Change is not Transition: Why Leaders need Coaching Behaviors

A systemic perspective on leading lasting transformation

"When change processes fail, it isn't the changes that do you in; it's the transitions."

This simple truth captures why so many well-planned organisational changes stumble. Leaders invest enormous energy designing new structures, implementing new systems, and communicating new strategies—yet months later, they're disappointed by results that fall short of expectations. The problem? They managed the change but neglected the transition.

The distinction matters because while leaders can never truly become coaches—they retain their positional authority, accountability for results, and evaluative responsibilities that professional coaches intentionally avoid—they can and must adopt coaching behaviours when facilitating transition. This is not about replacing leadership with coaching, but about expanding the leadership repertoire to include coaching skills when they best serve the situation.

The Critical Distinction

Change is contextual and external: the new organisational structure, the updated IT system, the revised process, the redefined roles. It's concrete, physical, and visible. It can be planned, scheduled, and rolled out.

Transition, by contrast, is internal and personal. It's the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. It's the mental and emotional journey from the old way of working to genuinely embracing and embodying the new.

As Merriam-Webster defines it, change is "to alter; to make different; to cause to pass from one state to another." But this definition reveals our cultural bias: we think of change as something we do to a system or organisation. From a systemic perspective, this fundamentally misunderstands how human systems actually work.

The Systemic Reality of Organisations

Drawing on the work of Humberto Maturana, we must recognise that organisations operate as self-generating, self-fulfilling, and fundamentally closed systems. This means:

• Change happens when the system wants it to happen—and when it needs it
• Change emerges as "system mutations" rather than being imposed from outside
• We cannot directly teach anyone anything; we can only disturb them so they may discover what they already know

This insight transforms how we must think about leading change. If organisations are dynamic systems that can only change from within, then the traditional command-and-control approach to change management is fundamentally flawed. The "machine metaphor"—where the manager is a clockmaker who can control the machine's efficiency—creates an illusion of plan and control that people can, in seconds, completely undermine.

Why? Because human systems don't follow the laws of physics. As the saying goes, if you kick a dog, you don't know what will happen. Yet time and again, we're forced to realise that people can blow "the perfect plan" that we spent years designing—and they don't even need a plan to do it.

Leaders Adopting Coaching Behaviours: The Essential Shift

This is where leaders adopting coaching behaviours become essential. If lasting change cannot be imposed but must emerge from within the system, then the leader's role fundamentally expands to include facilitative approaches alongside traditional directive ones.

The Critical Distinction: Leader vs. Coach

It's vital to understand that leaders can never truly be coaches in the professional sense. The roles are fundamentally different:

Professional coaches operate without positional authority, make no performance evaluations, have no stake in specific outcomes, and maintain strict confidentiality. Their sole focus is the client's development and agenda.

Leaders, by contrast, carry organisational accountability, evaluate performance, make decisions affecting people's careers, and must balance individual development with team and organisational goals. These responsibilities create power dynamics that professional coaches intentionally avoid.

Recent research confirms these distinctions matter. A 2024 study on coaching-based leadership found that while leaders can effectively use coaching skills in workplace conversations—especially in informal settings—the organisational context fundamentally shapes how these skills operate. The leader-employee relationship always includes evaluative and hierarchical elements that cannot be suspended, even temporarily.

However, leaders can and should adopt specific coaching behaviours when facilitating transition. Center for Creative Leadership's research identifies these as distinct leadership roles: while the Manager role focuses on getting things done through others, the Coach role focuses on development—helping people get out of their own way to become better problem solvers. The key insight is that effective leaders move fluidly between these roles as the situation demands.

What Coaching Behaviours Look Like in Leadership

When leaders adopt coaching behaviours during transition, they:

Create psychological safety for exploration. Research from McKinsey (2021) demonstrates that psychological safety—where team members feel safe to speak up, take risks, and admit mistakes without fear of punishment—is the most critical driver of successful transition. Leaders foster this through supportive and consultative behaviours rather than authoritative ones. A 2023 study in the European Journal of Management found that trust in leadership, built through disclosure and reliance, directly mediates organisational change capability.

Facilitate self-awareness through powerful questions. As Kierkegaard noted: "If one is truly to succeed in leading a person to a specific place, one must first and foremost take care to find him where he is and begin there." Leaders using coaching behaviours recognise that we cannot develop together unless we genuinely connect with each other's starting points. This means asking questions that help people discover their own answers rather than telling them what to do.

Work in dialogue rather than monologue. Systemic thinking creates change by connecting people to co-create solutions. There is no such thing as "just talk"—conversation creates our realities. This is why bringing people together in generative dialogue enables meaning, motivation, and coordinated action. Research from Deloitte's 2024 Global Human Capital Trends study emphasises that co-creation—involving workers in creating organisational strategies and solutions—is essential for operating effectively in today's complex environment. Yet only 30% of C-suite leaders report regularly involving workers in this way.

