Leading The Way Through Transformation

Joelle K. Jay, Ph.D., is an award-winning executive coach, LRI Director and author: The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership.

In a time of change and innovation, disruption is inevitable. It may be exciting or excruciating, but either way, the impact is often profound. How you respond can be the difference between trauma and transformation.

Disruption may be personal or professional; it may be a crisis or a choice. When it’s a crisis (a diagnosis, a divorce or a death), we can be thrown so far off our path, it’s hard to see the way forward. When it’s a choice (a new ambition, an exhilarating decision, a big break), we can find ourselves in uncharted territory. How do we navigate our life path when we’ve suddenly lost our way?

In many cases, the victory comes from simply living through the disruption: we’re just happy to survive. But so much more is possible if we can approach disruption with an open mind, an open heart and an openness to the idea that it may just be the best thing that’s ever happened to us.

Leaders who do can discover they do not have to merely live with or live through disruption. Instead, they can learn how to lead the way—and in fact how to lead their lives. They can gain a sense of hope and optimism and the confidence that the next time they experience a life-changing moment, they can do so with confidence and success.

From Disruption To Discovery

Take a moment to consider a disruption you’re experiencing or a transformation you’d like to make. Spend a moment naming the things you want to be true when you successfully move through the transformation to the other side, where life is good, success is yours and you have arrived victorious on the other side.

• Who would you love to be at that time?

• What would you want to see in yourself?

• What would that experience feel like?

Give yourself the opportunity to explore. No one else can do this for you, because you’re the only one who knows what success means to you. You’ll have to lead yourself.

With that experience in mind, let’s discuss the steps to arriving at the best possible outcome.

The Transformation Model

There are seven steps you can take to make your transformation.

The moment you know you’re in new territory, ask for support. Depending on your situation, you might want to think about what that support could be.

When your transformation is emotional, you might call a counselor or a friend. When it’s professional, you might call your mentor or your coach. Think about the hard or new or scary-exciting things that might be part of your transformation. What would it look like for you to get support?

Successes are important because they show you the way. They’re like lights on your path. If you can see where you’re succeeding, you can go further down that path, and those lights can lead you on. So look for wins. Thinking about your ideal future, what would the wins look like?

Every big change brings challenges. Take them one at a time. You may have to use all of your capabilities, and acquire some new ones, to persevere.

Can you see a challenge you’ll have to face and see yourself being successful? What kinds of things would help you on a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual or practical level?

Bigger than challenges, emergencies are when suddenly it all feels at risk—your progress, your success, your sanity. This is when to seize your lifelines and do whatever it takes to survive. What will you do if you have a freak-out moment? What are your lifelines?

Restoration means taking a moment to assess. How are you doing? If “fully restored” to health, wellness, motivation or whatever you’re aiming for is 100%, then how close are you? Can you catch a glimpse of what it will look like on the other side of the journey?

This is where you look all the way ahead, way past your vision, to where your transformation is complete—to where the things you wanted to be different, better or even extraordinary are, in fact, so. After the whirlwind, things are restored not to their original order but to order—a new way of being where you are that best version of yourself.

Give yourself time here. Do you need to heal at all? Learn some new things? See yourself differently? Adjust to a new reality? Let a new vision start to form.

Having finally arrived at a new place is cause for celebration! It’s also important to maintain your success and prevent any backsliding so you can stay there.

Imagine that, what may feel like an ideal outcome today—almost more than you dare to wish for—is in fact, your new life. Your new you. That’s maintenance. You’ll be wiser then, living at a higher level, and you won’t go back. That’s prevention. You’re here for good.

All of this is best done in an environment of self-compassion. That might mean giving yourself the chance to just be; to give yourself a break or be forgiving with yourself if a process is messy, takes time or might not appear to be working at the moment. It might mean the ability to laugh at yourself or accept things you cannot change but to give yourself all the grace you need to get through your transformation, your way.

Conclusion

Transformation is not easy. But it can surprisingly, maybe miraculously, be a process of discovery, love and joy, and success.

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