Let’s start with a provocation: there’s no such thing as a “difficult employee” when it comes to change, only disengaged leadership and misplaced accountability.

For decades, the narrative of “employee resistance” has been shaped by outdated change management models that treat people as passive recipients of top-down decisions. When employees push back, stall, or question the process, leaders default to labels like “resistant” or “difficult.” But this framing reveals far more about leadership than it does about employees.

What if resistance is just feedback that we don’t want to hear?

The traditional playbook—ADKAR, Kotter, Lewin—positions resistance as a problem to “manage” and employees as obstacles to compliance. But this mindset is a smokescreen. By blaming people, leaders absolve themselves of accountability for systemic failures: unclear purpose, a lack of psychological safety, or a history of broken promises. Employees don’t resist change; they resist being excluded. They resist confusion, contradictions, and initiatives where they’re expected to comply without context, adjust without support, and deliver without being genuinely brought in.
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The Real Failure of “Change Management”

Traditional frameworks prioritize plans, comms strategies, and training timelines. But if change could truly be “managed,” we wouldn’t see 70% of initiatives fail. The uncomfortable truth is that change fails because ownership is often confined to the project team, accountability is vague, and leaders wash their hands of responsibility instead of showing up as change leaders.

So what’s the alternative? A move from change management to change leadership, ownership, and accountability by embracing these three radical shifts:

1. Change Leadership Beats Change Management
   Leadership isn’t about delegating tasks—it’s about embodying the change. Employees watch leaders for cues: Do they navigate ambiguity openly? Listen more than they direct? Stay visibly committed when challenges arise? Leaders who model curiosity, humility, and consistency don’t just announce change, they ignite it.
2. Change Ownership Beats Compliance
   Ownership isn’t created through a town hall announcement, management coercion or training modules. It happens when employees are invited to co-create the change that impacts their work. When people are invited into the design, decision-making, and iteration of the change itself, that’s when the magic happens.
3. Change Accountability Beats Control
   Accountability is not a one-way street. There are always high expectations that employees must deliver, but at the same time, leaders must answer for the opportunities and conditions they create. This means reviewing and actively managing cultural signals (e.g., trust, psychological safety) and leadership behaviours (e.g., transparency, follow-through), not just milestones. Did leaders clarify the why? Did they address past failures? Did they listen to critical voices? Because scepticism often stems from bad experiences in the past, not stubbornness.

The “Difficult Employee” is Your Greatest Ally

When we make this shift, the so-called “difficult employee” transforms into the truth-teller, the one brave enough to surface what others are afraid to express out loud. Their pushback isn’t sabotage; it’s an early warning signal that leaders haven’t done enough to foster trust, clarity, or inclusion.

So before labelling resistance, leaders need to ask:

• How well have we led this so far?
• Where have we created space for ownership?
• How are we making ourselves accountable for how this change is landing?

The “difficult employee” myth persists because it’s easier to blame than to reflect. But real leadership means welcoming resistance as a mirror, and having the courage to look into it.

Because change isn’t something we do to people. It’s something we do with them, or not at all.