28 Mar Leading Teams Through Change: Translating the Complex into the Doable

When working on a client project, we immerse ourselves in it completely as we want to bring exceptional value. Right now we are involved in a change project which means you’ll be seeing a lot of “change” conversations from us. Last week, we explored the human side of change. If you missed it, you can check it out here. This week, we’re shifting the spotlight to key change agents: managers and team leaders.

Too often, change initiatives focus on HR, change management teams, or consultants. But real change doesn’t happen in a PowerPoint deck or a leadership town hall. It happens in teams, where people must adjust their workflows, mindsets, and daily interactions. And the people closest to it are team leaders and managers, who make it all work.

If You Have Direct Reports, Leading Change Is Part of Your Job

There’s a misconception that leading change is the responsibility of senior leadership or dedicated change managers. If you have anyone reporting into you, you are responsible for leading change within your team.

Your team looks to you for clarity and guidance. But let’s be real, sometimes you don’t fully understand the change yourself. Organisational shifts often come from above, and middle managers are stuck in the middle, trying to interpret and implement decisions they had no say in. It’s frustrating, and sometimes you may even resist the change yourself.

And yet, how you communicate change to your team makes all the difference. A passive “That’s what I was told too” won’t cut it. In fact, it does more harm than good. It erodes trust, fuels resistance, and makes change feel imposed rather than purposeful.

Navigating Change from the Middle

As a team leader, you don’t have to pretend to have all the answers, but you do need to engage with the change. That means:

1. Seeking information. Instead of simply passing the message down, take the time to understand what’s happening. What’s the bigger picture? Why is this happening now? What’s the intended impact? If you don’t know, ask.
2. Managing your own resistance. It’s natural to feel resistant, especially when change disrupts familiar ways of working. But you need to process your own reaction before addressing your team. Speak with peers or senior leaders to work through your concerns.
3. Translating the change. Your team doesn’t need corporate jargon. They need to understand what’s changing for them. What will they need to do differently? What stays the same? What support is available?
4. Bringing people along. Change managers can only do so much, they don’t work with your team daily. You know your team’s workload, challenges, and fears. Leading through change means creating space for conversations, addressing concerns, and helping your team see their role in what’s unfolding.

If you want your team to adapt successfully, you need to guard against change fatigue  and eliminate as much resistance as possible. Resistance isn’t always about what is changing—it’s often about how it’s communicated. If leaders dismiss concerns or simply act as messengers for top-down directives, teams will check out, disengage, or even push back. To keep momentum, leaders need to actively manage the energy around change. That means clarifying expectations, acknowledging uncertainty, and making the team feel part of the process. When people understand the why behind the change and see their role in shaping it, they are far more likely to move with it rather than against it and realise that leading change isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about guiding your team through uncertainty with openness, clarity, and a willingness to support them through the transition. 

So, as you lead your team through change, how are you making it easier for them to navigate? Are you giving them clarity, support, and a sense of direction? Or are you unintentionally adding to the noise? Let’s keep talking about how we lead change in a way that builds, not breaks, our teams.

‘Leading Change’ is one of the modules in our LeaderShift programme, and always an eye opening session where managers get to unpack their role in the change process in their context. Want more info on LeaderShift? Click here

Change capability is a critical organisational muscle, and we’re diving into exactly that in our upcoming OD Café on 23 April. We’ll explore what internal change practitioners can and cannot do. Register now to be part of the conversation.