The ability to coach and mentor is a powerful thing but it doesn’t always work, and recognising that can be the only breakthrough we need.

I have recently noticed that in my blogs I tend to write about the breakthroughs clients have as a result of their leadership awareness growth rather than the times when they encountered no change. I think this must come from an overly positive view of people and life in general. In both my professional and family life I believed that every problem was solvable and that everybody I encountered would be open to change for the betterment of themselves, their business, colleagues and family.

However, I recently began to reflect on a few situations over the past two years where breakthroughs came from the leader realising that he/she couldn’t change the situation and had to walk away. In another case the leader had to exit a very long-serving senior manager from the business. I’ll elaborate on two cases, if I may.

Ignore the marriage of cultures at your peril

A company was taken over by a competitor in the market who had a lot to offer in terms of physical resources and new markets; to all outside economic advisers this was a match made in heaven. However, the CEO of the company that was taken over soon realised there was a very obvious culture clash. He began to see the damage the new company was doing to the existing culture and, by extension, the business results.

At the time of the takeover he brough this issue up at a peer group forum and despite all his and their best efforts he failed to make any headway with the one key leader who represented the new owner. He eventually decided to leave and secure a similar position with another company where his own leadership values of valuing the input of everybody and creating a culture of engagement were reflected. Over the past year, he reported to his peers that he has come to realise that despite one’s best efforts some people cannot change their approach because their values are so ingrained in their psyche they can’t envisage any other way of living their lives or leading others.

Be careful what you wish for

The second case involved a CEO who was headhunted by a rival company. She had been a member of another of our  peer groups and everybody supported her decision to make the move. The company she was joining was much larger and gave her more scope to utilise her undoubted leadership potential. However, she didn’t find out until after she moved that the most experienced senior manager was having a negative impact on the culture due to his lack of emotional intelligence. He had been kept in the position because of his exceptional technical skills.

She decided this was a great opportunity to test her ability to coach and mentor this manager and got lots of help from her peers in the forum over the next six months. However, despite her best efforts, there was very little improvement. She concluded that his negative impact on the culture outweighed the benefits of his technical abilities. She reluctantly had to start a process to enable him to exit the business.

These two leaders ended up in the same peer-to-peer leadership forum, and they both shared their experiences. During the session, the following insights and lessons emerged from the forum group:

• Despite your best efforts some people/leaders are unable to change. The key is to realise as early as possible that the person has to want to change and sees the need or benefit of that happening. Even when they agree to the need to change the bridge is sometimes too difficult for them to cross. 
• Another insight is to not see the efforts as a  ‘failure’. It is part of the process of change and everybody involved can grow provided each person is open to and aware of the potential benefits.
• The real learning is to have empathy for both yourself and the other as many of us have gained our greatest leadership awareness from the so-called failure to see the ‘writing on the wall’.
• There is real wisdom in knowing when you have to let go of the situation.
• Accept that this may be the ‘Universe’ providing you with another opportunity to learn more about yourself by fine-tuning an aspect of your system of values.

One of the members quoted the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Where in business or life do you continue to invest your energy in a project that your intuition tells you is not going to improve? To look at it from the opposite position, do you have the patience to give enough resources and time to allow the situation/person to change? Would love to hear your input.