Use resource-based rather than deficit-based language. The language leaders choose profoundly shapes transition experiences. Resource-based language—focusing on possibilities, opportunities, what works, and competences—creates conditions where people feel energised and motivated. Deficit-based language—emphasising problems, shortcomings, and mistakes—triggers stress responses that inhibit creative thinking and prolong resistance. Recent neuroscience research confirms that threat-based language elevates cortisol levels, putting people in fight-or-flight mode rather than the exploratory mindset needed for transition.

Essential Capabilities for Leaders Adopting Coaching Behaviours

To facilitate transition rather than merely manage change, leaders must cultivate specific capabilities that enable coaching behaviours within their leadership role. It's important to note that these are leadership capabilities enhanced by coaching skills, not a transformation into professional coaches.

Recent research on coach competencies provides valuable guidance. A 2024 study in the International Journal of Evidence-Based Coaching identified five core competencies that facilitate transformative learning during transition:

Creating a safe environment for managing disorienting dilemmas – Leaders must establish psychological safety where people can process the discomfort and uncertainty inherent in transition. This doesn't mean eliminating accountability or performance standards; instead, it means creating space where people can voice concerns, ask questions, and work through confusion without fear of punishment.

Facilitating self-awareness – Through powerful questions and reflective dialogue, leaders help people understand their own reactions to change, recognise their patterns, and identify their unique pathways forward. This is fundamentally different from telling people what to do or think.

Motivating and challenging appropriately – Leaders balance support with challenge, pushing people to exceed what they initially think possible while providing the support needed to attempt it. McKinsey's research on psychological safety found that "challenging leadership" behaviours only enhance psychological safety when a positive team climate already exists—underscoring the importance of establishing trust before pushing boundaries.

Engaging with emotions – Transition is inherently emotional. Leaders adopting coaching behaviours acknowledge and work with the emotional dimensions of change rather than attempting to bypass them. Research consistently shows that ignoring the emotional aspects of transition leads to prolonged resistance and implementation failure.

Holding people accountable – Here's where the leader role differs distinctly from professional coaching. Leaders must balance developmental conversations with performance expectations and organisational accountability. A 2020 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that successful coaching-based leadership programs maintained this balance, resulting in increased psychological capital, work engagement, and both in-role and extra-role performance.

Additional capabilities that enable effective coaching behaviours in leadership include:

Relational courage – the ability to "stand in the middle of it," remaining present with people as they process difficult emotions and uncertainty without becoming defensive or rushing to fix things.

Dialogic competence – building genuine rapport and trust through skilful conversation that opens possibilities rather than closes them down. This includes what the Center for Creative Leadership calls "asking powerful, open-ended questions, and then listening intently to understand."

Comfort with not knowing – being curious and secure even when the path forward isn't clear, modelling that uncertainty is a space for discovery rather than a problem to be solved immediately. Research on situational humility shows that this capability predicts consultative leadership behaviours that foster psychological safety.

Integrity between words and actions – demonstrating through behaviour what you're asking others to embrace. This is consistently cited as foundational to building trust. Employees report that transformational leaders who "walk the talk" earn significantly higher commitment to change initiatives.

Agency – maintaining an active, intentional relationship to yourself and your environment rather than being passively swept along by events. Leaders who demonstrate agency inspire it in others, creating the proactive mindset essential for navigating transition.

Facilitating Transition Through Disturbance

The leader's foremost task when adopting coaching behaviours is to create "appropriate disturbance"—questions and interventions that help people see their situation differently. This isn't about providing answers, but about helping people discover what they already know to realise who they are and who they might become.

What Recent Research Tells Us About Successful Transition Leadership

The evidence base for coaching behaviours in transition leadership has strengthened considerably in recent years:

Commitment to change is the critical mediator. A 2023 study examining 535 managers during a significant organisational change initiative found that transformational leadership increased commitment to change, which, in turn, promoted innovative behaviour. The research revealed that leaders who paint positive visions for the future, address follower needs during transition stress, and earn trust through their actions generate significantly higher commitment. This emotional dedication to seeing change through matters more than the technical understanding of what's changing.

Trust operates through dual pathways. Research published in 2024 identified two distinct forms of trust that enable organisational change capability: disclosure-based trust (employees feeling safe to share concerns and uncertainties) and reliance-based trust (employees trusting leaders will follow through on commitments). Both significantly enhance change implementation success, and both are built through consistent coaching behaviours rather than one-time communications or mandates.

Psychological safety remains foundational. Multiple 2024 studies confirm that psychological safety—the shared belief that speaking up and taking risks won't result in punishment—directly predicts successful transition outcomes. Center for Creative Leadership research found that teams with high psychological safety demonstrate higher performance and lower interpersonal conflict during change. However, psychological safety doesn't emerge automatically; it requires deliberate leadership action. Supportive and consultative leadership behaviours create positive team climates, which in turn enable psychological safety.

The leadership style gap matters. A 2024 study in Leadership Quarterly examined how teams adapt when leaders must switch between directive and participative styles as situations change. The research found that transitions from directive to participative leadership are significantly easier than the reverse—suggesting that building trust and shared decision-making first creates a foundation that can flex as needed, while starting with directive approaches makes it harder to shift toward participation later.

