Why Are Leaders Afraid of Changes and How to Change That

Starting your business can be a dream come true, and it often is. But when starting your company,expect to face many challenges. At the beginning, probably every entrepreneur had the feeling that they were facing something new and unexpected every day. But, the ability to accept the unknown and change the plan and just move ahead may be the key to a successful business. The truth is, people are willing to accept changes when they are in their best interests.

As a business grows, the list of responsibilities for the business owner is getting bigger and bigger. On that path, even the most competent CEOs and managers can sometimes fail to make changes necessary for their survival.

Leading the team and the company is a big responsibility – especially when it comes to the growth of the team and expanding of the business. The person in charge needs to know which challenges they need to avoid and which ones are good for the company.

Although there is a belief that changes are good, the experience taught us that this belief cannot be applied in every situation. You may ask yourself: how is it possible for some senior managers or CEOs not to want to make changes in the company when they should be first in line to implement changes? There are five common reasons for that, and luckily, they can all be solved!

It sounds strange that someone who is in often seen as fearless can be afraid of something new. During the journey full of new chapters, a person can feel overwhelmed with pressure at some point. And maybe the manager is afraid of a new mistake because they have some big past mistakes in mind.

In modern times, there are a lot of new business-related tools. That can also be scary for someone whois in the business for decades. The constant need to learn new things can paralyze people. Instead of a fearless leader, he or she turns out to be someone who is confused and doesn’t trust technology. It is a normal human reaction to feel fear. The unknown is scary. And if a person cannot see the benefits of the new things, they’ll start wondering if leaving the comfort zone is a good idea.

Arrogance is a leaders’ common mistake.
They may think they are smarter and more capable than others in the company. They think they have proven their abilities and no one has the right way to solve the problem beside them. This way of thinking and managing the company is usually taking the company one step forward – but two steps backward. And when there is no progress, the business can collapse. It is not easy to be a leader. Leading and implementing changes requires people skills! Sometimes that means that the CEO needs to listen to his employees’ ideas and solutions without arrogance.

The success of the business can be questioned if the leader has a wrong expectation about his authority. Sometimes leaders think that because they are the boss, people should perceive them as an authority automatically. They may think that it is enough to be on the leadership position, and once they reach it, they don’t need to develop new skills or question any of his or her decisions.
There is a catch in this. Time changes and so does technology, so it is important to adjust to the new circumstances. Someone is a leader not because he or she knows everything every time, but because a true leader knows how to delegate tasks and stay up to the business challenges.

Changes often modify team structure. It is good to sometimes hire more people to solve the problem. But some leaders try to resist this kind of change because they are afraid that this will threaten their current position.

To some people, the fear of failure can be helpful, because they’ll think about their decisions thoroughly. But in others, the fear of failure can lead to a total stagnation.

Even the best leaders are not immune to the fear of failure. The fear of failure comes with a lot of negative thoughts such as Will my employees still respect me if I fail? Will someone replaces me? Am I even capable of being in this position?

We at Virtev web agency have had a lot of international clients. During cooperation with a lot of companies, we’ve met a lot of managers or team leaders who blocked suggestions and ideas and constantly rejected changes. That way, team progress, and even project progress, were threatened.

We are talented professionals willing to succeed. When we detect problems, we want to bring improvement. Our goal is to improve our client’s business and assure our clients not to make things harder than they need to be.

There is a stage where one mode of operation has been overcome and some change is needed to move the project to a higher level, to be competitive on the market.
In our experience, change does not happen overnight. Sometimes, the client won’t be able to anticipate how many problems they may have if they don’t listen to our proposition. Our obligation is to point out to the leader that there may a better way of doing something.

Because of this way of thinking and not giving up in front of the first obstacle, today we can proudly say we are a part of two major international projects. We were first hired as an outsourcing company just to help – but today we are long-term project partners.