A Leadership Challenge: Evolution or Revolution?

Revolution is often an act of desperation for leaders who are bad at evolution.  Organizational evolution is progress towards aspiration. An evolving enterprise reliably learns and adjusts to reach those goals. They don’t require a “burning platform” because they change ahead of danger. 

For leaders navigating today’s complex business environment, one of the most important challenges is knowing when and how to adapt. Human leadership means recognizing that sustainable organizational change depends not only on strategy and processes, but also on the people responsible for making change happen.

Organizations that evolve are the innovative pacesetters; everyone else is a straggler. The stragglers, stuck in out-of-date habits, create strategic emergencies that demand painful revolution. Leaders lose jobs, stockholders lose money, customers lose faith and colleagues disengage. How do strategic pacesetters evolve ahead of danger?

Human connection is the key.

Human Connection Is the Key to Organizational Change

In Connections, James Burke’s brilliant study of innovations that change the course of history, he says: “Innovation occurs for many reasons, including greed, ambition, conviction, happenstance, acts of nature, mistakes and desperation. But one force above all seems to facilitate the process: the easier it is to communicate, the faster change happens.” Pacesetters create better connections to people inside and outside their organization. The resulting ease of communication spurs reliable, innovative evolution.

For leaders facing complex leadership challenges, this principle remains highly relevant: communication creates the conditions for people to understand change, contribute to it, and act on it. Strong human connection can make organizational change more collaborative, responsive, and sustainable.

Without human connection we have no organizations because the reason an enterprise exists is so that people can achieve something together that they can’t on their own. The connections that hold people together in the face of challenging change are vital.

Three Phases of Human Leadership: Align, Act, Adjust

This Align, Act, Adjust approach provides a practical framework for human leadership development. It helps leaders move beyond simply managing change and instead engage people in the process of evolving the organization. Convene the right diverse group of people, they will answer them well and produce smart progress. The questions:

ALIGN: create a mission-critical community

• What are you out to achieve? Why?
• Who must be on board for us to achieve that?
• What are each crucial team member’s purposes (what they are FOR), concerns (what they are AGAINST) and circumstances (the situation they are IN)?
• Where do those interests intersect? What mutual purpose inspires collaboration?

Alignment is essential when organizations are facing leadership challenges that require people to move in the same direction. A shared purpose gives teams a reason to collaborate and creates a stronger foundation for meaningful organizational change.

ACT: clarify promises and sponsor accountable action

• To achieve our purpose, what specific goals must we meet and by when?
• Who has the skill and will need to keep those promises?
• What information, resources and support do those people need to launch coordinated action?

Human leadership requires more than setting goals. Leaders must create the clarity, support, and accountability that allow people to translate shared purpose into action.

ADJUST: set the pace that keeps the team connected, adjusting and improving

• What is the rhythm of connection: Weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?
• What is the forum: In-person meetings? Virtual team app? Webinar? A mix of those?
• How will we decide and deploy improvements? What are decision criteria and roles?

The ability to adjust is particularly important in an environment where leadership challenges and organizational priorities continue to evolve. Adaptive leadership requires leaders and teams to learn what is happening, make improvements, and stay connected throughout the process.

Recognizing the Signals of Disconnection

If you see the signals, check which of the above questions need to be answered:

• Unkept promises: frequent failure to deliver without asking for help
• Unresolved conflicts: familiar arguments that keep resurfacing
• Unclear accountabilities: people expressing lack of clarity about what and how to contribute.
• Joyless activity: a lack of appreciation and enjoyment

These signals can be early indicators that an organization or team is struggling to navigate change. Rather than waiting for a leadership challenge to become a strategic emergency, human-centered leaders can use these signals to identify where greater alignment, action, or adjustment is needed.

Human connection produces improvement because we humans enjoy making a meaningful difference. Be a connection pacesetter because evolution creates more joy and less stress than revolution.

For leaders committed to human leadership, the goal is not to eliminate every challenge or avoid change. It is to build the relationships, communication, and shared purpose that help people respond to change together.

Strong leadership development helps leaders build the capacity to evolve continuously, strengthening human connection before circumstances force a revolution. By becoming a connection pacesetter, leaders can help their organizations meet challenges with greater clarity, collaboration, and resilience.

About the Author

Mickey Connolly

Chairman & Founder

Mickey Connolly is the Chairman and co-founder of Conversant. For over 35 years, Mickey and his colleagues have explored how the way leaders connect with others impacts organizational culture and strategic success. Mickey co-authored two books that feature Conversant’s research and results:  The Vitality Imperative: how connected leaders and their teams achieve more with less time, money and stress and The Communication Catalyst: the fast (but not stupid) track to value. He’s worked with over 100,000 leaders, educators, and negotiators to resolve conflict, align varied interests, and accelerate achievement.