What Nobody Tells You About Leadership

How to Lead Through Constant Change

Throw out the leadership playbook that got you to the top.

The way we work has shifted, compelling us to change how we lead. Uncertainty and ambiguity can tempt leaders to fall back on telling people what to do, especially if that is how they advanced through their own careers.

But future-agile workplaces require a different approach. Being overly committed to command and control will cost you.

In this episode of The SHIFT Forward, Dr. Cindy Pace speaks with Dr. Wanda Wallace, executive coach, Managing Partner of Leadership Forum, author of You Can’t Know It All, and host of the long-running podcast Out of the Comfort Zone.

After decades of helping senior leaders navigate major shifts, Wanda explains how leaders can become more effective, adaptable, and human. Together, Cindy and Wanda explore how to engage teams, lead technological change, identify where you provide the most value, and create the conditions people need to thrive.

Change can work for you rather than against you. It begins with an honest assessment of your leadership habits: what is working and what is not.

Introducing The SHIFT Forward

Dr. Cindy Pace: I’m Dr. Cindy Pace, and this is The SHIFT Forward.

Stay until the end for my final thoughts on why leadership is a mega shift and one action you can take within the next 24 hours to begin shifting the way you lead.

Let’s dive in.

What Is Leadership?

Cindy: To ground our conversation, what is the difference between a leader and leadership? We often use those terms interchangeably.

Dr. Wanda Wallace: I’ll begin with something radical.

Leading ultimately means trying to influence someone to do something worth doing; hopefully for the greater good, better results, a positive outcome, or progress within the organization.

That means anyone at any level of an organization can lead.

A junior employee might influence a manager to experiment with something unfamiliar. Someone might lead their peers toward a new strategy or approach.

Leadership is ultimately about influence.

That moves us away from the old distinction between managing and leading. I’ve disliked that distinction for years, for exactly the reason Henry Mintzberg described: Who wants to be led by someone who can’t manage? Worse, who wants to be managed by someone who can’t lead?

The two are intertwined. Your management skills are among your most important tools for influencing and leading.

You can no longer sit in the middle of an organization without a vision for where it is going. That era is over. You need to understand what the organization is trying to accomplish, or you won’t be able to influence people effectively.

Cindy: I used to imagine there was a magical moment when someone stopped managing and started leading. Suddenly, they would set the vision and inspire people toward a shared goal.

What I’ve learned is that people choose whether to follow you.

You don’t always get to choose your people. Even when you do, the relationship is still mutual. It isn’t simply, “I chose you for my team, so you must play exactly the way I want.”

There must be a shared understanding.

You also can’t lead effectively if you cannot manage the work. People often say a leader’s role is to remove barriers. Sometimes that’s true. At other times, you may not have the power to remove a barrier, so you must help people find a way around it.

You also can’t anticipate everything that will happen.

One shift I’ve noticed is that employees increasingly want leaders who are in it with them. Leadership is no longer about sitting at a desk while everyone else does the work and comes to you only when they need coaching.

During my most recent years as a people leader, I was often in the trenches with my team. Some might ask why I was doing work similar to theirs, but I needed to understand the work well enough to know what my people needed and advocate for them.

Leaders Must Understand the Work

Wanda: That is one reason I’ve spent years trying to eliminate the term “general management.”

General management implies that I sit above everyone else and pull the strings controlling their work. That doesn’t work anymore.

You need some knowledge of what your team does and the ability to take a deep dive when necessary. The danger is getting stuck in the details, because then you aren’t contributing your greatest value.

There are moments when you need to dive deeply. The question is how quickly you can come back up.

Leaders must become crystal clear about where they add the greatest value. Otherwise, they spend all their time doing what feels comfortable and boosts their confidence instead of doing what the team actually needs.

Sometimes a deep dive adds value. But it should be intentional and focused.

Cindy: When you say “deep dive,” I think about watching an osprey hunt.

The osprey perches high above the water and focuses precisely on its target. It dives into the water, catches what it needs, and immediately comes back out. It doesn’t stay in the water doing the backstroke.

