Change management for people leaders
Table of Contents
By: Shelby Campbell, Edited by: Valerie Black
Published: April 21, 2025
Organizational change can cause confusion and anxiety among employees, but it doesn't have to. As a leader, you can adopt change management techniques to help employees stay organized, motivated, and aligned with your goals as they adapt.
Explore how managers can employ change management techniques for smooth workplace transitions.
What is change management?
Change management is the process of transitioning a team through significant organizational changes. These techniques involve creating, communicating, and implementing a plan to compel a team to smoothly adopt the changes. Organizational changes that may require change management skills from leadership include:
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Leadership changes
- Reorganizations
- Location changes
- Technological changes
The Munich Business School reports that businesses began labeling and implementing change management techniques in the early 2000s. However, sociologists and researchers have studied how humans react to organizational change for nearly a century before change management became a defined business practice.
What is the role of people leaders in change management?
Managers can use change management techniques to help employees embrace workplace shifts. Businesses generally implement change to improve processes, profit, and productivity, but these changes cannot be successful without employees' adoption.
Employees must feel that they understand — and, to an extent, agree with — why changes are happening in your business. As a manager leading your teams through these processes, change management can help you strategically navigate the emotions that may arise to avoid disrupting employees' motivation.
For example, if your team is moving offices, some employees may feel frustrated about changing workspaces. Change management techniques can help you:
- Empathize with and address these feelings
- Communicate the business's needs and rationale
- Outline the transitional process and how it will affect their work
- Encourage the positive aspects of the new environment
What are the major components of change management?
Managers tasked with leading a team through an organizational shift can use the following five-step framework to implement changes.
Planning each phase of change
The change process generally starts with setting incremental and overarching goals before deciding how to accomplish them. When setting your goals, try to determine the purpose of the change. Are you looking for increased productivity and profitability or smoother operations?
Change managers can then coordinate with leadership to develop actionable strategies for employees that align with the company's transitional goals. What can your teams do to successfully move through the change process, and what is the timeline?
Communicating reasoning, expectations, and goals with employees
According to a study conducted by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the more a business engages employees throughout the change management process, the better the outcome tends to be. Additionally, Erika Andersen wrote in a Harvard Business Review article that employee frustration about change often comes from the uncertainty it creates.
Thus, removing uncertainty through authentic conversations about your intentions can help managers reduce resistance to change. During the communication phase, discuss with employees why the change is taking place, how it will affect their day-to-day processes, and how they could benefit from it. Make sure you continue to communicate your needs throughout the process to keep employees updated.
Implementing the change
Once you announce the transition to your team, you can begin the change process. While there are many models for implementing change, many organizations view the transitional process as management- or employee-led.
Employee-led initiatives rely on employees to understand and comply with the changes. Management-led initiatives have more structure and require leaders to make small decisions for employees that impact the overall change process. Businesses generally choose aspects of both in their strategies.
Observing the results
As you move through the transitional process, monitor the key performance indicators (KPIs) that demonstrate the strategy's effectiveness. These indicators may be quantitative, qualitative, or both, but you cannot determine the full effectiveness of your initiatives without monitoring their tangible impact.
Refining the changes
While monitoring the results of your strategies, you may need to adjust as you begin to understand how the changes affect the organization. Examine data and feedback from all stakeholders to refine your plan based on these real-world results.