout our careers. Change management doesn’t always occur because people resist change. It often fails because leaders unintentionally teach people to discount the importance of the change. Every canceled meeting, delayed approval, vague response, or missing sponsor sends a message to others in the organization. People notice what leaders prioritize, and also what leaders ignore.
Evidence for Transformational Leadership
Kouzes and Posner call one of the core practices of exemplary leadership “Model the Way.” Leaders build credibility when their actions match their stated values. Their research also emphasizes that people look for leaders who exhibit honesty, competency, inspiration, and forward-looking behaviors. In other words, change leaders build credibility through consistent, intentional, and positive behavior.
Prosci’s research has consistently identified active and visible sponsorship as one of the strongest contributors to successful change. Sponsors cannot merely approve a project, delegate the people side of change, and disappear. They must participate, communicate, remove barriers, reinforce expectations, and stay present throughout the change lifecycle.
The broader research also supports this. Multiple recent research studies on transformational leadership and organizational change found a positive relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ commitment, openness, and readiness for change, while reducing resistance and cynicism. That should not surprise us. People tend to demonstrate willingness to move through uncertainty when leaders provide purpose, respect, encouragement, and follow-through.
Small behaviors can become big signals. Showing up to meetings, reading plans and acknowledging their contents, responding to requests, making decisions and including others in that process, giving people time, and treating the work as real work models the way for expected behaviors. This, subsequently, through social signals, can amplify change efforts. Alternatively, counterproductive work behaviors that oppose these can have detrimental effects.
When sponsors and managers do not model the way, the organization learns to view the change as optional. When they participate with clarity and respect, the organization learns that the change matters. Change sticks when leadership behavior supports the message.
Get Help for Your Transformation
For more workplace cartoons, visit Hermie the HR Hermit Crab. To help your organization move from change plans to real adoption, learn more about our Change Execution & Adoption services.
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