Co-creation closes the knowing-doing gap. Deloitte's 2024 Global Human Capital Trends research revealed a striking disconnect: while 76% of respondents say that leaving people better off is critically essential to organisational success, only 30% of C-suite leaders regularly involve workers in co-creating strategies and solutions. The research emphasises that worker participation isn't about sacrificing business outcomes—it's a proven path toward improving them. Organisations that involve workers in co-creation report higher trust, better strategy execution, and improved retention.

Empathetic leadership unlocks the value of diversity. Boston Consulting Group's 2024 research demonstrated that empathetic leadership—approaching teams with openness, growth, and authenticity—creates psychological safety that allows diverse teams actually to leverage their diversity. Without this safety, diversity can backfire, leading to lower satisfaction and performance. With it, diversity becomes a source of innovation and competitive advantage. Particularly striking: the research found that LGBTQ+ employees in low psychological safety environments face 18% attrition risk versus 12% for others, but in high safety environments, this gap disappears entirely.

This approach requires focusing on what can be influenced rather than what lies outside control. By mapping together what the team can affect versus what they cannot, leaders help people maintain agency and keep discussions productive. This simple act increases autonomy and proactivity—critical factors in successful transition.

It also means facilitating room for a slow pace to achieve fast change. Paradoxically, creating space for people to genuinely process and make sense of change leads to more sustainable and rapid adoption than rushing through implementation while people remain internally resistant.

The Appreciative Approach to Transition

Rather than the classical problem-focused approach (identify problem → analyse causes → analyse solutions → implement solution), systemic change facilitation follows an appreciative path:

1. Appreciate the best of "what there is"
2. Imagine "what might be"
3. Dialogue about "what ought it be"
4. Co-create "how should it be realised"

This sequence honours that people are more motivated by building on strengths and moving toward possibilities than by fixing deficits. It also distributes ownership of both the problem and solution throughout the system, dramatically increasing commitment to implementation.

The Hard Truth About Transition

Here's what leaders must accept: as Maturana reminds us, at the end of the day, we cannot teach anyone anything. We can only disturb others so they may discover what they already know.

This feels uncomfortable to leaders trained in the command-and-control tradition. It requires letting go of the illusion that we can plan, control, and execute change through sheer force of will and detailed project management. It demands that we trust in the system's capacity to adapt and evolve when given the right conditions.

But it also offers tremendous relief. Those who are good at leading ongoing transitions can delay having to lead significant change initiatives. By standing in the middle of change, being sensitive to what's developing, and cultivating what emerges from the front lines of the organisation, leaders can facilitate continuous adaptation that prevents the need for dramatic, disruptive transformation.

In Practice: Designing for Transition With Coaching Behaviours

When designing your change process, adopting coaching behaviours demands different questions than traditional change management:

• What motivates each of your people most? What factors in this change can provide that motivation?
• What capabilities do people need to develop? How will you create conditions for that development rather than just delivering "training programs"?
• How will you bring people together in generative conversations where they can co-create solutions rather than merely being informed of decisions?
• What space will you create for people to process, question, and make sense of what's changing?
• How will you consistently use resource-based rather than deficit-based language in your communications?
• Where will you focus attention—on problems to be solved or possibilities to be realised?
• How will you balance the accountability inherent in your leadership role with the developmental space that coaching behaviours require?

This last question highlights the unique challenge leaders face when adopting coaching behaviours: unlike professional coaches, who can remain purely developmental, leaders must integrate coaching approaches with their ongoing responsibilities for performance, evaluation, and organisational outcomes. Research suggests this integration is possible and powerful, but requires conscious attention to when each approach serves best.

The Bottom Line

Change without transition is like planting seeds without preparing the soil. You may go through all the motions, but nothing takes root. Organisations don't change because we announce new structures or implement new systems. They change when people—individually and collectively—make the internal transition to new ways of thinking, relating, and working.

This transition cannot be managed in the traditional sense. It can only be facilitated through leadership that incorporates coaching behaviours alongside conventional management approaches. Leaders who understand this distinction—and develop the capabilities to adopt coaching behaviours when facilitating transition—create organisations where transformation becomes natural, sustainable, and genuinely lasting.

The research is clear: leaders don't need to become coaches, which would be neither possible nor desirable given their distinct organisational responsibilities. Instead, they need to expand their leadership repertoire to include coaching behaviours—particularly fostering psychological safety, using powerful questions, facilitating self-awareness, and building trust through consistent, empathetic action.

As the systemic perspective teaches us, change emerges from within. Our job as leaders is not to impose it from without, but to create the conditions where it can emerge—and to use coaching behaviours to guide people through the internal journey that makes external change stick. In doing so, we honour both the change we seek and the people who must make the transition to embrace it.

Oslo Consulting Group specialises in transformation processes with European multinational companies, with particular expertise in facilitating lasting organisational change through systemic approaches to leadership development and strategic planning.