What 13 Leaders Taught Me About Leading Change Well
A financial services firm went through a period of substantial, acquisition-driven hyper-growth. I spent months finding out what its leaders actually did and said to get their people through it.
senior leaders interviewed, from the CEO down through regional directors
direct reports surveyed to independently verify the findings
the real stakes behind the interviews
“I’ve never looked back on a previous decade in my life and didn’t think I was an idiot the previous decade, and I don’t expect that to change in coming decades. None of us have this all figured out, so let’s learn and grow together.”
One of the 13 leaders interviewed
Four Behaviors, Not a Personality Type
The leaders who navigated this kind of growth well weren’t the most charismatic or the most decisive people in the room. They explained the why behind every change instead of just the mechanics. They let culture, not authority, carry the weight of managing resistance. They built language and stories that reframed setbacks instead of letting them read as failure. And underneath all three: they were willing to examine their own behavior first, in real time, out loud.
But Here’s the Surprise
Even inside an organization doing all of this well, eleven of the thirteen leaders had no formal way to measure whether it was actually working. Performance outcomes were the lowest-scoring measure in the entire study, not because the leadership was weak, but because nothing was inspecting the results. Relational excellence, on its own, wasn’t enough.
Is Your Organization Missing the Same Thing?
Strong culture and real accountability aren’t a tradeoff. This research is the foundation for how I coach leaders through exactly this gap.
Schedule a Conversation