How to Lead Change in the Workplace Like the Best Leaders

Over the last 10 years, I’ve spoken to about a thousand companies about ditching the drama in the workplace. And change comes up every single time.

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Here’s what I’ve noticed: the best leaders don’t lead change the way most of us were taught. They think about it differently from the start.

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The short answer: To lead change in the workplace like the best leaders, treat change as simply “what’s next,” make readiness for change part of everyone’s daily job, work with the willing instead of slowing down for the resistant, and focus on business readiness rather than change management. Together, these reduce drama and help prevent burnout.

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1. Treat change as “what’s next”

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I joke with teams that for one week, they should replace the word change with the word next, just to see how much drama is attached to the word.

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Listen to how it sounds:

• “I can’t handle all this next.”
• “If my boss asks me to do one more next, I’m going to lose my mind.”

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It sounds completely different. When you swap “change” for “next,” it stops sounding like a threat and starts sounding like work. And work is something you can embrace.

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2. Make change part of the job, not a disruption to it

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Too many people treat change at work as a disruption to their job instead of part of their daily job.

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The reality is that a core skill every modern leader needs is readiness for what’s next: the ability to absorb change and greet it with:

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“Wow, good to know. Given that, how can we make this change least disruptive to our business?”

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That’s what the best leaders do. They don’t argue with what’s next. They get curious about how to make it work.

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3. Work with the willing

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How many of us have tried to move change forward with unwilling people? How’s that working for you?

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Too many leaders end up slowing change down for the most unwilling. That group is often the loudest in the room, with the most opinions about why it won’t work instead of how it could.

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Here’s the problem. When you spend your time trying to talk the unwilling into it, you pull most of the group into resisting along with them.

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So my best advice: work with the willing. Move it forward with your visionaries and let them show what’s possible. Now they’re proving it can be done while the other group is still insisting it can’t.

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At that point, it isn’t about the change anymore. It’s about the performance of the group that’s resisting.

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4. Focus on business readiness, not change management

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This one sounds like a play on words, but I promise it isn’t.

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If we wait for change to arrive and then try to manage it, it’s already too late. We’ll probably be behind our competition.

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Instead, focus your teams on staying ready for what’s next. Your role as a leader is to deliver ready, willing, and able teams that can deliver on what the business needs. That’s what business readiness is all about.

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When the business stays ready, individual resilience becomes the safety net for the few things you couldn’t prepare for, not the plan.

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That’s where so many teams go wrong. I work with organizations that are burning out their people because they’ve built no readiness into their systems. So they’re constantly asking individuals for resilience: diving catches, heroics, late nights. It isn’t sustainable.

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Leading change starts before the change

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Here’s how the best leaders lead change:

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1. Call it “next.” Take the drama out of the word.

2. Make readiness part of the job. Greet change with “Good to know. Given that…”

3. Work with the willing. Let your visionaries prove it possible.

4. Build business readiness. Save individual resilience for the safety net.

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Make readiness part of the job. Greet change with “Good to know. Given that…”Work with the willing. Let your visionaries prove it possible.Build business readiness. Save individual resilience for the safety net.

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Those are my tips for leading change right now. What would you add?

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Want more tools for leading change and ditching the drama at work? My new book, How We Could, is a national bestseller. Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok for new ones every week.

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Frequently asked questions

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How do you lead change in the workplace?

The best leaders treat change as simply “what’s next,” make readiness part of everyone’s daily job, move forward with the willing rather than waiting for the resistant, and focus on keeping the business ready instead of managing change after it arrives.

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How do you handle employees who resist change?

Don’t slow change down for the most resistant. Work with the people who are willing, let them prove the change works, and then address the performance of anyone who keeps resisting. Trying to talk resistors into it often spreads the resistance to the rest of the team.

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What is the difference between change management and business readiness?

Change management reacts to change after it arrives. Business readiness keeps teams prepared for what’s next before it comes. Readiness lets organizations move faster and depend less on last-minute heroics.

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Why does change cause burnout?

Burnout often happens when an organization has no readiness built into its systems. Leaders then rely on individual resilience, people constantly making diving catches, to absorb every change. That isn’t sustainable over time.

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Who is Alex Dorr?

Alex Dorr is a leadership expert, CEO of Reality-Based Leadership, and author of the national bestseller How We Could. A Certified Speaking Professional, he delivers keynotes and workshops that help leaders and teams eliminate workplace drama and get back to doing great work.