The Cost of Resisting Reality: Why “Change Fatigue” Is a Leadership Failure

Change Isn’t the Problem

We talk a lot about change fatigue in organizations—as if change itself is the problem. But change isn’t the problem.

Resisting reality is what exhausts us.

Change isn’t an event. It’s the environment—the terrain we operate in every single day. Markets shift. Technology evolves. Customer expectations grow. Employees want different things. None of that is optional or temporary.

Yet many leaders still treat change like it’s a one-time obstacle course before they can “get back to normal.” But there is no normal.

Change isn’t the obstacle course. It’s the terrain itself.

Leaders who expect the path to stay the same get lost.

The real work isn’t about removing obstacles. It’s about helping people navigate them. Maps will change as conditions change. Yesterday’s clear path might be blocked today. That’s why great leaders rely on a compass—values, purpose, and vision that stay constant even when the landscape doesn’t.

We don’t control the land. We choose how to move through it.

Resisting Reality Is the True Source of Fatigue

When leaders treat change like an external disruption to be “managed,” they unintentionally teach teams to fear it.

What really burns people out isn’t the pace of change itself. It’s the tension between how things actually are and our refusal to accept it.

Resisting reality is the source of fatigue.

From “Managing Change” to Building Awareness, Culture, and Dialogue

The old model says:

“We’ll manage change when it comes.”

But what if leaders replaced change management with change awareness?

Imagine a culture where:

• People expect movement, iteration, and improvement.

• Teams talk openly about what’s shifting.

• Leaders normalize exploring the implications together.

• Dialogue about change is as routine as checking metrics.

Change isn’t “special.” It’s the air we breathe.

Leaders don’t need to control change. They need to create conditions for people to engage with it confidently, continuously, and collaboratively.

Does This Conflict with Structure, SOPs, and Standardization?

On the surface, this mindset seems at odds with structure:

“If everything’s changing all the time, why bother with SOPs?”

But here’s the reality:

• Structure enables safe adaptation.

• SOPs capture our current best-known way.

• Standardization isn’t rigidity—it’s a platform for improvement.

When teams understand processes aren’t sacred—but starting points—you build dynamic stability:

Stable enough to align. Flexible enough to evolve.

Leaders who embrace this balance stop seeing change as chaos—and start using it as fuel for progress.

The Leadership Challenge

If you want to know whether you’re creating change fatigue or building readiness, ask yourself:

• Do your people see change as the environment—or the enemy?

• Do they expect movement and iteration as normal?

• Do you create space to talk about what’s shifting?

• Are you rewarding learning and adaptation—or punishing deviation?

Because in the end, change fatigue is rarely a people problem.

Change fatigue isn’t a people problem. It’s a leadership problem—born from failing to design for reality.

Your Move

We can’t make the terrain stop shifting. But we can make our organizations better navigators. That’s not just how we survive. It’s how we lead.