One of the training and developing programmes I enjoy greatly delivering is one which relates to the leadership of change. This is because it provides me with the opportunity to emphasise the importance of balancing the technical dimension of any change with the human one. If change were something purely technical, then one can follow a set of rules which would work every time.

However, we know that change involves both an organisational and a personal transition. In turn, a personal transition involves not only a rational dimension but also an emotional dimension. As such leading change is very much situational. On this basis it is very difficult to think of having a set of rules which would every time, like you have in physics or chemistry.

This leads me to the title of this week’s contribution. When leading change, we cannot simply stick to objective criteria, but we need to have a great deal of subjectivity.

Indirectly I am touching on the issue as to whether management is a science or not. Most academics would tend to say that management is both an art and a science since it follows universally accepted principles but requires personal skills and creativity in its implementation.

Let us take a practical example. One of the tenets of management is that one gives feedback to one’s colleagues. That is the principle to which most people in a management role would tend to adhere to. However, there is no rule book which specifies how that feedback should be given, or if there is, it does not come with a guarantee that it will always work, like the law of gravity does.

There are certain things that need to be avoided, but a great deal is left to one’s imagination. And even if one approach works with one colleague, it does not necessarily work with another, simply because these two colleagues are different human beings.

This issue is not restricted to people management. We can also refer to decisions related to investments. Accountants have developed various techniques to assess a business opportunity and to make a financial case. However, in those same techniques, there is an inbuilt element of subjectivity.

For instance, when working out financial projections based on a discounted cash flow to assess a business opportunity, various aspects of risks are taken into account. Each of those aspects are reflected in the discount factor applied. Who is to say that the discount factor applied to a particular risk is the appropriate one?

There is a common factor among leading change, drawing up financial projections and giving feedback. That common factor is that all three relate to the future. Change by definition is future oriented – giving feedback relates to the future because one is seeking improvement; financial projections seek to identify what could happen in the future.

Since we are talking of the future, there are always unknown elements because, again by definition, no one knows the future. And let us never forget that a leader’s role is to manage the future, with all its unknowns, and not manage the past.

I can fully understand the need for objective criteria and processes when it comes to leadership. This is because several persons in a leadership role occupy that role because of their profession or because of seniority, and not because of any demonstrated capability to lead.

On the other hand, when dealing with persons, objective criteria and processes do not always work, because of human emotional dimension. This is why we cannot lose the art of subjectivity.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.