Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow Through Challenge and Adversity

• Step 1 involves mapping the political landscape of who will be affected by change. 
• Step 2 requires the leader to identify the key influencers within each stakeholder group. Influencers are employees that have the skills and ability to convince other employees of the benefits of change. 
• Step 3 calls for an assessment of influencers' receptiveness to change. One recommended approach is to use a "Passion Meter" tool which asks people to indicate how they feel about the change: red light, yellow light or green light.

  Passion Meter

• Step 4 proposes that leaders mobilize influential sponsors and promoters. These individuals have the skills, connections, and insight to champion change. 
• Step 5 suggests ways that positive and negative skeptics can be utilized for the abilities to advance change. 

This approach offers leaders an actionable process for navigating political and emotional dynamics during
important transformation.  As the authors argue, 

"As sponsors and promoters take on change leadership roles, positive skeptics channel their input and negative skeptics acquire the skills and support to confront their fears constructively, these seemingly unpredictable aspects of change can be leveraged effectively. What's more, they can even ignite a collective passion that will enable the organization to thrive."

A study was conducted to analyze how individuals network and cultivate instrumental relationships, with special concentration on what enables and what constrains individuals' networking attempts. The study employed a qualitative methodology, involving execution and analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews with managers using a grounded theory strategy. 

It was determined that access opportunities, positive perceptions, and compatible interests facilitate networking, while the absence or stoppage of common interests constrains it. The single-sourced data might have been influenced by individuals' ability to remember networking experiences and social desirability bias. From a practical perspective, networking is a complicated career strategy that develops in alignment with potential sponsors for which there is a requirement to focus on others and iteratively network from the outset of one's career. 

This study contributes to an expanding body of research on networking and is the first to have identified what enables and what hampers the building and maintenance of contacts. The study also contributes to existing research on networking behaviors and results, as well as provides insight on the temporal facets of networking, suggesting that the nature of the networking process is iterative. The majority of research on networking has used quantitative analysis and concentrated on its positive outcomes, while this study sheds light on why networking attempts may or may not succeed. It consequently broadens the present scope of how networking is understood, from a static to a dynamic viewpoint on nurturing relationships with potential sponsors.