How Leadership Can Overcome Resistance

Change often sparks fear, uncertainty, and resistance.

Even the most well-planned transformations can face pushback from employees, leaders, or stakeholders who feel unprepared or uneasy about the future.

But resistance isn’t a roadblock—it’s an opportunity. And it is natural. Understanding the root

causes of resistance and addressing them with empathy is the key to building momentum and

ensuring successful change. Don’t demand adherence. Instead, learn to lead through

resistance.

But resistance isn’t a roadblock—it’s an opportunity. And it is natural.  

Understanding the root

causes of resistance and addressing them with empathy is the key to building momentum and

ensuring successful change.

Rather than demanding adherence...learn to lead them through resistance.

Responding to Resistance with Empathy

Your resistant people are not trying to be difficult. They’re being normal.

Your team pushing back is not doing so simply because they think their way is superior.

Their way has been familiar. And familiar is COMFORTABLE!

Your job is to make the new way comfortable, too. And that takes time.

At its core, change resistance is about fear. It’s about perceived loss. It’s about lacking clarity.

It’s your job as a leader to turn that fear into trust and dedication. If you begin that process with demands and unreasonable expectations, where do you think that gets you?

Profound leadership sees resistance not as a hurdle or a burden, but as the opening of an opportunity. The opportunity for building stronger connections to the organization’s core mission and values.

But how? How do you field pushback from your team and transform it into a force of growth and prosperity for your organization?

First, name what is going away. Every change first includes an ending of an old pattern, old process, or old way of doing things. We call this an ending. Name what is ending and why it is ending. Successful change-makers first learn how to end well.

Second, be prepared for disorientation. Any time you implement change, you experience a time when people feel directionless. If you have ever felt like a change is chaotic, or anxiety-provoking, then you know what I mean.

Disorientation is a time when people struggle to re-

orient themselves with the new vision. It is also a time when curiosity can lead to innovation, and when courage should lead to experimentation.

That means you can use this time to explore opportunities and best practices. Because old patterns no longer rule the day, your team can become quite innovative during the time they are feeling disoriented.

Third, pursue the “new normal.”

This is where your leadership focuses on the end result, or the vision of the completed change. Even during disorientation, keep the team focused on where they are going to end up!

Many people think that when a change happens, it is like a light switch, and everyone is on-board. Obviously, you know that’s not true. People need an

ending, and a healthy time of disorientation before the change feels “normal”.

In fact, most people won’t really know when the change has been successful, because the new normal sort of…just…happens…over time.

But you’ll know. You’ll know because the vision that you kept

referring to has now become a reality.

That’s how you’ll know.

People don’t change. They transition from one normal to the next. Are you equipped to lead it?

Go. Be. Profound.