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Your ability to lead through change is playing a major role in your value as a leader.

The pandemic has brought unprecedented change. Customer habits and demands have shifted faster than ever. Government restrictions have tightened and loosened only to tighten again. Your employees have dealt with kids being sent home from school, family members battling illness, and uncertainty about how long they’ll work from home.

What’s your framework for dealing with change? How do you coach your leadership team to think about all that’s being thrown at them? We have a model you might find useful in considering how you – and your team – are navigating all that’s being thrown at you.

Is there a wrong answer to this question? People often answer this question by describing a list of activities they complete on a daily basis.

“I review and correct data that goes to three other departments.”

“I’m responsible for a team of people so I spend most of my days participating in or leading meeting after meeting.”

“I make visits to our sites across the globe so I’m in and out of airplanes and hotels a lot.”

She asked us to talk to more than 20 of her employees. They were in various roles spread out across the United States. This senior executive of a global pharmaceutical company had hired us to assess her climate.

One word came up in every single interview. That has rarely happened in our decades of doing this work.

The word was transparency. Every single person said it.

When our team got back on the phone with the executive who hired us we brought up the word. We told her everyone had described her leadership team as “transparent.” The observation was not significant to her.

Alignment accelerates results. It fuels innovation. It impacts quality. And safety. The customer can detect it.

If you’re like most leaders you’re spending most of your time seeking agreement rather than alignment.

Agreement is a mirage. If teams agreed more often the role of leader would have never been created. Teams need a decision maker. How you make those decisions can either create alignment or destroy it.