Welcome back to our series on Seven Ways to Build Teams That Deliver. Throughout this series, we are exploring the practical leadership habits and frameworks that help organisations build clearer direction, stronger alignment and more effective execution across teams.

So far we’ve covered how vision shapes team performance, how communication connects strategy to delivery, and how focusing resources on the right priorities creates the conditions for meaningful progress.

This week, we look at resistance to change and how you can manage it to drive stronger team delivery by identifying and resolving its underlying causes.

Why Employees Resist Change

Resistance to change is a normal part of how people adapt to new circumstances. When people push back, it is usually because something genuinely matters to them.

It often stems from uncertainty about outcomes, lack of confidence in them, or concerns about how changes will affect their role.

Common causes of resistance to change include:

• Uncertainty about outcomes and impact on their role
• Lack of confidence in new systems or processes
• Insufficient training or unclear expectations
• Loss of control or familiarity
• Previous negative experiences with change

Understanding what causes resistance to change allows you to respond in a way that is tailored to the needs of the individual.

What Resistance to Change Can Highlight 

Resistance to change can act as both a helpful signal and a valuable diagnostic tool, offering insight into how teams are really experiencing change.

Resistance often highlights:

• Gaps in communication or clarity
• Misalignment between strategy and day-to-day reality
• Practical barriers that have not been addressed
• Concerns that have not yet been voiced

When approached constructively, resistance can inform and strengthen both the strategy and the way it is implemented.

Why Resistance to Change Looks Different Across Teams

A site operations manager is leading the rollout of a new production scheduling system designed to improve visibility, reduce conflicts, and streamline workload.

A month into implementation, adoption is inconsistent. Some supervisors have fully integrated the system, while others continue to rely on previous methods.

On closer inspection, the resistance is not uniform:

• Some supervisors are unsure whether the system is reliable enough for live decision-making
• Others feel the training did not prepare them to use it confidently under pressure

This highlights an important point. Resistance to change is not a single, uniform response; it varies based on individual experience, confidence and role-specific realities. As a result, individuals may require different types of support to move forward.

Frustration tends to emerge once the change starts to feel real. This may show up as scepticism, resistance or open questioning of the decision.

Depression or low confidence can follow, when energy dips and people begin to feel overwhelmed by the shift.

Experiment is the point where people start trying the new way of working, often cautiously at first.

Decision is when individuals begin to make a clearer commitment to the change and decide whether to fully engage with it.

Integration is when the change starts to feel like the new normal and the way forward becomes more established.

This framework provides a practical way to understand where someone may be emotionally in reaction to change, so you can offer the right kind of support at the right time.

How to Manage Resistance to Change at an Organisational Level

Alongside individual responses, it is also important to consider how change is led and embedded more broadly. Kotter’s 8-Step Model suggests that change efforts often stall not because people are unwilling, but because the necessary conditions for change have not been effectively established. 

Successful change is not just about introducing a new system or process, it is about building the practical environment that allows people to adopt it with confidence.

This model helps create that framework by establishing a clear sense of urgency around why the change matters now, aligning and engaging those most affected, and communicating a vision that is consistent and strong enough to guide decisions under pressure.

It also focuses on removing practical barriers that make new ways of working harder than old ones, while reinforcing progress in visible and consistent ways so momentum builds and the change begins to feel embedded rather than temporary. 

In many cases, what appears as resistance is not resistance to the change itself, but a gap in one of these areas. People may not yet see the urgency, may not feel confident in what is expected or may be encountering practical obstacles that have not been addressed.

Three Questions Worth Sitting With

If you are dealing with resistance to change, it can help to step back and ask:

• Are people reacting in the same way, or are they at different stages of adjusting?
• Is the resistance coming from the change itself, or from something missing, like clear communication, urgency, or support?
• What might this resistance be trying to tell you?

There are no fixed or right answers, but these questions can help you spot where support is needed most and what to focus on next.

Coming Up: Building the Confidence to Lead Effectively

Next week, we look at what it really takes for managers to feel confident leading their teams. Not just the idea of empowerment, but whether they have the clarity, support and trust they need to make decisions and lead day to day. 

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