In my work with executive teams, I see three common leadership patterns that unintentionally make it harder for organizations to change.
The good news?
Once you recognize and break these patterns, you can create healthy, sustainable change with employees who aren’t afraid of it.
Scroll to continue reading, or click below to watch on YouTube.
Pattern #1: Underestimating the Significance of Small Changes
Too often, we only apply “change management” to major transformations, such as mergers and large system implementations.
However, how you handle the small disruptions in your organization, such as hiring a new team member, rearranging the office, or a routine update to existing software, sets the tone for how your organization responds to bigger, more complex changes.
Why?
Because every change, regardless of its size or complexity, requires people to step out of their comfort zone.
When you help your people navigate those small disruptions smoothly, you build the muscles for larger transformations later.
That’s where The Readiness Mindset® can help. This approach equips leaders with the knowledge, skills, and tools to build readiness and prevent resistance. Regardless of the change, leaders have the confidence to know what to do. And what not to do.
The result is that your people build the skills and capability to navigate change through small wins. They also develop trust that you, as their leader, will be there to support them.
Pattern #2: Confusing Normal Human Reaction to Change with Resistance
Leaders with a resistant mindset believe people resist change and mistake reaction for resistance.
That one belief sets off a series of actions that creates a toxic cycle of change. The result? Employees learn to fear change.
To disrupt this pattern, you must let go of the resistant mindset and adopt The Readiness Mindset®. Then, you can learn the skills that help employees build readiness across the organization.
Think about teaching a child to ride a bike.
I remember watching a dad take the training wheels off his daughter’s bike for the first time. The child was scared and excited. But what really caught my attention was the dad.
He was completely focused. No phone. No distractions. Just patient presence.
When she didn’t want to get on the bike, he didn’t push. He held her steady as she took those first few wobbly strides. Then, staying close in case she needed support, he let her go.
As I watched, I thought: If we taught a child to ride a bike the way many leaders approach organizational change, they would likely never ride.
Here’s what it would look like using the typical organizational approach.
The parent decides the child needs to ride a bike and sets a date, without understanding the child’s level of readiness to ride. They give one training lesson, maybe two. Then the training wheels come off, and the child is expected to have mastered it.
Leaders declare the change implemented and close the project.
Sound familiar?
That’s how many employees describe their experience with change. They’re expected to let go of old practices and adopt new behaviours by a set deadline, often without the time, focus, or support they need.
When they hesitate, they get labelled as resistant.
And what happens next?
Frustrated and exhausted leaders and employees give up. Employees stay silent about what’s needed and go through the motions, paying lip service to the changes the organization requires.
When leaders understand that reaction is normal, and not resistance, they:
- Recognize that hesitation is normal, not negative.
- Focus on building readiness, not compliance.
- Equip managers with the knowledge and skills to guide their teams through the discomfort of change.
Pattern #3: Focusing on Individual Change Initiatives
With this pattern, leaders focus too much on implementing individual change initiatives instead of seeing each change as part of a living, connected system.
When you use holistic systems thinking, you recognize that your organization is more than a collection of departments and initiatives. It is an interconnected whole.
You look first to understand the whole, how each part contributes to it, and how each individual change initiative will interact with it.
Think of your organization like a family barbecue. It’s not just about the food, the people, or the location. It’s how all the pieces come together—even the weather.
That’s systems thinking: understanding how each part affects the others so you can create and maintain something greater than the sum of its parts.
When you manage change in silos, even a “positive” change in one area can create friction in another. But when you view change through the lens of the whole system, you can:
- Anticipate and prevent conflicts between initiatives.
- Leverage collateral change, which is achieving multiple goals with a single initiative.
- Build responsiveness and alignment across the organization.
Breaking the Patterns That Create Resistance
If change feels harder than it should, take a step back and ask:
Are we underestimating small changes?
Are we confusing a normal human reaction with resistance?
Are we leading change in isolation instead of as a system?
If you’re ready to break these patterns using The Readiness Mindset®, schedule a Change Strategy Call with me today.