Leaders need that same focus: know when to dive in, know why you’re going in, and know when to come back out.

Recently, I helped a team implement new technology. I wouldn’t describe myself as a technology leader, so I had to broaden my knowledge. I asked the rollout team many questions:

• What does this mean?

• What will happen if we don’t do this?

• What are the risks?

• Where does my team need me?

I also asked my team whether I needed to attend every detailed implementation call. Sometimes they didn’t need me to speak or make a decision. My presence alone was helpful.

I also needed to observe how my team was leading and responding to the change.

Many of my colleagues were experiencing the same shift: leading change through technology. We’ve always discussed change leadership, but technological change has accelerated dramatically.

What are you seeing?

If You Aren’t Leading Change, What Are You Doing?

Wanda: We are only at the beginning of the technological change curve. We haven’t fully seen what it will become.

Change is arriving faster and in more unsettling ways—not only because of job security, but also because of what technology means for work, privacy, security, and many other aspects of our lives.

But let’s begin with something fundamental: If you aren’t leading change, I don’t know what you’re doing as a leader.

Cindy: I like that. If you aren’t leading change, what are you doing?

Wanda: Are you overseeing the status quo? Do we truly need someone to do that?

If the team comes in every day and does exactly what it has always done, what is your role as a leader?

You may oversee the team, attend meetings, verify its work, complete performance reviews, and coach people. But if you’re merely checking boxes, that isn’t what organizations need from leaders today.

We need the best possible results in the least amount of time, with the greatest degree of acceptance. That requires change.

I don’t believe you can lead well today without leading change, especially given the pace of everything happening around us.

Moving Beyond Command and Control

Cindy: We can’t continue leading the way we’ve always led.

I’m not calling leadership a mega shift simply because it makes a good sound bite. The old leadership model no longer works. We need to move beyond command and control.

Wanda: Most leaders already know they shouldn’t use command and control—or, at least, they know they aren’t supposed to admit that they use it.

Command generally fails because it doesn’t create acceptance. It may work during a genuine crisis when people need someone to say, “Do this now.” But that isn’t an effective day-to-day leadership approach.

However, leaders still need some degree of control.

I need to know whether my people are on track, meeting milestones, and doing what they committed to doing. I need to understand where the obstacles are. I must manage risk, errors, and the pace of the work.

The question isn’t whether leaders exercise control. The question is how they exercise it.

Does my control feel punitive? Does it provide information? Does it support growth? Does it make people feel protected, secure, and covered?

Control remains necessary. We need to drop the command component.

Cindy: That is an important distinction.

Someone can establish control in a way that doesn’t leave people feeling controlled. Employees should have a voice in the change and in how leadership is exercised. Leadership can be participatory and collaborative instead of entirely top-down.

Wanda: Leaders establish control by creating clear boundaries:

• This is the available budget.

• This is the required timeline.

• These decisions require approval.

• These milestones must be met.

• Return to me before moving into the next phase.

Leaders can also steer the work by asking thoughtful questions that help people think for themselves.

This requires a shift in how we understand control.

Many people issue commands not because they enjoy dictating, but because they believe they are providing instruction. Yet commanding is one of the least effective ways to teach. People don’t remember it, and they don’t enjoy following it.

Identify Where You Add the Greatest Value

Cindy: Commanding may feel comfortable. It can make leaders feel powerful and reassure them that they’re on top of things.

But rapid change is disrupting the workplace. What does that require from leaders now?

Wanda: First, become crystal clear about how you add value to your team and organization.

Ask yourself:

• Am I providing perspective?

• Am I representing the group?

• Am I bringing resources to the team?

• Am I creating direction?

• Am I setting priorities?

• Am I helping people develop their careers?

• Am I providing useful feedback?

• What am I doing that contributes the greatest value?

If you cannot answer that question, nothing else I say will matter.

Second, accept that we are operating in a new leadership environment. How you were managed and led while advancing through your organization is not necessarily how you should manage and lead today.

Whether that feels fair or comfortable is irrelevant. It is a new world order. We need to accept it and move forward.

