Change has become a constant in our organizations. New technologies, structures, leaders, processes, expectations, and ways of working are simply part of today’s workplace.

Yet one of the things I continue to hear from leaders I work with is, “My people are resistant to change.”

Sometimes they are but after working with leaders and teams for many years, I also think we can be far too quick to use the word resistant. I have seen situations where someone asks a lot of questions and the leader interprets it as pushback. Someone offers a different idea, and we assume they aren’t on board. Someone wants to understand the rationale behind a decision, and they are perceived as slowing things down or they are being difficult.

What if some of what we call resistance is actually engagement?

People Process Change Differently

A significant part of the work we do with leaders is helping them understand that people don’t all process information and change in the same way. This sounds simple, but it can have an enormous impact on how we lead.

Some people need to understand the rationale and logic behind a change before they can fully embrace it. They want to understand why it is necessary, what problem we are trying to solve and how the decision was made.

Others immediately start thinking about implementation. What happens next? Who is responsible for what? How will this work? What are the timelines and what could potentially get in the way?

Some people naturally think about the impact on others. They may ask how the change will affect their team, customers or other stakeholders. Others immediately see possibilities and want to explore alternatives or offer ideas about how something could be done differently.

None of these responses necessarily means, “I don’t support this change.” They may simply mean, “Help me understand this,” “I want to make sure we have thought this through,” or “I have some ideas that could help us make this better.”

As leaders, we need to be able to recognize the difference.

How Our Own Preferences Can Get in the Way

There is another side of this that I think is equally important. Leaders have their own preferences for how they process information and change too, and those preferences can influence how we interpret other people’s behaviour.

If I am someone who moves quickly and is comfortable making decisions with limited information, I may become frustrated with someone who wants more detail before moving forward. If I have been involved in a decision for six months, I may forget that my team is hearing about it for the first time. If I am highly decisive, I might interpret someone offering another possibility as challenging a decision when they are simply doing what comes naturally to them which is looking for ways to make it better.

This is where self-awareness becomes so important. Before we decide someone is being difficult or resistant, we need to consider whether we are interpreting their response through our own lens.

Are We Creating Space for People to Speak Up, Challenge, and Ask Questions?

This is also where I see a strong connection to psychological safety.

We encourage people to think critically, challenge assumptions, identify risks, share ideas and speak up when they see something we may have missed. Yet, as leaders, we don't always recognize these behaviors for what they are. Questions, different perspectives and even healthy challenge can sometimes be interpreted as resistance, when in fact they may be signs that people are engaged and want to contribute. 

If people repeatedly experience questions being interpreted as resistance, eventually some of them will stop asking. If offering a different perspective is treated as negativity, they may decide to keep their ideas to themselves. If challenging an assumption results in someone being labelled as difficult, people learn very quickly that it is safer to stay quiet.

And this is where leaders need to be careful. Silence can easily be mistaken for alignment.

A quiet room doesn’t necessarily mean everyone agrees. It could mean people don’t believe there is value in saying what they really think.

Psychological safety doesn’t mean everyone has to agree or that every idea needs to be acted upon. It means people believe they can ask questions, raise concerns, acknowledge uncertainty and offer a different perspective without being diminished for doing so.

That becomes even more important during times of change.

Situational Awareness - We Need to Recognize How Much Change People Are Experiencing

There is another factor we can’t ignore which is the volume of change happening inside organizations.

Recent McKinsey research found that the average employee now experiences approximately 10 planned organizational changes each year, five times as many as a decade ago. That is significant.

Leaders may be focused on one particular initiative while employees are experiencing the cumulative impact of many things changing around them. They could simultaneously be adjusting to a new system, different leadership, changing customer expectations, new technology, shifting priorities and different ways of working.

What looks like resistance to one change may actually be exhaustion from the cumulative impact of many changes.

This doesn’t mean organizations should stop changing. Quite the opposite. We need to continue to evolve, innovate and adapt to remain relevant and competitive. The pace of change is unlikely to slow down, and, in many organizations, it will only continue to accelerate. 

What it does mean is that leaders need to be more thoughtful about the environment in which they are asking people to change. We need to consider what else people are navigating, how much change they have already absorbed and whether they have the clarity, context and support they need to move forward. 

Sometimes what appears to be resistance may simply be a signal that people are feeling overwhelmed, uncertain or need more time to understand what is being asked of them. Our job as leaders isn’t to shield people from change, but we do have a responsibility to help them navigate it effectively.

Get Curious Before You Label the Behavior

One of the simplest things we can do as leaders is become more curious about what is sitting underneath someone’s reaction.

Instead of immediately asking, “How do I get this person on board?” consider asking:

• What part of this are they trying to understand?
• What are their concerns and thoughts?
• Is there something they see that I don’t?
• Have we explained the rationale and expectations clearly enough?
• Are they trying to challenge the decision, or are they trying to contribute?
• Have I provided an opportunity for them to ask questions and be heard?

There may be valuable information sitting underneath what initially looks like resistance. The people closest to the work often see operational challenges and unintended consequences that those designing the change simply can’t see from where they sit.

Listening doesn’t mean we have to agree, nor does it mean every decision becomes a group decision. Sometimes the direction has already been determined and isn’t negotiable. But even when the what has been decided, there may be tremendous value in inviting people to contribute to the how.

Knowing When to Listen and When to Set Direction

There is an important balance here. Creating space for people to ask questions, raise concerns and offer different perspectives doesn’t mean that every decision requires consensus. There will be times when people have been given the opportunity to contribute, their concerns have been heard, the rationale has been clearly explained, and the direction has been set. They may not fully agree with the decision, and that’s okay. Agreement and alignment are not always the same thing.

As leaders, we need to be comfortable with that distinction. We can listen and demonstrate empathy while still being clear about expectations and what needs to happen next. In some situations, feedback may cause us to rethink or adjust our approach. In others, we may hear the concerns, understand them and still determine that moving forward is the right decision.

There will also be times when resistance is actually resistance. When someone has been heard, understands the rationale, has been given the appropriate support and continues to actively work against the direction of the organization, the conversation needs to shift. At that point, it is no longer simply about understanding their concerns; it becomes a conversation about expectations, ownership and their willingness to move forward.

Impactful change leadership isn’t about endless consultation or trying to make everyone happy. It requires the judgment to know when to listen, when to get curious, when to involve people, when to adjust and when to provide clear direction. People deserve the opportunity to have a voice, but having a voice doesn’t always mean having the final say.

Final Thought on Leading Change

The next time we find ourselves saying, “They are resistant to change,” perhaps we need to spend a little more time understanding what we are actually seeing.

Are people resisting, or are they trying to understand? Are they being negative, or are they identifying a risk? Are they challenging the decision, or are they trying to contribute an idea? And is there anything about the way we are leading the change that could be contributing to the response we are getting?

We want people in our organizations who think, question, challenge and contribute. We also need people who understand that there comes a point when we need to align and move forward and those two things don’t have to compete with one another.

The goal isn’t to eliminate resistance to change. It’s to better understand what people’s reactions are telling us and to stay curious before we label them as resistant. Sometimes we need to listen more closely. Sometimes we need to adjust our approach. And sometimes we need to be clear about the direction and move forward. Knowing the difference is what impactful change leadership is all about.

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences around how you lead change. Please reach out to me directly at joanne.trotta@leadersedgeinc.ca or 416-560-1806.

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