The leadership that's missing to drive change

How many times have you seen a solid strategy on paper stall for lack of a leader capable of articulating the change in practice?

I see this often: company leadership sets a clear goal, approves the investment, and communicates the vision, yet the organizational change still doesn't move forward. Between leadership's intent and the day-to-day of the teams, there's a missing link, someone who can cross departments, translate priorities, and keep every area pulling in the same direction. This is usually called "beating the drum," but I don't like that name because it undersells how significant that articulation really is.

That someone is rare. A study by DDI, based on simulations with more than 100,000 leaders, found that only 8% of them are genuinely strong at leading change. That number confirms what most of us already feel firsthand.

That's why I wrote this piece: I want to encourage you to take the step and lead change. This doesn't necessarily require technical knowledge in project management or a specific change management course. Methods like ADKAR help a lot and smooth the path, but they're not the only thing needed.

The problem isn't the strategy, it's the lack of someone to implement it

Talk about change is rarely missing in a company. What's missing is someone who turns that talk into execution aligned across areas. A survey by startupi points to the education gap as the biggest obstacle to leadership performance today, even ahead of social inequality. That makes sense: technical training teaches you to plan a project, but rarely teaches you to mediate a conflict between areas that disagree on priority.

That's exactly the profile missing at the companies I've worked at: someone who doesn't need formal authority over every area, but who builds enough credibility to align diverging interests around a shared goal.

How organizational change leadership is built

I've already written about how trust and relationships sustain collaboration on projects, and that's the foundation of this skill. Without a relationship built before the conflict shows up, there's no mediation possible once the areas disagree.

When I wrote about acting as a project manager at traditional companies, I mentioned three traits that sustain the first wins in low-maturity environments: resilience, ease of building relationships, and leadership by influence. Leadership by influence is exactly this skill of moving across areas without depending on hierarchy.

In practice, this shows up in simple things, like sitting down with each area individually before bringing a problem to a group meeting, spelling out what each team gains or loses with the change, and treating the project's success as the result of collaboration between areas, not one area winning over another.

I've lived this. A project had been stuck for five months with a single area trying to implement it, struggling to involve three other areas that were part of the process. Communication wasn't flowing, technology was working in a silo, and the operations and business areas were left out. When I took over, I talked with each of them individually and then brought everyone together to explain that the project had a single goal and that each area would contribute in its own way. Three months later, the project was being delivered. What made the difference was someone listening to the areas and connecting them to a shared goal.

The value of having this profile on the team

When this kind of leadership exists, change stops depending only on the formal structure. Someone connects the dots the org chart doesn't connect, and the project keeps moving forward even when priorities shift along the way.

If your company feels this gap too, maybe the solution isn't looking for an outside superhero. It's worth looking at who, even without the title, already plays this bridge role between areas, and giving that person formal room to do it with more strength.

And if that someone is you, don't wait to take on big projects to start. Begin with small initiatives within your own area and gradually move to ones that involve other departments. For that you don't need a title, just a quick alignment with leadership. This move brings more trust and more visibility, and from there things start to happen.

At the end of the day, the first step is what unlocks everything. The methods, the tools and the attitudes fall into place along the way.

So, what initiative is stuck right now that you could get moving immediately? Tell me in the comments.

The observations in this piece reflect personal perceptions, built over my experience with projects in different contexts, and do not represent the view of any specific company.

Cheers! Leandro | PMP | PMO and Project Manager