As leaders, we want engagement, commitment, innovation, collaboration, ownership, feedback acceptance, motivation, inspiration, and excellent results from our teams.

You cannot consistently produce those outcomes without three essential practices.

Requirement One: Care About People as Human Beings

Wanda: First, I must care about you as a whole person—not just your work product.

If I don’t care about you as a person, you aren’t going to give me your greatest engagement, motivation, or discretionary effort.

Cindy: People can quickly determine whether your interest is genuine.

If you read a leadership book over the weekend that suggested three questions to ask your employees, they’ll recognize when you’re simply following a script.

People want to work for someone who cares about them. They want leaders who understand their role, know how they contribute, and are aware of how they’re doing.

They want someone who cares about them beyond the work they produce.

Wanda: That is now a requirement, and many leaders are uncomfortable with it because it isn’t how they were developed.

A simple exercise can help.

Make a list of everyone who works for or closely with you. For each person, identify one thing they care about outside work.

Just one thing.

That knowledge takes time to develop. It can’t be gathered through a drive-by question during a rushed check-in. It won’t happen through a questionnaire or data analysis.

When someone joins your team, take 15 minutes to learn what matters to them. If you’ve worked together for a while but haven’t had that conversation, say:

“I realize I don’t know much about what matters to you outside work. What’s important to you?”

Then listen.

That initial 15-minute conversation allows you to have natural five-minute follow-ups:

• How did the game go?

• Did you make it to the concert?

• How was your trip?

• How is your family doing?

That’s how you begin demonstrating genuine care.

Requirement Two: Create Fairness Through Transparency

Wanda: The second requirement is fairness.

People are harsh critics of unfair treatment. What is new is that they don’t only expect you to treat them fairly—they expect you to treat everyone around them fairly.

If employees hear a rumor about something they perceive as unfair, they want an explanation. They want to know what happened, what will be done, and what will change.

That means leaders must be more transparent than ever.

I once led a large team and had to encourage someone to leave the organization. Although we reached an amicable separation, it was still a departure I had initiated.

My entire staff became nervous. People wondered whether others would be asked to leave next.

I told them:

“If I’m dissatisfied with your performance, you will hear it from me early enough to have an opportunity to correct it. Have any of you heard concerns from me about your performance? If not, you don’t need to worry.”

I also told them:

“I’m not going to share what I discussed with another person about their performance, because that wouldn’t be fair. You wouldn’t want me to share those details about you.”

That is transparency with appropriate boundaries. I could promise not to surprise them without violating someone else’s confidentiality.

Cindy: Fairness is deeply personal and connected to individual values.

What you consider fair may not match what I consider fair. Teams need to discuss and negotiate what fairness looks like and what people expect from one another.

When employees believe that one group receives different treatment—or that the organization says one thing and does another—trust quickly erodes.

If I don’t believe you’re fair, I won’t trust you.

Leaders must care about their people, practice transparency, and understand how the team defines fairness. That is a significant amount of work.

Wanda: It requires continuous dialogue.

Someone elsewhere in the organization will eventually make a decision you disagree with and cannot control. Rumors about that decision may spread, and the rumors won’t necessarily contain the complete story.

You must be prepared to address those concerns without attacking a colleague or throwing someone under the bus.

If people believe you genuinely care about them, you have a foundation for that conversation.

Ask What People Are Hearing

Cindy: One question I regularly asked my team was, “What are you hearing?”

Your position in an organization determines which meetings you attend and what information reaches you. Your team may be hearing something entirely different.

The people performing the day-to-day work also experience change differently from those directing it.

I would ask:

• What are you hearing?

• Do people care about this?

• Do they like what we’re doing?

• How can we find out what they really think?

Employee surveys can provide useful insights, but they represent a single moment. Leaders also need ongoing conversations—coffee chats, small gatherings, and informal check-ins—that provide a continuing sense of what people are experiencing.

If I’m responsible for employee engagement, I need to understand what helps people engage now. The answer may continue changing.

Wanda: The engagement that matters most happens within the microculture.

