If you are a new leader leading the cultural transformation journey for your organisation, you need to be aware of the detractors who will benefit from not letting that change happen. They benefit from the status-quo. So dear Change Leader .... be ready & mindful of your vulnerabilities.
They will :
First, attack your looks
then your knowledge, then your character, even call you a Womaniser, then attack your values, then your style, then your ideology and then your beliefs. When all will fail, they will attack your religion and then they will attack your family. They will try out all the old 'popular' tricks.
Anything. Just about anything they can lay their hands on - real or fictional to just let you not proceed with the transformation agenda for if you succeed, they will loose and their citadel will crumble. Unsubstantiated or with fabricated evidences.
You as a change leader need to cleanse yourself of the 3 leadership recommendations during such transitions :
1. Leadership needs to be both sensitive and be thick-skinned during transition of your change journey. Be sensitive to the needs of your constituents (for that is your purpose) but be thick-skinned enough to ignore the attacks of your detractors (for that is their purpose, not yours).
2. Do not counter-attack. It does not behove you in good light. Maintain your dignity. People will follow what they believe and not necessarily what they hear from the detractors about you. Remaining silent is better than getting into word-wars. The gutter-bugs enjoy the blather , the wise appreciate stoic silence.
3. Let your committment to the purpose drive your change journey. Do not let the Rogues detract you from the course of your journey for that is what their deep desire is.
Leadership is about courage ... when you stand for change , it will ruffle feathers of those who may lose power, money and control in the journey. And you cannot expect them to be mute spectators to power slipping out of their hands from in-between their knuckles.
Your detractors would like to see your picture in the 'Rogues Gallery' alongside theirs.
This one time, be silent. Let them speak and lose their power ! You lead the Change.