Managing Resistance
Resistance is a natural part of any organizational change, however, when managed ineffectively it can result in the failure of the change initiative (Lewin, 1947). Change can either be visible by acts of aggression, passive, or masked by questions of concern and factuality.
Discussing gender competence as a professional skill can help mitigate the effect of viewing gender diversity initiatives as attacks on males that are oppressing their female counterparts. Additionally, on an individual level, communication about gender equality should make it clear that the participant’s private life is not in question here and it is merely the professional responsibility of employees to adhere to institutional policy (European Institute of Gender Equality, 2016). The involvement of leaders as change champions can also mitigate the effect and help get the critical mass that can get the emotional investment required for the change initiative (El-Murr, 2018). It’s also important to train and map out change from an emotional level using frameworks that can predict the changing emotions and communicate the framework to employees and senior management. Such framework maps out forms of resistance from passive to active starting with denial, disavowal, inaction, appeasement, appropriation, co-option, repression and backlash. (El-Murr, 2018)