This document discusses how leaders can apply both formal and informal authority to manage change within groups in a controlled manner. It recommends that leaders 1) establish a stable "holding environment" to contain distress, 2) direct attention to the key issues, 3) understand the group's resilience, 4) control the flow of information, 5) frame issues appropriately, and 6) orchestrate the right level of conflict. Applying the right combination of authority, challenge, and protection allows groups to work through difficult changes and problems in a safe and productive way.
1. PREVENTING CHAOS WITHIN
GROUPS WHILE MOVING TOWARD
CHANGE
HOW TO CONTROL & BALANCE CHANGES AT
TOLERABLE LEVELS WHILE BEING IN A
POSITION OF AUTHORITY
Christine Parker
2. Applying Power
Formal Informal
Position of authority
Preset
Protection
Holding environment
Derived from a person’s
actions
With or without authority
Extends beyond holding
environment
First, analyze the situation
3. Steps to applying formal and informal leadership to mobilize adaptive
work:
1. Holding environment
2. Command and direct attention
3. Know your groups resiliency
4. Control the flow of information
5. Frame the issues
6. Orchestrate levels of conflict
7. Decide on use of consultative, autocratic or consensual form of
authority
Authority as a Resource for Leadership
4. Managing the Holding Environment
A holding environment:
• Contains and regulates
• Buffers distress
• Reduces social tension
5. Authority Relationships can provide a
holding environment with:
- Bonds of trust
- Bonds of fear
- Mutual needs
- Brute force or its threat
7. How fast should adaptable
change be applied?
•What is the severity of the stress?
•What is the resiliency of the group?
•What is the strength of authority and the holding
authority they can provide?
If we put people in an emotional emergency room, we shouldn’t be surprised when
they hand us the bill for damages and don’t trust us anymore.
9. Managing Information
If people are diverting attention from the real
issue a leader can:
- Use their authority to force the issue into
view
- Incrementally challenge people to face an
issue
11. The Razor’s Edge
Some tools for walking the razor’s edge with more skills:
1. Identify the adaptive challenge
2. Keep the level of distress manageable
3. Focus attention on the right issue
4. Give the work back at a manageable rate
5. Protect voices of leadership without authority
14. •For a ship to sail it needs wind.
•For a change to happen it needs challenge .
•Too much wind and you destroy the ship or take it
off its course.
•Too much challenge and you destroy all hope of
improvement and positive change.
15. When people in groups feel protected and
directed by a leader who maintains order within a
group, people feel safe enough and courageous
enough to work together in finding solutions to
tough challenges so that change is possible.
16. Works Cited
•Heifetz, R.A. (1994). Leadership without Easy Answers. Cambridge:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press