Leading change
The eight-step model (urgency, a guiding coalition, a vision, communication, removing obstacles, short-term wins, consolidation, anchoring), used here as a checklist of what reorganisations leave out. Most often it is the last two steps.
Evidence grade: practice A widely adopted practitioner model with clear provenance.
Use it when
Any reorganisation, merger or transition; diagnosing why an earlier change did not stick.
Where it stops working
It is prescriptive and based on cases. It works as a checklist of omissions and cannot guarantee that the change lands.
Where the standard uses it
- SV-6Organisational design and leading changeTeam structures, ownership boundaries, reorgs, and transitions.
- CC-5Values, integrity, and ethical judgment under pressureWhat you do when the right call is the costly one.
Sources
- John P. Kotter. Leading Change. Harvard Business School Press, 1996. In the bibliography
Used alongside it
- Artifacts, espoused values, and assumptions practice
- Conway's law practice
- Culture as what is rewarded, tolerated, and punished practice
- Service-level objectives and error budgets practice
- Sizing teams and spans practice
- Structure follows strategy practice
Cite this model
Chicago, BibTeX and licence →Engineering Management Academy. (2026). Leading change. In Engineering Management Academy Body of Knowledge (Version 3.1, TEC.leading-change). https://www.engineeringmanagement.academy/body-of-knowledge/techniques/leading-change