What does it mean to live change? Hint: The answer isn’t in a playbook
By guest writer, Dr. Alison Harris Welcher, Executive Life Coach and Chief Strategy Officer at Chiefs for Change
Like many of you, my leadership training reinforced the idea that change could be planned, managed, and measured—that if I built a thoughtful plan, people would move through each stage in sequence and success was more likely. Buy-in and momentum would build over time. Resistance could be anticipated and addressed. And, once the plan was in motion, I could turn my attention back to other priorities, confident that the process would take care of itself.
I (and perhaps you have as well) studied the classics: Kotter’s 8 Steps, Lewin’s unfreeze–change–refreeze, and even Norcross and Prochaska’s six-stage behavioral model—awareness, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, relapse. Each assumed that change was linear, controllable, and predictable. For years, I believed that effective leaders managed change in this way. And for a long time, that logic seemed to work—or at least, it appeared to.
But organizations today require something different. Post-COVID realities, political polarization, and the rise of AI have made organizations more fluid—and more fragile—than ever. And while systems are shifting, people are too. Employees are navigating the same uncertainty—grappling with exhaustion, rising costs of living, job insecurity, and questions of purpose and belonging. The ground keeps shifting beneath individuals and institutions, making the old playbooks feel obsolete.
So what does this mean for us—for leaders navigating relentless change?
We’ve learned that managing change keeps things organized, and leading change can inspire momentum—but neither is enough in a world that refuses to stand still. Today’s leaders must live change—staying grounded amid flux, making meaning alongside others as they move through uncertainty.
This next evolution requires more than a mindset from leaders—it requires a posture. It requires making peace with motion and embracing ambiguity within the shifting landscape.
Transforming your leadership from “managing change to living change".”
What Should Be Different
From Control to Curiosity: Stop managing resistance; start listening to it. Every pushback holds insight about fear, fatigue, or misalignment.
From Plans to Presence: Strategy still matters, but your ability to stay centered amid chaos matters more. Presence steadies people more than process does.
From Change as Event to Change as Environment: There is no “before” and “after.” There is only through. The most effective leaders learn to move with the current, not against it.
From Vision as Destination to Vision as Compass: The future isn’t a fixed point—it’s an unfolding direction. Leaders today must recalibrate continuously, keeping purpose as their true north.
The most effective leaders in times like these don’t stand above the storm; they stand within it—anchored, self-aware, and attuned to the people they serve. They stay grounded while everything moves, remain open while others close, and build forward not from fear, but from shared faith in the next possibility.
How To Be Different
The pioneers of adaptive leadership—Heifetz, Linsky, and their colleagues at Harvard—have long reminded us that the hardest work of leadership is not technical (processes and skills) but adaptive (values and beliefs). The challenge isn’t what’s changing out there; it’s what must evolve in here—our assumptions, our tolerance for ambiguity, and our relationship to control.
Recent research echoes this truth. A study by Abukalusa & Oosthuizen (2025) affirms that organizational resilience no longer depends on stronger processes, but on leaders who can sense, interpret, and adapt in real time. Adaptive capacity—not operational efficiency—has become the defining competency of modern leadership.
In practical terms, leaders who are ready to evolve their organizations must reimagine the architecture of how they lead transformation:
1. Dismantle and Grieve
Name what no longer works. Old assumptions, outdated systems, legacy hierarchies.
Honor what’s ending. Every structure once served a purpose. Mark its closure.
Make emotional space. Begin not with a mandate, but with meaning-making.
2. Rebuild with Intention
Design from first principles. If starting fresh, what would you build now?
Prototype small. Treat every initiative as an experiment in learning, not perfection.
Create psychological safety. Embed pauses, reflection points, and feedback loops.
Communicate for coherence, not control. Anchor every change in shared story and purpose.
Adapt as you go. In this world, rigidity is a risk. Flexibility is fluency.
When the ceilings crack, you don’t decorate—you dig. You examine the foundation. You release what no longer fits. You design again—this time with intention, humility, and hope.
And you don’t dig alone. You bring people into the process—not to calm them, but to empower them. You invite their questions, their hesitations, and their ideas. You make space for meaning-making, not just messaging. You listen for the wisdom embedded in discomfort and the insight hidden within resistance.
I used to think change was something you managed. Now I understand: it’s something you live through and lead within. That’s the heart of adaptive leadership—flowing with change, not controlling it.
And truthfully, I’m still learning how to do this. Every day tests my own tolerance for uncertainty and my ability to lead with presence instead of plans. It’s why we need to teach and train leaders differently—to prepare them not just to manage systems, but to hold space for transformation. Because the future won’t belong to those with the best strategies—it will belong to those with the deepest capacity to adapt, together.
Dr. Alison Harris Welcher is an education nonprofit leader and executive life coach dedicated to helping Black and Brown women navigate the intersections of womanhood, motherhood, and career. As Chief Strategy Officer at Chiefs for Change, she leads organizational strategy to advance equity and excellence in K-12 education. Beyond her work in education, Alison is the creator of THRIVE Life Coaching and host of Live with THRIVE, where she empowers women to lead with authenticity and purpose. Learn more about her coaching practice and podcast at www.thrivelifecoaching.co.
