Influencing autonomy, why wanting change matters more than enforcing it
If you’re leading a company of any size, especially one moving fast, you’re not managing a machine, you’re aligning people. Not everyone will obey orders just because you say so. That’s especially true for people with experience, context, and autonomy, store managers, technical leads, regional heads, or frontline operators who actually know what’s working on the ground.
In theory, you can tell people what to change. In reality, if they don’t actually buy into it, you’ll burn energy enforcing compliance, and still get poor results. Great leaders don’t just get things done. They make people want to get things done, differently. That’s the real lever.
In any system with decentralized control, the adoption of change depends entirely on belief: Is this new action worth my time, given everything else on my plate? Does this align with what I know about my team, my customers, my reality on the ground?
So, if you’re launching a new strategic direction, new operational standards, or platform changes, you better make it matter to the person making those local decisions. That means understanding their trade-offs, their decision stress, and how your change helps them operate better or smarter.
Without belief, you’ll just have compliance on paper, not in practice. With belief, you move systems faster than your competitors.
Describe the current state right, with detail, not drama
Leaders often want to set fire to the past to justify the future. That’s a mistake. People don’t follow someone who doesn’t understand where they are. If you can’t talk intelligently about what came before, and why it made sense, you won’t be trusted to lead what’s next.
When you’re rolling out change, people look for signs, does this leader know what they’re talking about? Can they be trusted to lead us into complexity? If your description of the current state skips details, overplays flaws, or pretends everything before was broken, you’ve already lost your audience.
What works is clarity. Describe what’s real, especially for the people doing the work. Explain challenges clearly, but also show respect for what teams got right under previous conditions. When Tamar, a retail strategy consultant, addressed skeptical franchisees, she didn’t start with models or strategy decks. She pointed out the real-world friction they face, like how muffin inventory skews because it’s easier to log “blueberry” (at the top of the list). That kind of specific, grounded insight wins people over. It shows you’ve paid attention.
Don’t write off the present just to make your future look better. If you treat people’s work like it never mattered, they won’t engage with what comes next. Describe the current state with accuracy. Incorporate the small truths that operators live every day. That’s how you earn trust, in strategy and execution.
Own the past, don’t blame it
If you want people to rally behind a change, don’t make them feel stupid for the way things were. Resistance doesn’t usually come from logic, it comes from identity, pride, and reputation. When leaders act like past choices were foolish or lazy, they trigger defensiveness. That blocks thinking and slows execution.
It’s rare that past decisions were arbitrary. Most were made under different constraints, with different information. As a leader, validating those choices, without pretending they were perfect, opens the door to a better future. If you must say something was wrong, share in the accountability. You were part of the system. You missed things too. That makes you credible. Otherwise, you sound like someone trying to win the meeting, not drive progress.
There are two types of narratives you can use when asking people to pivot. First: “We were right before, but conditions changed.” Second: “We were missing something important, and now we know better.” The first path respects prior decisions. The second demands vulnerability. Most leaders default to the second without realizing it creates shame, even when it’s unintended.
Executives and consultants often feel pressure to prove their ideas are drastically better. Ironically, trying to sound revolutionary makes adoption harder. People tune you out when they feel dismissed. If you need them to change, make it clear they were operating with good judgment, and now, with new input, there’s a better direction. Keep their pride intact. That’s the fastest route to real alignment.
Be the judge, not the sales pitch
C-suite audiences are smart. They don’t need a cheerleader. They need rigor. That means presenting your change strategy not as a one-sided push but as the result of a thorough evaluation of multiple paths. Leaders who communicate like neutral judges build more trust than those who feel like biased sellers.
When you’re rolling out a directional shift, new tech stack, process redesign, operating model, you should outline what options were considered, what trade-offs were weighed, and why a particular route won. If you hide or ignore competing ideas, audiences will assume you missed something. Worse, external critics in your organization will surface those arguments later without your response on record.
Being upfront about what you didn’t choose makes your decision smarter, not weaker. Show the upside of your recommendation, yes, but include the downside too. This doesn’t show uncertainty. It shows maturity. Your stakeholders want to believe the decision wasn’t based on narrow inputs or a narrow mind.
High-caliber operators know no choice is perfect. Give them the courtesy of a full picture. When they see the rationale, even if they disagree, they’re more likely to get on board. They feel like they were part of the process, even if indirectly. And that’s what makes change stick.
Make execution frictionless, no guesswork, no gaps
Getting buy-in is only one part of the job. Execution is where change lives or dies. Even people who agree with your strategy can fail to deliver if the mechanics are unclear or incomplete. Leaders often underestimate how many small obstacles can derail momentum at the last mile. Surface-level alignment doesn’t mean operational readiness.
Spell it out. Define the “from” and the “to”—what behaviors are stopping, what new ones are starting. If you leave that vague, people default to what’s safe or familiar. You can’t expect precision from teams when the instructions are ambiguous.
Centralize everything people need, tools, guides, timelines, in one place. Every extra click, unclear link, or data gap increases drop-off. Don’t underestimate how little friction it takes for execution to stall.
Flag known failure points early. Then schedule time to gather input after rollout. If people know there’s a loop for feedback, they’ll speak up when processes break instead of letting issues pile up silently. This keeps execution alive and responsive. It also proves leadership is listening, not just issuing orders and walking away.
If you’re serious about changing behavior at scale, meet your team where they are. Give them what they need without making them hunt for it. That’s operational leadership. That’s what removes drag from the system.
Lead humans, not just systems
Systems don’t change themselves. People do. And people don’t just execute strategy, they weigh, interpret, and sometimes resist it. Especially when they have autonomy, their pushback won’t be verbal, it’ll show up in low adoption, delays, or circumvention. That’s not disobedience, it’s a signal that something didn’t land.
That’s why emotional intelligence matters. Confidence without humility comes across as arrogance. Strategic clarity without empathy gets misunderstood. If you’re engaging decision-makers, especially experienced ones, treating them with respect and honesty isn’t a courtesy; it’s a requirement.
You don’t need performative vulnerability. But you do need to show you’re open. Be real about risk. Admit what the business still doesn’t know. Acknowledge what might break and how you’ll handle it if it does. This kind of transparency builds confidence, because it feels grounded in reality.
Executives often focus on “what” to change and “how” to do it. But if you miss “why this team will care,” you get shallow compliance, not adoption. People trust leaders who connect the logical with the personal, who are clear, humble, and pragmatic.
If your team sees that you understand their world, they’ll move. Not because they were told. Because they want to. That’s what scales.
Key highlights
- Influence behavior through belief: Leaders should focus on making people want to change, not just telling them to. In distributed or decentralized environments, change sticks when individuals believe it’s worth their time and aligns with their day-to-day priorities.
- Describe reality with credibility: Clearly articulate the current state with detail and respect. Demonstrating that you understand the operational challenges builds trust and increases engagement with the proposed change.
- Validate the past to enable the future: Leaders should acknowledge that prior decisions were reasonable under former conditions. To reduce resistance, avoid blame and share in the accountability when shifting strategies.
- Frame strategy like a judge, not a seller: Present strategic choices as the outcome of an unbiased, thoughtful evaluation. Include pros and cons of all options considered to build confidence in your decision-making process.
- Simplify execution and eliminate friction: Detail every step of the transition and make resources easy to access. Small execution gaps can cause failure, leaders should anticipate and minimize these to maintain momentum.
- Lead with empathy and clarity: Understand that even the most logical plan fails if it ignores human motivation. Real change happens when leaders engage with humility, openly address risks, and stay grounded in the team’s lived experience.
