Why Leadership Behaviour Determines Whether Change Succeeds

By Tricia Nelson

Leadership behaviour – specifically self-awareness, learning agility and positive conduct under pressure –  is the critical but overlooked factor determining whether organisational change succeeds or fails.

Every organisation preparing for change builds a plan, complete with timelines, systems, communications and milestones. Yet our new global research at Insights reveals that the factor that most determines success – leadership behaviour – is being largely ignored.

The Global Change Readiness Report, based on the views of 880 senior HR and people leaders across eleven global markets, found that nearly nine in ten (87%) organisations were not highly prepared for their most recent significant change.

The cost of this lack of preparation is measurable and lasting. Productivity fell in 22% of the least prepared organisations, compared with 10% of the most prepared. Where productivity dropped, two in five (41%) took more than three months to recover and against a change cycle that recurs ever more frequently, that drag hardens into a grim pattern.

The greatest leadership risk is overconfidence

On average, organisations face significant change every 3.2 years, meaning they aren’t short of experience – however experience alone does not translate into change readiness.

Our research shows that the greatest leadership risk is not resistance, but overconfidence. Before their most recent change, 39% of leaders anticipated moderate or major disruption to performance; once it was underway, that rose to 51%. They were not blind to disruption but underestimated its scale and impact.

In my twenty-five years in transformation, I’ve watched capable leaders mistake experience for expertise in a context that had  changed around them. The ground is shifting fast: the World Economic Forum estimates 39% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030, and 63% of employers name the skills gap as their biggest barrier to transformation.

Experience turns into liability the moment it hardens into fixed assumptions and when a “been there, done that” mindset replaces learning through it again. When leaders assume they have already solved the problem in front of them, they stop asking questions, stop noticing what is different, and stop observing their own effect on others.

The positive behaviours that drive change success

If experience isn’t the differentiator for leaders when it comes to successfully navigating change then what is? Our research points to a cluster of positive behaviours. Where productivity rose during change, 74% of organisations saw leaders behaving more positively and only 14% more negatively; where it fell, positive behaviour dropped to 46% and negative doubled to 28%. This is not proof of cause and effect, but the pattern is hard to ignore: self-aware, positive leadership aligns with better outcomes.

These positive leadership behaviours are business-critical capabilities:

• Self-awareness: recognising your default responses under pressure before they shape everyone else’s.
• Learning agility: adapting as the situation reveals itself, not reaching for yesterday’s playbook.
• Curiosity: asking what is genuinely different this time rather than assuming you know.
• Openness to challenge: welcoming disagreement even when it feels inconvenient.
• Adaptability: adjusting how you lead as conditions shift, not defending a style that no longer fits.
• Positive, consistent behaviour: staying clear, calm and collaborative under pressure.

Self-awareness matters more in an ever-shifting landscape

Self-awareness is a necessity for leaders because the workforce is transforming so rapidly.

For the first time, up to five generations work side by side, each with different expectations of leadership, development and communication. The World Economic Forum projects that by 2034, four in five workers in advanced economies will be Millennials, Gen Z or the first Gen Alphas. Recognition of neurodiversity in all of its forms is growing too. A single leadership style, shaped by one person’s formative experiences, no longer stretches across a team this varied.

Self-awareness lets a leader work beyond their own perspective, treating their instinctive way of communicating, deciding or handling tension as one option among many. Without it, they manage the team that exists in their head; with it, they lead the team in front of them. It is exactly what our flagship Insights Discovery tool is built to develop in individuals and teams.

Self-awareness is a commercial capability

If that sounds soft, think again. Self-awareness is a commercial capability, and no longer one reserved for those at the top.

Younger workers expect it: Deloitte’s 2025 survey of more than 23,000 Gen Z and millennial employees found learning and development among the top reasons they pick an employer, and over eight in ten said human skills like empathy and leadership now matter more than technical ones. As AI takes on the tasks that once defined expertise, understanding ourselves and others become exponentially more valuable.

A caution: none of this is about manufacturing upbeat corporate messages. Good communication clearly matters in change, but not alone. In our research, 87% of organisations communicated priorities clearly, yet 46% of employees were still confused about who held decision-making authority. Knowing what is changing is not the same as knowing how to work through it, and that gap is closed by behaviour, not by cleverly worded emails.

Leaders who come out ahead during times of change are not those with the most battle scars. They are the ones willing to admit they still have something to learn, and who build self-awareness in themselves and their teams before change arrives, not after it exposes the gaps.

About the Author

Tricia Nelson is Marketing, Brand and Sales Director at Insights, where she leads the organisation’s global growth strategy, driving brand, marketing and commercial performance globally. With over 20 years of international leadership experience, she brings deep expertise in large-scale transformation, growth strategy and people-led change across sectors including financial services, energy, logistics and media. Prior to joining Insights, Tricia spent 14 years at EY as a Global Client Leader and Managing Partner for People Consulting. Known for her strategic growth mindset and inclusive leadership approach, she is passionate about building purpose-driven cultures and unlocking the power of self-awareness to deliver sustainable growth and meaningful impact.