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All Aboard for Change

All Aboard for Change

Address resistance now

Cindy Chance
October 01, 2025

For Your Organization: Change Begins With You

Change would be easy if it weren’t for the people. The right goals, systems, and execution are often obvious to strategic, talented leaders, like you. The challenge is getting people (and this may include your “legacy” leaders and board members) aboard the change train — for real, not just to placate you, or worse. You likely have two kinds of people around you right now who are inadequately committed to the change you are driving. The first are exuberent “excited to be making my mark” talent. “Exuberant achievers” lack experience, discipline, and focus. This group benefits greatly from coaching. They need support to develop the grit and tenacity that change takes. The second group are legacy leaders —“the old guard.” This is the group that it is wise to identify and neutralize, or remove quickly from the scene. The old guard will undermine change simply to feel better and more in control; how you deal with them is critical. If you are one, hopefully I have already offended you enough to get you to stop reading.

The Best Leaders Confront Resistance Directly

Within every organization there are weak leaders who got to where they are because they were masters of the status quo. Go ahead and imagine the weak leader you are most concerned with right now. Typically, rigid and traditional, often charming and shallow, and almost always acutely attuned to hierarchy… how am I doing so far? Weak leaders do not tell the truth; they say what “the big boss” wants to hear. Meanwhile, they do whatever benefits them from one moment to the next, having decided long ago that telling the truth is beside the point and not part of their job. If you are starting to feel how much you don’t want them around, that’s good.

The cornerstone of the ethical capitalism that is a force for good is truth telling — to yourself first— and then to others through disciplined approaches that establish transparency, and accountability. This is hard, but it is the only way to continually adapt yourself and your business to reliably create value. For weak leaders, their own survival is the point. They manipulate the facts to pursue their own agendas, exhibiting a willingness to do whatever it takes for them to get ahead. Yuck! This is not sustainable. They are “free riders,” characterized by highly manipulative behavior.

Weak leaders fall somewhere on the “chameleon — predator” continuum. You will not be able to change them. Your best hope is to get them to “come to heel” out of fear, and that requires your ongoing energy. Who wants that! (Of course they can change themselves, but they have to want to, there’s a lightbulb joke in here, but seriously, if you are very kind-hearted, you can offer this option.) By far, the most sensible approach is to remove weak leaders as soon as you spot them. If that is impossible, or there are too many, save yourself, start over again, from within a more agile organization. Weak leaders are toxic and will recreate a toxic culture.

Weak Leaders Use “the System” to Their Advantage

Weak leaders are adept at wielding power and control without good reasons or persuasive arguments — but based on their “expertise” and role within “the system.”
Weak leaders use para-social professional relationships within their fiefdoms to control others and to manipulate information.

If you “feel badly” about confronting the sabotage (and that is being kind) that weak leaders offer up every day, then you could use a coach to get clearer on your own value, in the context of your values. Honesty, transparency, and accountability are not just cornerstones of ethical capitalism, they are necessary to live a purpose driven life.

Stop “Free Riders” on Your Best Practice Management

If you have sensed ambivalence for agreed upon change among your leadership team or board, and you have hesitated to address it, out of concern for treating others fairly, my advice is address it now. If you have any doubt, a professional assessment of the real risk can help. Get a professional in to help (yes, I do this work, and so do some other great consultants and coaches) before continuing to put your own excellent reputation on the line. If you are trying to assess the situation on your own, be mindful that you are the principal target of manipulation by weak leaders. The stronger your values and determination to do what is right, the more vulnerable you are to their tactics.

If this is you, I’ve been there. Here’s a t-shirt idea: “Actions alone achieve, words alone only deceive.”

Three pro-tips:

Confused? You are leading this change. Your confusion is your signal to start looking carefully at behavior over words. When you start doing this with yourself, you grow your self-awareness superpower.
Trust yourself. Listen to your gut. If you are curious and open - and yet you cannot get a simple, common sense explanation -- that is a major red flag.
Stop organizational parasites the minute you spot them. This is a hill worth dying on. It gets worse, not better, with time.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Leo Tolstoy

Above All — Keep Commitments to Yourself —

Anyone can slide into weakness, but it is less likely with disciplines and practices that keep you open to painful, incomparably valuable, self-examination and feedback. You are already successful. The risk, for you, is not ignorance or clinging to old practices, but self-deception. You must know where you are on the continuum from pragmatic compartmentalization (needed for any leader) to problematic self-deception (when shadow beliefs minimize your effectiveness). Do not allow challenging circumstances to undermine your hard-won commitments to yourself. Get the best support for you. A demanding coach, with your success at heart, walking alongside you, will help you tremendously. Athletes would not attempt difficult goals without a coach, why do leaders? Getting support is an expression of your belief in yourself, and a commitment to living out your values as fully as possible.

