Why Leaders Resist Change (Even When They Say They Want It)

A few months ago, I turned down a speaking engagement.

It was from a client I’d worked with before—two years earlier. I’d given a talk called Change Isn’t Hard. Changing Is.There was a workshop afterward. People were engaged, or at least they acted like they were. They asked thoughtful questions. They said they felt inspired. They said they wanted to do things differently.

But nothing happened.

Today, the same problems are still there—just a little more familiar now, a little easier to ignore. Most of the senior leadership is close(ish) to retirement. It seems like they did the math: if they didn’t disrupt too much, if they didn’t make anything worse, the structure might last just long enough to see them through.

So when they asked me to come back, I politely passed. I didn’t see the point. They were open to change—but not to changing.

When the Stakes Disappear, So Does the Will to Act

Humans have a remarkable ability: we can imagine the future. It’s our superpower. We can picture the years ahead in detail—how our decisions might unfold over decades, what might be different, what might break. Our minds can simulate consequences long before they arrive.

And yet we often ignore them.

Because imagining the future is not the same as feeling responsible for it. We tend to act only when the pressure is immediate—when something threatens us personally, here and now. Once we’re no longer affected, we stop behaving as if the problem still matters.

In the late 1970s, a group of economists studied public attitudes toward higher education funding. They found that people who had already earned their degrees—especially from wealthier backgrounds—were more likely to support cutting that funding. After they’d moved through the system, they no longer felt responsible for keeping it open behind them.

It happens in quieter ways too. We stop paying attention to parental leave and the affordability of day care once our children are grown. We stop noticing mortgage rates and housing policies once we’ve bought a home. We stop thinking about what the climate will be like in 2070 when filling our gas tanks today.

It’s not malice. It’s distance. And it’s one of the hardest things we’re asked to do: to care about problems after they stop being ours. To imagine the future clearly—and still act, even when we’re not in it.

Protecting The Status Quo

In most organizations, there comes a point when things feel steady enough to stop asking hard questions. Not because everything’s working. But because it’s working well enough—for the people in charge.

They’re not bad people. They’re thoughtful, experienced, and often proud of what they’ve built. And rightly so. But the same system they once pushed to improve has become the one they’re now trying to protect.

Change starts to feel like a threat—not to the mission, but to the rhythm. To the peace. To the sense that if we just don’t rock the boat, we might all make it to shore with dry clothes and steady hands.

Meanwhile, the people who most need things to change—the ones newer, younger, or left out—are asked to be patient. To wait their turn. To trust a structure that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

So things don’t fall apart. They just stop evolving.

The result isn’t collapse. It’s stagnation. Innovation slows. Good people leave. The future is documented in strategy decks and five-year plans, but the real work of reshaping it is quietly deferred.

Making Change Possible

We can’t expect people to act against their own comfort unless we give them a way to do so. That’s the challenge—and the responsibility—for organizations, and for those who advise, guide, and push them forward. Change demands more than insight; it demands structure. Here are a few ways some have begun to close the gap between intention and action:

1. Create a Mock Leadership Council

Companies like Gucci and TotalEnergies have implemented “shadow boards” composed of younger employees to provide fresh perspectives on strategic decisions.  These councils allow early- and mid-career professionals to envision the organization’s future and present their insights to senior leadership.

2. Develop a Legacy Transition Plan

BlackRock has introduced long-term incentive plans that grant senior leaders stock options vesting over several years, even post-retirement. This approach ensures that outgoing executives have a tangible stake in the company’s future performance, aligning their legacy with the organization’s long-term success.

3. Assign Future Advocates

Heineken’s reverse mentoring program pairs junior employees with senior leaders (instead of the other way around), allowing the latter to gain insights into emerging trends and the evolving workplace. This initiative fosters mutual understanding and prepares the organization for future challenges.

4. Disrupt the Model by Design

Merit, a UK-based construction firm, operates in an industry not known for R&D. But they’ve built one anyway—not to keep pace, but to change it. By developing modular, off-site construction for complex facilities like labs and cleanrooms, they’ve reimagined what’s possible in both time and scale.

It’s a reminder: even in fields that don’t traditionally invest in innovation, someone can choose to. What would an R&D department look like in your organization? And what problems would it wake up every day trying to solve?

Leaders often stop responding to problems once those problems stop affecting them. But with the right structures and incentives, organizations can close the gap between those in power now and the people who will inherit what comes next. A lasting legacy isn’t what you leave behind—it’s what you build for the people who come after you.

I hope this helps.