Body of Knowledge · Glossary
Leading change
What a structural change needs beyond its announcement. That means the why, what changes and what stays, the effect on every leader whose scope moves, presence through the transition, and consolidation so the change sticks.
Where the standard develops it
- SV-6Organisational design and leading changeTeam structures, ownership boundaries, reorgs, and transitions.
Related terms
- Charter
- The explicit statement of what a team or department owns.
- Decision rights
- The explicit statement of who may decide what, and at which level of authority.
- Inverse Conway manoeuvre
- Designing the organisation to produce the architecture you want, on the basis that the system will mirror the organisation's structure either way.
- Ownership map
- The written record of every system, capability and decision and who owns each, checked before and after any structural change.
- Span of control
- How many reports a leader can serve effectively.
- Structure follows strategy
- Changes in strategy require changes in structure, and structures that outlive the strategy that produced them become the obstacle to the next one.
Cite this definition
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Leading change. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, GLO.leading-change). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/glossary/leading-change