Leading Change: The Human Side of Transformation Training

Leading Change: The Human Side of Transformation

• Why Change Feels Threatening Even When It Makes Sense
  • How the brain interprets uncertainty, loss, and lack of control
  • The neuroscience of threat, safety, and survival responses
  • Why logic and data do not override emotional reactions
  • The limits of rational persuasion during change
  • Executive reflection: where leaders underestimate the emotional load of change
• Predictable Behavioral Patterns During Change
  • Loss aversion and the pull of the status quo
  • Ambiguity avoidance and decision paralysis
  • Rumor, narrative-building, and meaning-making
  • Social proof and the amplification of executive signals
  • Why resistance is often protective rather than defiant
• Why Communication Alone Fails to Create Adoption
  • Information vs meaning: why clarity does not equal commitment
  • The illusion of alignment at senior levels
  • Message saturation, fatigue, and disengagement
  • What employees actually listen for during uncertainty
  • Why repetition increases exhaustion instead of confidence
• Diagnosing Organizational Change Friction
  • Identifying where adoption typically breaks down
  • Structural vs psychological barriers to change
  • Priority conflicts and role ambiguity
  • Incentives and performance signals that undermine change
  • Executive reflection: where leadership decisions unintentionally add friction
• Executive Decision-Making Under Change Pressure
  • Cognitive load, stress, and decision fatigue at senior levels
  • Speed vs stability trade-offs during transformation
  • Control reflexes and their downstream consequences
  • How executive stress cascades through the organization
  • Recognizing when decisiveness becomes volatility
• Designing Conditions That Enable Adoption
  • Clarifying priorities when everything feels important
  • Decision rights and authority during transition
  • Role modeling consistency under pressure
  • The impact of what leaders stop doing
  • Creating safety without reducing expectations
• Accountability Without Burnout
  • Why performance standards drift during change
  • Clarity vs pressure: how leaders confuse the two
  • Supporting adaptation while maintaining expectations
  • Avoiding compassion fatigue and learned helplessness
  • Addressing underperformance without increasing disengagement
• Executive Commitments and Change Guardrails
  • Identifying personal leadership behaviors to adjust
  • Establishing executive guardrails for future change efforts
  • Early warning signals that adoption is at risk
  • Shared leadership commitments across the executive team
  • Translating insight into sustained leadership behavior

Before Taking this Class

This course assumes senior leadership experience and accountability for organizational outcomes.

Software/Setup For this Class

None.