Introducing Step Up, Step Back by Elsbeth Johnson
Written by Stuart Haden on October 3, 2024
In the context of change efforts this book has a captivating start for 3 reasons…
1) Johnson begins by highlighting that most endeavours struggle or even fail because something gets lost in translation. This takes place between the people who ask for the change (leaders), and the people responsible for delivering the change (managers).
2) She describes what she calls The Four Delusions of Leadership, the things we believe about leadership that can often be mis guided. The magic delusion, the activity delusion, the drama delusion and the agency delusion.
3) But the bit that really tipped me over the edge was when she described what’s wrong with the current advice about how to lead strategic change. For example, The Early-Stage Bias – most of the studies which look at how to deliver change only investigate what happens in the very early stages of a change. As well as focusing too much on the people and what they did. Or only considering the big events, and not tackling the processes by which these events occurred.
The book is structured into four specific ‘asks’…
• Clarity and Alignment – require leaders to do more than they might typically do in the initial stages of a change: this is where leaders need to ‘step up’.
• Focus and Consistency – require leaders to do less than they might typically do, during the later stages of a change. This is where leaders need to ‘step back’.
If you are in the early phases of planning a change then this book could provide the perfect framework. Or if change is already underway it could help describe the progress you’ve made, where you are now and what the next phases hold.
