When I was a kid in year 7 physics class, I learned about the three laws of motion first published by Sir Isaac Newton in 1687.  The first law states that a body continues in its state of rest, or motion in a straight line, unless a force acts on it. Now, after more than 30 years working on transformation as a management consultant, a big 4 bank CIO, and as a CEO, I realise that Newton’s law could also have been describing how companies work.

That’s because despite the myriad set of geopolitical, climate change, artificial intelligence and technology pressures playing out in our world, all companies will continue in their current state of rest or current motion unless a force acts on them. In other words, they will maintain the status quo until someone steps up and applies a force to change them. And the only force that can change them? Transformational leadership.

Transformation Defined
Transformation can best be described as requiring three key elements:

• Understanding and making sense of what’s happening and changing in the world (disruption)
• Developing a planned and purposeful response to this change (strategy)
• Taking action to make changes to the various components of the business to address the identified disruption (execution).

The status quo never has to argue its case, and is oftentimes the only option that has momentum. It’s therefore always been the role of the leader to drive transformation by sensing the disruption, developing a strategy, and then executing it.

Transformation is Difficult
This all sounds easy to say, but leading transformation is empirically difficult.

Nicolo Machiavelli said it best in 1532 when he stated that “one should bear in mind that there’s nothing more difficult to execute, dubious of success, nor dangerous to administer than to introduce a new way of doing things. For (s)he who does so has enemies of all who profit from the existing ways, and only lukewarm allies in all who may profit from the new.”

When disruptive forces emerge in an organisation’s environment and then collide with the existing deeply held ways of being that characterise the company and the people within it, things become interesting. This collision is real, and it plays out in how the company and its leaders perceive the threats and opportunities created by the disruption and how its people then respond to this disruption via the tactics and techniques they pursue.

The leader who then takes up the challenge of driving transformation must accept the potential of becoming unpopular with those heavily vested in the status quo, and hated by those negatively impacted by the change; all whilst taking on the professional risk that their efforts may not succeed in either changing the organisation or actually addressing the disruption.

Transformational Leadership
Leading transformation is therefore different to leading the business-as-usual operations of an organisation. Not better or worse, just different.

The transformational leader must retain the curiosity, intellectual openness and humility to be sensitive to what’s happening in the world, and be prepared to admit that better business models or ways of doing things might be threatening the very existence of their current business model or industry.

They must also then get to the very heart of the matter at hand, and focus their disciplined attention on those few things that will make the biggest difference. They must be ambitious for their company, its future, and their transformation program. All of these qualities must come together in the development of a credible corporate strategy that is compelling to all stakeholders.

Lastly, they must then take urgent action. They must select and build the executive and project team that will pull the appropriate ‘levers of change’ to sustainably implement their strategy. These ‘levers’ include the identification of new customers and markets, design and improvement of the products and services offered, and the re-engineering of business processes, enabling technologies, organisation structures, the development of people, skills and culture, and the facilities in which work is completed.

Whilst doing so, they must get out front, represent the human face of the transformation, deliver the hard messages and do the difficult work of managing those people who’ll be negatively impacted by the changes that they’re advocating and leading.

It’s easy to get tired just thinking about this. While difficult, at times stressful and requiring lots of hard work, leading transformation will not be a punishment. I guarantee it will be exciting, intellectually stimulating, energising and purposeful.

Leadership is not just a key driver of transformation, it’s the only driver of transformation.

Adam Bennett is the author of Great Change – the WAY to get big strategy done, published by Wiley.