Leadership · The leadership decisions behind transformation
Change management cannot resolve a decision leadership has not made
By Isabella Brusati · 27 October 2026
A programme can be well planned and still ask people to deliver incompatible priorities. Before calling the resulting hesitation resistance, examine the decision that has been left unresolved.
Consider an illustrative situation: an executive team approves an ERP rollout, asks managers to release experienced people for testing and insists that service levels must not change. No cover is provided. Nothing is removed from the workload. When testing attendance falls, the programme asks for another message from the sponsor.
A clearer message may help people understand the purpose. It cannot create capacity or decide which obligation takes precedence. The issue is not necessarily a failure to support change. It may be a trade-off that leadership has passed down without the authority to resolve it.
Find the decision hidden inside the delivery problem
Labels such as low engagement, slow adoption and lack of ownership describe what a programme is experiencing. They do not establish the cause. Ask what people are being required to reconcile in their daily work.
Are managers accountable for both old and new measures? Does a local leader carry the operational risk while a central team controls the timetable? Has a design been approved without agreement about who will own the process afterwards?
These questions turn a broad concern into a decision: what needs to be prioritised, who can decide and which consequence the organisation is prepared to accept. They also make it easier to distinguish an actual leadership conflict from a capability gap or a practical implementation problem.
Make the trade-off explicit
A useful decision statement contains more than an instruction to collaborate. It identifies the competing demands, the options available, the owner of the decision and the consequence of choosing each option.
In the testing example, options might include temporary operational cover, a reduced rollout scope or a revised service commitment for a defined period. Each creates a cost or constraint. The sponsor’s responsibility is not to make that tension disappear; it is to ensure the decision is made at the appropriate level and communicated honestly.
Record what will change, what will remain protected and when the decision will be reviewed. Otherwise, people may return to the old priority as soon as the next operational escalation arrives.
Ask what makes the conversation difficult
The unresolved issue may be visible to everyone. What is missing can be the willingness to challenge a peer, acknowledge a constraint or revise a commitment made publicly.
For an executive, that is a leadership question as well as a governance question. What are you assuming will happen if you raise the conflict? Are you protecting credibility by offering reassurance you cannot sustain? Does your habit of rescuing delivery allow other decision owners to avoid responsibility?
Confidential coaching can help a leader examine those assumptions and choose how to act. It does not replace the organisational decision. Where diagnosis and recommendations about governance or readiness are needed, that is a distinct advisory engagement.
Follow the decision into everyday work
An agreement at a steering committee is a starting point. Check whether managers received the authority, capacity and changed expectations the agreement requires. Ask them what they will do differently next week and what still prevents it.
Use evidence appropriate to the change: a revised allocation of staff, an agreed process owner, fewer competing approvals or an operational measure that reflects the new priority. A green milestone alone cannot answer whether the contradiction has been removed.
The executive move
At your next transformation review, select one recurring issue and ask:
- Which two expectations are people struggling to satisfy at the same time?
- Whose authority is needed to resolve the conflict?
- What will we stop, change or resource differently?
- How will managers know the decision is real?
Name the owner and a decision date. Return to the affected managers afterwards to check what changed in practice.
The question to take away: What has leadership not yet decided that everyone else is being asked to implement?
An original practice perspective. The example is hypothetical and does not describe a client or imply a measured outcome.
Related reading: The real role of the executive sponsor and From resistance to readiness.