Leading Change: Gift or Burden? with Winnie da Silva

What does it take for leaders to successfully navigate large-scale, complex change? In this episode, Winnie da Silva explores the concept of change through the lens of systems thinking, and shares the stages leaders go through during periods of great transition. She discusses the essential ingredients of leadership and provides insights from industry experts on embracing transformative change.

• Importance of Change: Change is a gift of grace that offers the possibility for growth and transformation into a better version of ourselves and our world.
• Systems Thinking: Systems thinking requires a shift in mindset from linear thinking to embracing complexity and interconnectedness when approaching change.
• Emotional Work of Change: Change is emotional work, and the rhythm of change is not linear, as adult humans do not change smoothly.
• Leadership Reflection: Leaders navigating change need to reflect on their own mindsets and behaviors that may hinder their ability to lead others through change.
• Empathy in Leadership: Leaders should demonstrate empathy by truly understanding the perspectives of those they are asking to change and stepping into their shoes.
• Letting Go of Perfection: In large-scale complex change, leaders need to let go of perfection and ego, as the envisioned change may not end up exactly as intended.
• Leading Change Initiatives: Leaders need three core ingredients for successful large-scale, complex change: self-reflection, empathy, and letting go of perfection and ego.
• Immunity to Change: The immunity to change approach protects individuals from perceiving change as a threat and plays a role in how neuroscience and stress impact our ambitions to change.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn