Jenny Magic (left) and Melissa Breker
“Even most well-meaning leaders can accidentally find themselves engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors,” says author Jenny Magic.
If you lead a marketing team, Magic is sounding the alarm. You could be unknowingly undermining your efforts to attract right-fit prospects by your leadership style.
Magic brings almost 20 years of marketing transformation experience to her change management and team performance practice, Better Way to Say It. One of her clients deemed her a “marketing therapist” years ago for her ability to get a dysfunctional team back on track, and the label just stuck.
I met Magic when we worked together on marketing projects in San Diego about a decade ago. We caught up recently by phone to discuss her new book, which is the number one bestseller in five Amazon categories.
The following is excerpted with permission from a new book by Magic and Melissa Breker, Change Fatigue: Flip Teams From Burnout to Buy-In:
Here are five pitfalls leaders need to be wary of:
Pitfall no. 1: They narrowly define the problem. “Leaders are typically rewarded by achieving company goals and motivated by reducing the friction in their own job. But when leaders focus on company objectives or their own convenience over broader concerns, they sabotage their team by thinking too narrowly.”
Pitfall no. 2: They force change. “The ‘because I said so’ style of change often comes from frustrated leaders who won’t take the time to align goals (see above) and just want what they want. It can also come from a senior leader’s mandate.”
Pitfall no. 3: They silence resistance. “When this sabotage is at play, leaders ask for feedback in situations where speaking up would feel uncomfortable or cost the employee social capital. This is the ‘We all agree, right?’ approach. Nodding heads or silence in an all-staff meeting does not equate to buy-in, but many leaders will accept this cursory ‘agreement’ as permission and even enthusiasm to proceed.”
Pitfall no. 4: They shuffle priorities and fail to build capacity. “This sabotage falls into the ‘ASAP’ style of leading change. In this reactive leadership style, new work gets added to the top of the priority list without other items coming off the list, building in a permanent feeling of overwhelm and just asking for staff burnout. Assuming most teams are already fully booked with work, they don't have empty space just waiting to take on new initiatives. Plus, people take time to process change. Not only is it ineffective to rush the process without building capacity for ongoing, sustainable change, but rushing will also slow down the adoption of the change.”
Pitfall no. 5: They neglect healthy team norms and psychological safety. “People are only willing to consider change when they feel part of a collaborative community bound by a compelling purpose. Leaders who don’t invest time in creating a high-functioning team that welcomes feedback and rises to new challenges will find themselves lost when it comes to innovation and new initiatives.”
The book is focused on change facilitation.
“Change facilitation is a subset of change management that focuses on communicating change and engaging team members to ensure they are ready to change and have the support they need to do so,” says Magic. “They also help craft the change narrative so that it is as persuasive to stakeholders as possible.”
Change facilitators work closely with change leaders and project managers to refine the scope and timelines based on feedback from stakeholders and best practices.
“On projects without a dedicated change management team, change facilitators bridge the gap between change leaders and stakeholders,” says Magic.
