Holding Steady: Leading Through Discomfort, Loss and Resistance

Adaptive leadership is rarely neat.

It is not just strategy that you are leading.
It is people through disruption.

It asks people to rethink what they know, let go of what feels familiar, and stay engaged even when the outcome is not yet clear. That creates discomfort. It often brings resistance. Sometimes it stirs grief and loss as people realise that what got them here may not get them where they need to go next.

This is why adaptive leadership is not only about seeing the challenge, interpreting the system, or mobilising people into action.

It is also about holding steady enough to keep people in the work.

And on World Day for Safety and Health at Work, that feels especially important. This year’s global focus on a healthy psychosocial working environment is a timely reminder that safety at work is not only physical. It is also emotional, relational and psychological. It is about the conditions that help people stay well, stay engaged and stay able to do meaningful work in the middle of pressure and change.

That matters deeply for leaders.

When change is hard, the leadership challenge is so much more than to drive outcomes. It is to create enough steadiness, trust and safety that people can stay connected to the work without becoming overwhelmed, shut down or checked out.

Adaptive Change Always Asks People to Lose Something

In adaptive change resistance is not usually irrational.

It often makes perfect sense.

People resist change because change costs something.

It may cost certainty.
It may cost competence.
It may cost status.
It may cost familiar routines.
It may cost influence, control, comfort, identity or belonging.

Even positive change can bring loss.

A restructure may create opportunity, but also anxiety.
A new strategy may bring excitement, but also ambiguity.
A stronger performance culture may lift standards, but also expose gaps people would rather not face.
A more collaborative way of working may make the business stronger, but unsettle leaders who are used to holding power within silos.

This is where leaders can go wrong.

They interpret resistance as negativity, stubbornness or a lack of commitment. They push harder. They oversell the upside. They try to remove discomfort too quickly. Or they sidestep emotion altogether because it feels messy or inconvenient.

But resistance is information!

It tells you that something important is at stake.
That something valued feels under threat.
That people are trying to make sense of what this change means for them.

Real leadership does not dismiss that.

It gets curious about it.

Holding Steady is Not The Same as Holding on Tightly

When people are uncomfortable, many leaders respond by tightening up.

They try to control more.
Communicate more.
Solve faster.
Reassure too quickly.
Drive harder.

It is understandable. Pressure does that.

But one of the most important capabilities in adaptive leadership is the ability to hold steady without over-controlling.

To stay grounded.
To regulate your own response.
To make space for uncertainty without becoming vague.
To acknowledge difficulty without collapsing into it.
To let tension exist without rushing to shut it down.

Leaders who can say:
This is hard.
There is more to understand.
We will not have every answer today.
But we are going to stay with the work together.

That kind of steadiness builds trust.

And trust matters even more when people are under strain.

Psychosocial Safety Matters in Adaptive Leadership

This is where the connection to World Day for Safety and Health at Work becomes so relevant.

A healthy psychosocial working environment is not created by slogans. It is created in the day-to-day leadership behaviours that shape how work feels.

Do people feel safe enough to speak honestly?
Can they name concerns without fear?
Can they disagree, contribute ideas and surface tensions early?
Can they admit uncertainty, fatigue or mistakes?
Do they feel respected through change, even when the path is hard?

When adaptive change is underway, those questions become critical.

Because you cannot ask people to stay in discomfort, experiment, learn and adapt if the environment punishes honesty or overloads them without support.

Leadership through change must therefore include a deep attention to how people are coping, what pressure is accumulating, and whether the way change is being led is helping people stay engaged or quietly wearing them down.

This does not mean removing challenge.

It means leading challenge responsibly.

It means recognising that sustained performance depends on sustainable people.

It means knowing that resilience is not built by pretending pressure does not exist. It is built by creating conditions where people can face pressure with support, clarity, connection and a sense of shared purpose.

The Leader’s Job is to Manage the Heat

Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky talk about the leader’s role in regulating distress and managing the heat in the system.

That is such a useful frame.

If there is too little heat, people do not engage. There is no urgency. No momentum. No real shift.

If there is too much heat, people become overwhelmed. They shut down, blame, avoid, fragment or disengage.

Adaptive leadership is about keeping the heat high enough for people to do the work, but not so high that the system breaks down.

That is not easy.

It requires leaders to notice signals.

Where is the tension productive?
Where is it becoming unsafe?
Where are people leaning in?
Where are they withdrawing?
What kind of pressure is helping growth?
What kind is creating fear, fatigue or reactivity?

This is why observation matters so much. Not just observing the work, but observing the people in the work.

You are looking for signs:

• of overload
• of silence
• of emotional leakage
• of conflict going underground
• of performative agreement
• of key people carrying too much
• of a team losing heart

These are not side issues.

These are leadership data.

Keeping People in The Work

So, what does it actually look like to keep people in the work when discomfort, loss and resistance show up?

It starts with naming reality.

Not sugar-coating it.
Not dramatising it.
Not pretending everything is fine.

Naming what is hard helps people feel less alone in it.

Then it means normalising discomfort.

Not all discomfort is harm. Some discomfort is the price of growth, truth-telling and real change. The leader’s job is not to eliminate all tension. It is to help people discern the difference between productive discomfort and unhealthy strain.

It also means making loss discussable.

What are people worried about losing?
What is changing that matters to them?
What identity, routine or confidence is being disrupted?

When loss stays unspoken, resistance hardens.

When it can be acknowledged, people have a better chance of moving through it.

And then there is the work of connection.

In pressure-filled environments, leaders can become highly task-focused. But people need more than task clarity when things are hard. They need human connection. They need to know someone is noticing. Someone is listening. Someone is paying attention to the emotional impact, not just the KPI.

This is not about becoming a therapist at work.

It is about becoming a more real human leader.

A leader who knows that safety, trust and performance are not competing priorities. They reinforce each other.

Real Leadership Under Pressure

This is where my work on Real Leadership and Adaptive Leadership comes together.

Real leadership is what anchors Adaptive Leadership.

Can you hold steady when people are uncomfortable?
Can you stay present when there is resistance?
Can you lead people through loss without trying to rush them past it?
Can you create enough safety that people stay in the work, while still asking enough of them that progress is possible?

That is the challenge.

Because adaptive leadership is not about keeping everyone comfortable.

But neither is it about driving so hard that people break.

It is about leading change in a way that is brave, honest and deeply responsible.

A Practical Leadership Challenge

This week’s Adaptive Leadership Practice: Check the Heat

Choose one team, project or change challenge you are currently leading.

Then review it through these three lenses:

1. Where is the heat right now?
Is there too little urgency?
Or too much pressure?
What signs are telling you that?

2. What loss or discomfort might people be carrying?
What may they be worried about losing?
What has changed for them emotionally, relationally or practically?

3. What would help people stay in the work?
More clarity?
More voice?
More support?
A tougher conversation?
A slower pace?
A clearer boundary?
A stronger sense of shared purpose?

Then choose one practical leadership move for next week:

• name the pressure honestly
• ask the team what is feeling hardest right now
• acknowledge a loss or tension that has gone unspoken
• reset priorities to reduce overload
• invite concerns before pushing for commitment
• recognise effort, not just output
• create space for conversation, not just updates

On this World Day for Safety and Health at Work, perhaps the invitation for leaders is:

To remember that safety is not separate from leadership.
Health is not separate from performance.
And how we lead people through challenge matters just as much as the challenge itself.

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