When Leaders Design the End State but Ignore the In-Between
The Problem With Announcing Change Without Managing the Suspension
Organizations routinely make the same mistake: they design a new state, announce it, and treat the change as instantaneous. The problem is that organizational change happens in a moment, but psychological transition takes time.
William Bridges, in his Transition Model, distinguished between these two phenomena. External change is the event. Transition is the internal, emotional process people experience as they move from what was familiar to what is unknown. Most leaders skip the transition entirely and wonder why people resist, performance dips, and talented people leave.
The gap between the current bar and the next bar is not empty space. It is the neutral zone, and it terrifies people because they have released the known without yet securing the new.
Why the Neutral Zone Matters More Than the Destination
When a leader announces a new scheduling system, a restructure, a new process, or a cultural shift, they often skip what comes next. They did not ask for input. They did not collect buy-in. They did not support people through the confusion of learning a fragile new system or the emotional weight of letting go of the old one.
The result is predictable: broad criticism, active resistance from both individual contributors and managers, and burnout among those who try to make it work anyway. If the system itself is fragile (say, automation hinged on a single person who later burns out), the entire change collapses. If leadership dismisses feedback as resistance rather than signal, they lose the people most capable of refining the implementation.
Years later, when the change has created lasting damage, the architects have often moved on to other roles or companies, telling stories about their successes while the team left behind is still cleaning up the wreckage.
What Leaders Must Do Instead
The neutral zone is where leadership actually happens. It requires four things.
First, leaders must acknowledge that transition exists. The announcement is not the work. The work is the space in between.
Second, leaders must actively guide people through the confusion. This means clarifying what stays, what changes, and why. It means being present and available for questions, not scripting answers or closing off dissent.
Third, leaders must reciprocally apply the change to themselves. If a new performance management system is being introduced, managers should experience it first and reflect on how it changes the way they work. If a new operating system is being rolled out, leadership should follow it, not pick and choose the parts that feel convenient.
Fourth, leaders must stay. When the neutral zone is difficult, leaders cannot leave. They cannot declare victory and move to the next assignment while the team is still learning, grieving, and adjusting. The damage compounds when architects depart early and leave others to manage the unintended consequences.
See also: Why Change Initiatives Fail Without Emotional Leadership and Why One-on-One Meetings Fail and How to Fix Them, which address the communication and trust breakdowns that derail change in practice.
If your change initiative is stalling, the work is probably happening in the in-between—not the destination. See how we work at Kestryl Edge.
Dan Korus, Kestryl Edge founder, publishes The Updraft, a weekly newsletter on leadership, emotional intelligence, and organizational performance. Subscribe here.