As always, this section is about unlocking/disrupting your thinking. As you read, think about the ways in which your current models of leadership transitions are serving (or not serving) you well!
Dial Tones and Copies: A Story About Living Through Change
A landline telephone sat quietly on the corner desk of the main office at the local school district, her cord coiled like a memory. Her name was Tess. She’d once been the center of everything: connecting departments, soothing panicked parents, transferring calls with purpose and precision.
Across the room hummed Carl, the copy machine—solid, dependable, and stubbornly analog. His buttons were worn smooth by years of fingers pressing Start and Copy.
They’d been through decades of office shifts together. But lately, things had changed. The office no longer buzzed with voices—it pinged. People didn’t talk; they messaged. Documents weren’t copied; they were shared.
Tess and Carl had lived long enough to see their relevance fade into the cloud.
One morning, a bright poster appeared in the hallway:
“Digital Transformation Initiative—Building a More Connected Future.”
Tess felt a sharp click inside her receiver. “A more connected future?” she muttered. “What does that make me?”
Carl tried to be optimistic. “Maybe it means faster printing?”
But as the IT team unpacked sleek tablets and wireless headsets, both realized the transformation had little to do with them.
For the first time, Tess couldn’t find her dial tone.
For weeks, Tess and Carl sat mostly idle. Tess’s handset gathered dust. Carl’s paper tray stayed full.
“I used to know my purpose,” Tess whispered one afternoon. “Now, I’m just… here.”
Carl rumbled softly. “Maybe our purpose changed.”
“Purpose doesn’t change. People do.”
Carl thought for a while. “Maybe that’s the point.”
He’d overheard one of the directors in the department say to a colleague, ‘Change isn’t an event anymore—it’s an environment.’ That line had stuck with him. He didn’t quite understand it, but it felt…true now.
Then, one Friday, the office Wi-Fi went down. Everything stopped—calls, meetings, cloud systems. Chaos.
And in that silence, Tess rang.
The sound startled everyone. A real ring—crisp, certain, grounding. The office manager picked up the receiver instinctively. It was a parent, worried about a student record. Tess handled the call flawlessly, steady as ever.
Moments later, someone rushed to the copy room, panicked about needing backup paperwork. Carl came to life, churning out page after page, toner smudges and all.
By the end of the day, the “old” machines had kept the “new” systems afloat.
When the Wi-Fi returned, no one laughed at Tess or Carl anymore. But neither felt triumphant—they felt awake.
That night, Tess spoke softly. “You know, for so long I thought change was something you managed—something that happened to you or through you. But maybe it’s something you live within.”
Carl agreed, his green light blinking gently. “Maybe living change means we stop trying to stay what we were and start noticing what we’re becoming.”
Tess smiled. “Presence over plans.”
“Curiosity over control,” Carl added.
“Together, we are ready,” she said.
Apply the Learning - A Case Study: Beyond Blueprints
For years, Haven Home Renovations prided itself on precision. Every project began with a detailed timeline, a comprehensive design plan, and a client walk-through that mapped each milestone. The process ran like clockwork—until it didn’t.
When supply chain disruptions hit, Haven’s three-month remodels stretched to six. Appliances were backordered, materials arrived damaged, and subcontractors rotated in and out faster than the company could re-train them. Clients grew anxious, project managers defensive. “We kept revising the schedule,” said founder and CEO Dana Liu, “but no matter how carefully we adjusted the plan, reality refused to cooperate.”
In the past, Dana would have doubled down on control—more meetings, tighter checklists, stricter accountability. But the situation didn’t seem to call for more management; it called for something else. The question was, what?
Some team members suggested scrapping detailed timelines altogether, focusing instead on weekly touchpoints and transparent updates. Others feared that approach would make the company look disorganized. One project manager proposed using the disruptions as a learning opportunity—inviting clients into the problem-solving process instead of shielding them from it. Another warned that too much transparency might erode trust.
Tension grew between those who wanted to restore order and those who believed they needed to reimagine it. “We were trying to hold onto a world that didn’t exist anymore,” Dana reflected. “Our old systems were designed for predictability. But what do you do when predictability itself disappears?”
By midyear, Dana faced a choice:
Continue enforcing the familiar playbook and hope stability would return, or
Experiment with a more adaptive approach—one grounded in responsiveness, shared learning, and presence rather than rigid planning.
She knew that whichever direction she chose would shape not only how her company operated, but how her people experienced uncertainty.
Case Study Questions:
If you were in Dana’s position, what would you do next—and why?
How might you balance clients’ need for clarity with your team’s need for flexibility?
What assumptions about control, planning, or predictability would you need to challenge?
How might you reframe “resistance” or “disruption” as information rather than obstacle?
What would it look like for your own organization to lead within change instead of around it?
That’s it for us this month! See you next month!!!
