Change Leadership, Project Management, and Change Management Capabilities Make or Break Business Transformations
As Forbes reports a rise in unconscious AI integrations, cybersecurity investments and decarbonisation pressure, chances are that your organisation is in a transition right now or juggles a vast portfolio of digital and strategic transformation projects.
For leaders, whether you’re a senior executive looking at strategy & growth or managing people & culture, leading change can feel like trying to build a plane mid-flight. As a result, most organisations heavily rely on Change Management experts to make sense of the process and mitigate the psychosocial risks that relate to poor change management.
If you’ve ever been in a room full of senior leaders discussing a major transformation, you know that change isn’t linear. Timelines stretch, resistance rises, and even the best-laid plans wobble.
From personal experience, I’ve been in those rooms—sometimes as the calm voice offering clarity, other times scrambling behind the scenes to make sure the project plans and change management strategy were polished before presenting to the board.
Here’s the truth:
No matter how flawless a strategy looks on paper, the real world is messy. People resist. Priorities shift. Therefore, having a solid foundation for organisational change readiness is crucial.
This foundation, I’ve found, boils down to linking three core capabilities: Change Leadership, Project Management, and Change Management. Together, they form the Change Capability Framework I use to help organisations like yours build resilience and adaptability.
To illustrate this further, let me share three moments that shaped my understanding of these dimensions and helped our team to design a detailed checker to audit organisational change readiness and inform change strategies that weave into the fabric of your business.
Change Leadership: The Ripple Effect of Leading by Example
A few years ago, I walked into a boardroom to present a change strategy for a national NFP. On paper, everything aligned: the senior leadership was enthusiastic, funding was secured, and the timeline seemed reasonable.
But as I looked around the room, I noticed something troubling—most of the middle managers sat with arms crossed, clearly sceptical.
When the discussion began, it became clear why. One manager said it best:
“We need more than just high-level promises. We need leaders who roll up their sleeves and help us through this.”
That comment shifted everything. We doubled down on training the middle management and frontline leaders, equipping them with change management skills, factsheets and FAQs to lead through the transition with confidence. The leadership team made an effort to show up—not just for big meetings but for hands-on moments. The CEO even rocked up at a training session unannounced to share her own challenges and little wins openly.
It was a good reminder for all of us that visible, active leadership is the backbone of any change effort.
Project Management: Stakeholder Engagement Transforms Resistance into Buy-In
A while ago our team audited a large council project involving over 1,500 employees and changes to systems, procedures & policies. Speaking to the staff many agreed that change could be done much better. Whilst the business case for the project was strong the project & change management approach didn’t consider that the new way of working was making already challenging jobs much harder.
At first, the project manager dismissed the feedback as resistance. But I suspected otherwise. So, we paused to dig deeper with 40 anonymised Stakeholder Interviews.
The insights people shared weren’t just complaints—they were valid points about operational gaps the policy & procedures didn’t account for. We decided to workshop potential solutions with 2 impacted teams. Not only did this improve the system, policy & procedures, but it also showed employees that their voices mattered.
One of the most vocal critics later said to me, “I didn’t think you’d actually listen. This makes me proud in what we can achieve together.”
That’s the power of genuine stakeholder engagement—it’s not about ticking boxes or delivering polished presentations. It’s about listening, innovating, and making people part of the solution.
Change Management: Aligning on Your Reasons Why
One of the largest digital transformations I worked on was driven by a global resource giant and rolled out across multiple business units and sites over years. It was a massive undertaking. While some leaders passionately championed the project, others hesitated.
One GM cut through the back-and-forth with a simple but profound question: “How does this fit into our long-term strategy?”
That question became the turning point for me. I developed a strategy map that clearly linked the project to the business strategy. Suddenly, what felt ambiguous extra work became a clear priority, and alignment spread across teams.
This experience reinforced for me how crucial it is to tie every change effort back to a clear why. When people see how their changed behaviour supports the bigger picture, they’re far more likely to get on board. This distinguishes meaningful change from change for change’s sake.
The Change Readiness Checker: Make or Break Change Success
Like the seasons, change is inevitable and essential for growth. Whether you’re introducing new technology, restructuring teams, or driving cultural shifts, success hinges on how ready your organisation is to embrace and sustain the transformation. Success is a question of capability and capacity across these three dimensions: Change Leadership, Project Management and Change Management.
Over years of managing change, I’ve seen that when these elements are missing, resistance, delays, and missed opportunities creep in. You should regularly identify gaps, build strengths, and work on improvements. Our team designed a practical change readiness checker to help leaders like you assess readiness across those three dimensions and identify clear, actionable steps.
How It Works:
But even if you don’t use the change readiness checker, remember that the right questions are more powerful than perfect answers.
Whether you’re in the not-for-profit sector, tackling government bureaucracy, or navigating a complex global enterprise, I hope these lessons resonate. Change might not be linear, but with the right approach, it is absolutely transformational.
Eva is one of the masterminds behind Approach Services' blog and The 6 Cents of Change. She is an innovator, trainer and change manager. Her work has been published in the Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research. In her spare time, she enjoys camping with her two little boys and permaculture gardening.
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