It happens at the local-manager level. That microculture may contain 20, 100, or even 200 people. It is the level where leaders can know people, remain accessible, discuss fairness, and address concerns openly.

Creating that degree of connection across hundreds of offices and multiple countries is nearly impossible. It must happen locally.

Requirement Three: Give People a Voice

Wanda: Caring is mandatory. Fairness is mandatory. The third requirement is the secret sauce: People want to be involved, included, and heard.

The single most important thing a leader can do is ask questions—and then listen without dismissing the response.

If you aren’t asking questions, listening carefully, and following up with additional questions, you won’t discover what people are truly thinking.

Employees won’t believe they have a voice. You won’t know what is working, what isn’t working, or where people are emotionally.

Even when you believe someone’s suggestion is wrong or know you cannot implement it, ask two more questions before rejecting it.

Cindy: We hear as we are.

You may say something one way, but I hear it through the filter of my life experiences. I may not receive the message exactly as you intended it.

Following up creates greater understanding.

When people have a voice, they don’t merely collaborate. They develop agency and confidence.

Wanda: It is also how people learn.

Imagine an environment where:

• Someone genuinely cares about you.

• People are treated fairly.

• Dialogue is open.

• Your opinion matters.

• You have opportunities to grow and learn.

People will say, “Sign me up. I’m staying here.”

Those are the moments when employees decide that this is the organization they want to be part of.

Human-Centered Leadership Creates Hope

Cindy: Everything you’ve described is part of becoming a more human-centered leader.

A recent Gallup report found that hope is one of the primary things people seek from leaders. The practices you’ve described can help create it.

Wanda: Resilience research gives hope a very specific definition.

Hope doesn’t mean believing tomorrow will be perfect and all our problems will disappear. That kind of wishful thinking doesn’t build resilience.

Hope means believing that things can improve in some capacity—and knowing the next step you can take.

The next step creates agency.

The path may be rocky, indirect, or nonlinear. But I believe something can improve, and I know what I can do next. That is where hope comes from.

Cindy: It isn’t a sugary or unrealistic definition.

It is the belief that our work—and even the mistakes we learn from—can help us create a better possible future. That is something people can commit to.

I once helped an organization define its employee value proposition: Why do people come here? What do they give, and what do they receive?

I said:

“If you’re energized by tough, messy problems—and want teammates who will stay in it with you while you figure them out—this is a place for you. If you want easy, don’t come here.”

Some people try to repeat comfortable experiences from their past. But organizations are constantly changing, and you can’t always enter with the confidence of an expert who already knows how everything works.

If you’re ready for disruption and believe change can work for you, not only against you, it can be an incredible experience. You can become an architect of something new.

Focus Is the Secret Sauce

Wanda: That brings us back to what it means to leave your comfort zone.

When you’re surrounded by disruption and unsure whether your experience is relevant, you may see thousands of things you could do.

Success comes from focusing on the handful of actions that will have the greatest impact on your team and organization.

Without focus, you become scattered and frantic.

Cindy: So focus is the secret sauce.

Wanda: Exactly. If you can’t define how you add the greatest value, you won’t have the capacity to practice the other leadership behaviors we’ve discussed.

How to Determine Where You Add Value

Cindy: What should someone do if they realize that what they thought added value no longer does?

How can leaders identify new opportunities for value creation? Who should they talk to, and how should they involve the team?

Wanda: I recommend an exercise inspired by Richard Medcalf’s book Making TIME for Strategy.

Begin by reviewing everything you currently do. Rate each activity from one to five based on its actual impact.

Be honest.

Then ask:

• What could I do to increase this activity’s impact?

• Should I spend more time on it?

• Should I change how I approach it?

• Should I stop doing it entirely?

After completing your own assessment, discuss it with your manager, mentor, team, and other key stakeholders.

Ask them:

“What do you believe I should be doing to add the greatest value to this team and organization?”

Listen to the responses. Bring the insights together and look for themes.

Ultimately, you must make your own decision. That is the leadership component: After hearing everyone’s perspectives, what do you believe?

Then act on it and learn from what happens.

Cindy: Crowdsourcing insights and gathering stakeholder feedback is essential.

