What it means to be a change agent

As new information comes in, my team and I need to stop, pivot and go. It’s not much different with my home team (my family); things are changing all the time—sometimes even every fifteen minutes!

As a leader in both arenas, I’ve learned that I need to do more than just roll with it. How I handle the speedbumps in a given day, week, month or year impacts the way my colleagues, my partner, my children and everyone else who depends on me will handle them, too. I’ve learned to embrace the change, going through it with more of a wholesome hug than a stressful grip.

What would happen if we all took on that mindset shift? Rather than viewing change with fear, what if we approached it as a necessity, an inevitability, and a positive one at that? It would not only help our own outcomes, but that of everyone. And this is especially true if we want to be effective leaders.

Growing up, I was heavily involved in basketball and softball. I had a dedicated sports dad who was full of important advice. And one of his key lessons wasn’t about how to pitch better or run faster. It was about body language and attitude.

During a sports game, disappointing shifts are coming at you rapidly. My dad pointed out to me how much my hunched shoulders, furrowed brow or frantic yelling could affect the entire team during those hard moments. It was a leadership lesson I absorbed at a very young age.

He taught me that if I can adapt well to change, and I can demonstrate that resilience to my teammates in my words and my body language, they too would be able to roll with the punches and keep morale high all the way through to the last seconds. Managing that trickle-down effect is exactly what I do every day in my professional and personal lives.

My role as a leader, whether at work or at home, is to present a contagiously calm demeanor.

At home, I have three young adult children (ages 23, 19 and 17, respectively). Two of my kids are playing sports through high school, and my oldest son played all through college (with the youngest wanting to follow in his footsteps).

As anyone with small children or younger loved ones knows, the stakes at school, sports and socially can feel high for them. Their bodies, brains and lives are changing at rapid speed. Imagine modeling an approach for them that rejected change. Where would that leave them, given that change is inevitable, and they will have to manage it whether they want to or not?

It is imperative to me to embrace change as an adult, as a mother, and pass along these traits to my children. I want them to be able to tackle things with fortitude and resilience, to be able to roll with it. It’s not a skill we’re necessarily born with, but something we need to learn. In the end, if you can teach your children this during their teen or young adult years, they’ll be better adults later in life.

Surprises are a given. It’s our response that is the variable we can focus on.

I’ve found that in work and life, whenever I encounter a ‘change-phobe,’ I notice they tend to fall into one of two camps. The first is those who believe that change is overwhelming or insurmountable. The second is those who believe that they can prevent or control how changes come. Change can often feel overwhelming, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adapt and overcome through smart solutions. And as we know, change is inevitable.

When we don’t develop resilience around change, the stress and anger can create bigger blocks to our performance and ability to achieve our goals than the change ever could.

I sometimes joke about adding PhD to the end of my title. I’ve had to talk a few people off the edge in my time, but it’s okay. Once we’ve taken a moment to step back and look at the stress point, it’s easier to adapt and start to forge a path forward.

I challenge everyone to stop getting overly excited and anxious when it comes to change. Change can be great, and change can be challenging—but at the end of the day, change is inevitable. Embracing it could change your life for the better.