The Challenge of Leading Change
Some thoughts on how change is legitimately hard but there are ways through to the other side - and most importantly, it's worth it!
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Going against the grain can be tiring! (A pretty good chatgpt knockoff of a still from the Talking Head’s Once in a Lifetime video!)
I’ve been having a lot of chats recently about managing change. This makes total sense - July 1 is that major date in the academic year for leadership turnover, which, even in glorious circumstances all around, is still about change. And even in glorious circumstances, navigating change is at least somewhat draining, tiring and disorienting. It can sometimes make it hard to appreciate the exciting and the novel. Or sometimes you are riding the wave of exciting and novel and then that wave crashes, as all waves do, and you’re left wet, salty and sandy on the shore thinking, “how did I get here?” (Tip o’ the hat to Talking Heads…)
And in any change, whether you’re implementing a new initiative at a school you’ve been at a long time or starting a new position where you are so prepared and excited yet uncovering things you hadn’t anticipated, you are both processing your own responses and managing the response of those around you.
Some days it’s difficult. Some days it’s fun. But transitions are hard. Even that first day back from vacation - ooof. Bring on that Starbucks run.
So here are a few thoughts as to managing people managing change.
People will be all over the place
That’s just people doing the people thing. We are all different and yes, it would be much more sensible if everyone would be as sensible and seeing things the same way I do, or you do, they just don’t. And if people are new to you, the way they make meaning, they way the respond and what makes sense to them is a complete mystery. The one thing you can count on is that there may be areas where you intersect with how people think, but people are individuals and human psychology is endlessly complicated. I was talking to someone recently where I mentioned something I think is blindingly obvious, and framed it that way (well, of course blah blah) and the person reminded me, not everyone sees things like you do. Check! Good reminder.
Change creates ambiguity. Ambiguity creates anxiety. Anxiety makes people reactive.
Often people aren’t in their best mature, reflective selves during a change. Habits surface that they can control under normal circumstances. Give people some leeway.
This includes you! If you are leading the change, it’s something to be attentive to. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad leader if you can’t behave exactly how Ideal You would behave. Give yourself some grace. Besides the fact, sometimes the impromptu conversation or burst of emotion from the leader really helps rather than only communicating the in the careful intentional way you imagine all good leaders communicate at all times. Trust yourself a little. You probably don’t want to sob, or yell at, some poor colleague (please don’t!) but sometimes an instinctual act in the moment where the authenticity is undeniable can help people connect.
Moving through change means moving through grief
Yuck. Who likes that? Not me. But from the work of psychologist Charles Seashore, the biggest cause for failure in change initiatives comes from failure to grieve.
So what does that look like? You know those meets where people incessantly bring up the past, implying it was soooo much better? That’s part of getting on the change train. Be curious! Engage. Ask people to tell you what they’ll miss. Even when there’s change for the good, there are things about the old ways of operating people found predictable or stabilizing or reassuring. This can especially be the case when you are trying to get people to move from adult-centered to student-centered practices. People can intellecutally understand the case for change and may well support it, but there are ways of operating that were familiar and reinforced their place in the culture. Even the removal of familiar bogeymen (or women) can leave a vacancy. Hating together can be unifying!
And if you’re starting a new position, you, too, are grieving the loss of something. Find resources outside of day to day work to support you through that, even if it’s just a friend to spill your guts to over dinner.
Remember to be grateful when people open up to you, even if you don’t particularly want to hear it
There are cases where people will criticize a change initiative to your face and be mean spirited or ill-intentioned, but often they do it because in a weird way, they trust you and they feel safe enough to do it without risking their job. As I said in this piece, the criticism or unhappiness you don’t hear is way more toxic than the stuff you do hear, even if it can be hard to swallow.
You’re the boss. File it away. There may be something to take away from it. There may be nothing to take away other than a tiny bit of gratitude someone felt comfortable sharing it out loud, to your face. Let the feeling of feeling disrespected or having t=your authority threatened pass. It is totally within your power to react or respond - or not! Because you’re the boss and you have the authority. Use it judiciously.
Water the flowers that are blooming
On the other hand, remember you don’t have to torture yourself turning over every potential criticism rock. And if there are those resisters who are locked up tighter than a drum, resisting away with arms crossed during a meeting, they can sit at the edge of your mind like a malevolent black toad. But you know what - people are adults! They are doing their processing change thing. You don’t need to chase them around to keep explaining why this change will be fantastic. You don’t need to go on campaign to win them over.
Put your energy into those people who are bursting with ideas and creativity, who are stepping up to help and who have a sense of humor and a sense of purpose in creating a better school for kids. Their energy will be contagious; those initiatives will bloom and push out the weeds and the habitat for malevolent toads.
There’s a lot of change in the air at schools today but I feel as if since year one of my career, I was leading one change initiative or the other, whether it was trying to fix the student activities system or revamp the English curriculum or design and implement a new schedule or revise the mission of the school. We’re regularly saying goodbye and welcoming new people on to our teams; every time there’s a change, it’s a new team. Collectively, we know a lot about what works in our individual situations and what doesn’t. We’ve earned our change stripes.
But it’s never a piece of cake and we also learn the hard way some of what we experienced in the past doesn’t resonate now. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in a strange land in 2025. Is that thing I say all the time now cringe? Am I cringe? Don’t let it stop you. Static schools won’t serve kids and families and you wouldn’t want to be a static professional, anyway.
And maybe the biggest takeway here is that when you get to other side of change, you’ll have bonded with people in the process, even if it wasn’t always easy. I received a totally unexepcted email the other day from an alum of one of my schools who wanted to thank me for something I made happen during my tenure. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was so grateful! So remember - the hard work of leading change is worth it because the work we do impacts lives. And what a gift that is!
Thinking of you all doing the hard work!
Julie
Next week - Part Two of Analysis of a Low Stakes Conflict and a return of the “Agony Aunts of Governance” as Moira Kelly and I take on another trustee conundrum.
Stony Creek Strategy featured services
I’ve had a lot of conversations about governance training recently nd it’s been fun to talk to heads and board chairs, co-creating the right program to support a board for wherever stage they might be in. The most important factor in a successful governance training isn’t the content; it’s a session that connects with board members, acknowledging the challenges and rewards of the trustee role and then facilitating an open discussion about the priorities in the year ahead and what meeting those priorities - doing that job - looks like in practice.
Here’s a link to my Summer, 2025 collab on governance basics in Independent School magazine.
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