When Your Leaders Can’t Lead Change: How to Make Change Everyone’s Job with Roger Guerrero (Head of Enterprise Strategy Execution, Merck)

Why do technical experts often make poor change leaders? Roger Guerrero, Head of Enterprise Strategy Execution at Merck, challenges how organizations select and develop leaders in transformation environments. Drawing from his experience overseeing Merck's corporate strategy implementation, Roger explains why change leadership shouldn't be confined to specialized teams but embedded as a core expectation for all managers. He argues that companies over-index on technical expertise while undervaluing the ability to inspire and lead through change—creating what he calls a "silent killer" in organizations.

Whether you're struggling with resistant middle managers or disconnected executives, Roger offers practical strategies for identifying and developing genuine change leadership beyond technical competence.

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Connect with:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nellie Wartoft⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

CEO of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tigerhall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Chair of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Executive Council for Leading Change (ECLC)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

nellie@tigerhall.com

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• 00.00 - Introduction 
• 01:30 - Why change management shouldn't be limited to specialized teams
• 03:45 - How technical industries often select leaders for technical expertise, not leadership ability
• 05:20 - Why change leadership competencies should be core criteria in promotions
• 07:10 - The problem with the "individual contributor to leader" career path
• 09:15 - Creating dual career tracks for technical experts vs. leadership roles
• 11:30 - How to identify people with natural change leadership abilities
• 14:45 - Addressing the "this isn't my job" mindset in middle managers
• 16:20 - Red flags that indicate poor change leadership potential
• 19:40 - The evolving profile of effective senior leaders—from engineers to MBAs to motivators
• 22:15 - Strategies for working around resistant leaders you can't replace
• 24:30 - Handling resistance at the C-suite level
• 27:15 - The importance of communication style in successful change initiatives
• 29:35 - Why transparency and empathy are critical for change leadership

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