Sometimes leaders believe an initiative is incredibly valuable while everyone else is wondering why the organization is doing it.

We also need perspectives from outside the organization. Companies can become insular. They may know their internal operations extremely well while remaining unaware of what is approaching on the horizon.

Even when you’re uncertain about the outcome, you must move forward and adjust.

Involving the team is powerful.

I once worked with an organization that received recognition for having a purpose-driven, high-trust workplace culture. Although we were winning awards, many employees didn’t understand why.

The value we created needed to move beyond communication campaigns, balloons, and confetti. We shifted toward data and insight:

• What are we learning?

• How do we compare with competitors?

• Where are we leading?

• Where are we experiencing challenges?

• What can regional teams change?

We brought those findings to regional leaders, the CEO, and the executive team.

The value wasn’t simply in the data. It was in the insights: What are people actually saying? What does this mean, and what should we do differently now that we know it?

Understanding where you add value takes time. It isn’t a single flash of inspiration. And it must remain a continuing practice because new opportunities are always emerging.

Leaders Must Keep Themselves on an Even Keel

Cindy: As we close, what final thought would you offer leaders trying to move beyond their comfort zones?

Wanda: The higher you rise in an organization, the more important this becomes:

If you cannot keep yourself on an even keel, you have no capacity to listen, ask questions, care for people, or practice any of the leadership behaviors we’ve discussed.

It becomes worse than that. When you’re constantly edgy and impatient, you send all the wrong signals to the people around you.

You must determine how to keep yourself on an even keel.

There will be difficult days. You may not feel good for any number of reasons. But you must find a way to bring yourself back.

Identify the practices that work for you. This isn’t about working only 30 hours a week. It’s about what you do with the hours you have—and how you manage yourself during them.

Cindy: That reminds me of a quote from Dr. Susan David, author of Emotional Agility: “Emotions are data, not directives.”

When you allow your emotions to direct every decision, you become unpredictable.

Passion and commitment are valuable. But think about how it feels to be around someone who creates a sense of calm. You may not know the answer, but you believe you can figure it out together.

Compare that with being around someone whose energy makes everyone feel as if a crisis is constantly unfolding.

Managing energy is part of both leadership and management. How well are you managing your energy? How well are you managing yourself?

When we discuss organizational change, we often focus on how other people respond. But people leaders are also experiencing that change. They may feel afraid, angry, or disoriented.

How can we lead others toward adaptation if we don’t know how to manage the effect change is having on us?

Leaders are at the center of change, and we must learn to manage ourselves better.

Wanda: Well said, Cindy.

Why Leadership Is a Mega Shift

We won’t build our best workplaces without changing the way we lead.

Leadership is a mega shift because the methods that brought us here will not take us into the future.

We must change how we think about leadership, how we see ourselves as leaders, and the attitudes, behaviors, and habits we bring to the work.

All of it must shift if we want to lead for the future.

What Leaders Need to Unlearn

Leading requires followership.

Leaders sometimes misunderstand what positional authority provides. A title may give you access to resources and the ability to hire people, make decisions, or build teams. That can create the impression that you are automatically in charge.

But leadership is participatory and can be distributed. More than one person can lead.

Leaders must release the belief that only one person belongs in the front seat.

You cannot lead without a team. You cannot lead without followers.

Leadership means people believe in you and in the vision you’re setting. They willingly contribute their skills, talents, abilities, and experiences to move toward a shared goal.

That is the major reframe—the shift—we must make.

One Action to Take Within the Next 24 Hours

Here is one small but meaningful action you can take within the next 24 hours.

You can do this during individual one-on-one conversations, with your entire team, or both.

Ask:

“What can I do, within my power, to make things better for you?”

Then take a deep breath and listen.

When the person finishes, say:

“Tell me more.”

Continue asking them to tell you more until you believe you’ve heard everything.

Then end with:

“Is there anything else?”

Try it, and let me know how it works for you.

Thank you for tuning in to The SHIFT Forward. We have much more ground to cover in upcoming episodes, so be sure to subscribe, follow, and share the show.