Here's how to use it.

If you're a leader with a change to make and not a lot of time to make it, this one's for you.

The most powerful thing you've got isn't in the project plan.

It's you, and how you lead your own team through it.

The good news is that's something you can do on purpose, so let's talk about how.

I'll be honest up front, because I've made this mistake too.

It's easy to think you're leading the change when really you're endorsing it. You sponsor it, you open the workshop, you say the right things in the all-staff, and then you wait for it to take.

Those things matter, but they're not the leading.

The leading happens in how you show up with your team once the announcements are over.

So what does that actually look like?

None of it needs a budget.

Own your team's place in the story.

I worked with a leader whose team was about to come off worse from a change. They had their own system, better than the one replacing it, and they were losing functions they used every day.

He could have stood in the disappointment with them, and plenty would have.

Instead he gave them a different place to stand.

He took "look at everything we're losing" and
made it "we're part of this organisation, here's why
the whole thing is better for it, so let's find our own
ways to the outcomes we care about."

Same facts, different footing.

Nobody can build that story for your team the way you can.

Make it ordinary.

The leaders who do this well don't stage a big change moment, they fold it into how the team already works.

A couple of standing questions in the team meeting do most of the job:

• what does this change actually mean for the way we work

• is there something we need to raise with the project while there's still time

• what should we start getting ready for now

When the change is just part of the conversation, it stops being a threat and becomes work you do together.

Resistance has nowhere to build, because there's no big moment to push against.

Go first.

Your team watches what you do far more closely than what you say, and if the two don't match, they'll believe what you do.

You don't have to love every part of the change.

You do have to be visibly in it, working the new way where they can see you, not waiting on the sidelines for them to get on with it.

Stay close to the people feeling it.

There's almost always someone really struggling, and often that's about something bigger than this change.

Leading isn't pretending everyone's fine.

It's noticing who isn't, and staying with them while they find their way through.

The reason all of this is worth your effort is simple.

None of the polished project activity works on a team that doesn't trust the person in front of them.

You're the thing that makes the rest of it real.

Now, one honest thing.

This is lighter than the over-carrying you're probably doing now, but only if you're already leading your people well. If you're already having the real one-on-ones and coaching them, this slots into what you're doing anyway and asks almost nothing extra. If you're not, it will feel like more, and that's fair enough.

I'd rather be straight with you about that than pretend otherwise.

And if your job is enabling leaders rather than being one, this is your work right here.

Set them up to do all of the above, then back them, don't do it for them.

Give them the understanding, the words, and the tools, so they're not chasing the project team for information. The message packs and cascades we reach for assume a leader who's already close to their team and wants to lead. Hand those to a leader who's flat out and unsure and it's just more paper.

Sit with them for one good session on what the change means and what they actually need to do, and you've turned it from another task into part of their week.

So you don't need to become someone new to lead a change well. You need to do the ordinary leadership things, on purpose, pointed at the change.

You've already got the most powerful mechanism there is. This is just how you use it.

If you can feel something is missing

If your change is well planned, your leaders are on board on paper, and it's still not moving, the Change Clarity Diagnostic will help you find out why. It works through your specific situation with you and shows you where the real gap is, whether it's in the leadership, in how people are being engaged, in the capability, or somewhere further upstream.

You can access the Diagnostic here.

For regular notes on leading change that actually takes hold, you can subscribe to the fortnightly newsletter here.

If any of this is sitting close to something you're navigating right now, I'd really love to hear from you. Hit reply and tell me what you're seeing in your own work. I read every message, and these conversations are easily the best part of writing this.