Top Three Reasons Change Fails — It’s the People

Strategy and Vision	Culture	Resistance
Stakeholders report that communication is inadequate, believing that they have not ever been offered a compelling vision for why organizational change is needed.	Shared values, norms and assumptions act as silent but powerful sources of resistance, like steps in a dance that has been memorized, undoing new processes and commitments.	Resistance to change is both deliberate and unconscious, motivated by fear of what change will bring to oneself, regardless of benefits, including a loss of control, competence, or status.

Values: Stoicism is so Hot Right Now!

Stoicism is experiencing a renaissance after 2330 years, or so, because stoicism works. Committing to do the difficult things that are good to do, and in our power, in a world where most of what bothers us is not in our power to control at all, is a sane strategy. This is how you have built your character; grabbing on to the hard, right thing, rather than avoiding it. We know this.

The challenge is that we are hardwired to sustain daily life or death stress, yet most of us are now living lives of relative abundance and safety. So, we have anxiety, whether it is useful or not — and what is negative keeps grabbing our attention — whether we can do anything about it or not — and that makes us more anxious. What’s a good mammal to do? Try creating a life of important, executable, challenges — a purpose driven life.

Ask yourself: In what area of my life do I most want to achieve better results? What could make the biggest difference, if I committed to do it every single day?

Bonus points if it scares you or is immediately unpleasant, but has guaranteed long term rewards.

For You: A Question Worth Discussing at Your Next Meet-Up

If Socialization at Work is Out — Where is Real Life Now?

In this post-pandemic landscape, reports of the return to work have been exaggerated. Even the most enthusiastic “returners” must acknowledge that the centerpiece of lively adult engagement with the world has shifted from work to …. to where? Online? That is not an answer to where we find IRL connection. New preferences for work from home, the gig economy, and solo-preneur business creation, accelerated by AI, have given us freedom to engage in commerce and learning with greater convenience across vast distances.

This is great for doing, but fails us as beings. We are big animals, with big hearts and spirits. We need places to meet, to see each other in three dimensions, and to feel each other’s energy. We need the possibility of intimacy that grows only with and from accompanying each other in real life. How have you committed to finding other people in the world? “Third Places,” like coffee shops, dinner parties (some people have themes), and local meet-ups may be the answer. What else is working for you? In person events and classes? Meeting these needs for real life for others will become more and more important as a part of your value proposition as the fallout of life without reality becomes clearer.

Neuroscience tells us that we are twice as likely to be motivated by fear as reward. (Negativity Bias)

Act in spite of your fear, not because of it.

And for my Many Subscribers in Real Estate

The nationwide outlook remains excellent for small scale investors with residential rentals, particularly at the affordable end of the range. Although the “build to rent” single family market (why didn’t we think of it before?) that was birthed and exploded in the period 2020-2023, capitalized on the shortage of affordable inventory, but individual investors still account for close to 70% of the single family rental market. Although insurance costs are rising, costs still run below 50% of income on average, so the basic model is intact. Investment on an individual basis has long been a path to portfolio diversification and hands on fun, while providing improved housing stock for real people. And people need rental housing now more than ever…

Despite a modest uptick in first time buying this year (up to 30% at the year ending June 2025 from 26% in the prior year, but still well below historic averages), and despite a 15K tax credit for first time home buyers, a lack of inventory and optimism continues to impact the next generation of home buyers. This is not just bad for them, it is bad for us all. Investment in a home is a lynchpin of participation in our economic system. The Real Estate sector has historically been a raft of family businesses. It has long been my contention that the “kitchen table” disemmination of the secret “know-how” that drives real estate has discouraged interest in careers, and negatively impacted interest in investment among the next generation. Let’s do our part to change that.

This is an opportunity here for Community Banks and Credit Unions to shine, by communicating and marketing their attention to the borrower, their commitment to community, and their lower rates of default. Prospective first-time home buyers are being spammed by non-bank lenders, eager to profit from their ignorance. There is an opportunity here to do good. CRE executives, valuation professionals, and individual investors — you can put your street credibility and knowledge to good use by mentoring and educating the next generation of home buyers on the long-term value of ownership, the real costs, and existing opportunities in your local area.

It is sad indeed that a perfect storm of circumstances, including a global pandemic, historically low interest rates, and a high value housing market have fueled historically low participation in the housing markets by the next generation of home owners. Those of us who have experience to share are invaluable; first time home buyers need the basics of “penciling a deal” to make good data driven decisions, when the time is right.

I look forward to getting to know more about you, what you would like to see, and how you want to engage.

Have a great week!

Cindy