Leadership
Executive Coaching to Develop Change-Ready Leaders
Discover how to coach and develop change-readiness using the six “mindsets in action” of change-ready leaders.
One of the benefits of living in an era of accelerating change is the opportunity to observe, in real time, the change-readiness of leading companies around the globe. Take the rapid emergence of Generative AI. Companies with innovative cultures and leadership teams who are willing to embrace change (like Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, OpenAI, for example) are already carving an edge over competitors who appear months, if not years away, from tackling this game-changing tech.
The pace of change is only getting faster, with research from Gartner in 2022 revealing that the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes over the course of a single year. A Korn Ferry analysis of 6 million global employees' opinion survey data revealed that change-readiness and organizational adaptability are essential for financial performance. By comparing responses from 50 companies that perform strongly across a suite of financial measures with 500 peer organizations, we have found that a company’s capability to respond effectively to changes in the business environment is one of the biggest areas of differentiation, with 82% of employees responding favorably to change vs 69% in other companies.
Readiness for change has become an essential organizational capability. Yet right now, businesses everywhere are struggling to adapt. They are overwhelmed by the task of upskilling their workforces and concerned by their inability to retain top talent.
Further complicating this challenge is a dramatic shift in the very concept of change-readiness. What was once a need to prepare for a specific, targeted change initiative has evolved towards a constant state of readiness for change. Organizations need to cultivate the agility and resilience to adapt, recover, and grow in the face of constant transformation. In other words, today’s challenge is not merely to achieve a one-time transformation; leaders need to embed the capability of continuous adaptation into their company’s DNA.
To do so, businesses must develop and coach leaders to be change-ready. This means strengthening your succession plan by building a pipeline of future leaders with the capability to thrive in an era of continuous change.
Below, we unpack the concept of a change-ready leader and demonstrate how to coach change-readiness using Korn Ferry’s ADAPTS model.
The Pivotal Role of Middle Managers in Change-Readiness
The role of a leader in an environment of continuous transformation involves galvanizing your organization around a clear business strategy and uniting your people through a powerful purpose, while proactively addressing challenges such as change fatigue and disengagement. Get it right, and you will help foster a change-ready organization, accelerate transformation, build agility, change your culture, and nurture new organizational capabilities while retaining your best people.
But don’t make the mistake of thinking the need for change-readiness involves only the C-suite. To drive successful outcomes, change-readiness needs to happen at every level. Our research has found that middle managers play a pivotal role by serving as a bridge between senior leadership and frontline employees and translating strategic vision into actionable steps. Middle managers are closer to the ground, where they can assess and respond to shifting needs faster, influence the attitudes and behaviors of employees, and take a hands-on approach to help others cope with the challenges and opportunities of change.
Workers in the mid-tier tend to be more risk-averse than junior and senior executives and may hamper progress by proceeding with extreme caution. Middle managers can help these employees adapt to change by creating a safe space that shields them from the fear of failure.
Harvard Business Publishing’s Ready for Anything research notes that:
“It is no longer just the C-suite that needs to be prepared to deal with continuous change and disruption. Leaders throughout an organization are now being expected to effectively plan for and engage with a chaotic, unpredictable, and ever-changing environment—and successfully lead their teams through it, energized and ready to face the next challenge.”
ADAPTS: Change-Ready Mindsets in Action
Success for a change-ready leader means igniting change and accelerating transformation across the organization. To be impactful, they must have the ability to navigate change and complexity, communicate with impact, and master new mindsets. Harvard identified the three most critical leadership skills for contending with disruption:
- A willingness and ability to take risks (74%)
- An ability to provide clarity and direction to team members in dynamic situations (74%)
- An ability to not just endure but embrace ambiguity and uncertainty (68%).
A CEO or CHRO cannot achieve this alone. Successful organizational change rarely results solely from individual leaders; instead, it emerges through a network of leaders at every level who are aligned around a transformative outcome.
To get there, we need a consistent framework to train and empower leaders – particularly middle managers – to shift mindsets and promote the readiness for change. That’s where Korn Ferry’s ADAPTS model comes in.
Effective Executive Coaching to Develop Change-Ready Leaders
An ad-hoc or poorly targeted approach to coaching is unlikely to result in the mindset shift and new behaviors needed to develop change-ready leaders in your organization. To drive success, start by understanding the outcomes your organization requires, create a roadmap for getting there, and consider partnering with leadership development experts to make it happen.
- Know what good looks like: Have a clear understanding of desired outcomes and the Success Profile of a change-ready leader. This involves defining specific goals, identifying the necessary skills, mindsets, and behaviors, and establishing benchmarks for success. Drive consistency across every level of leadership with a framework such as Korn Ferry’s ADAPTS model.
- Plan how to get there: Create a roadmap or action plan to bridge the gap between the current state and the desired state. This includes identifying the necessary resources, developing strategies, and setting milestones to track progress. Use a variety of training approaches to improve outcomes and create development experiences best aligned with leaders and their context, from senior executives to middle management.
- Employ connected coaching: Ensure coaching is connected and directed to the same goal to drive sustainable, enterprise-wide change. This means looking beyond individual breakthroughs to create a sense of shared purpose, then translating the big-picture objective into the specific change needed from each leader. Korn Ferry’s connected coaches leverage digital coaching platforms that bring assessments, content, and virtual coaching sessions under one roof to enable customization of every coaching journey, while aggregated data becomes insights that are fed back into the coaching process and provide vital intelligence for measuring outcomes.
Partner with experts: Enhance coaching effectiveness by partnering with a third-party Leadership Development solution provider who can provide valuable training programs, frameworks, insights, feedback, and advice throughout the coaching process.
Leadership & Professional Development
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Ready to shift mindsets and promote readiness for change in your organization? Download Korn Ferry's ADAPTS infographic, which describes the six mindsets in action for adaptive organizations.
The right leadership development solution partner will know how to help you develop and coach a pipeline of change-ready leaders in your organization. From deeply customized immersive experiences for CEOs to self-directed, scalable development for first-line managers and everything in between, Korn Ferry creates powerful learning journeys and personalized coaching solutions that drive real behavior change. Learn more.
Download the Infographic
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