People love change.

They change their hairstyles, update their phones, rearrange their homes, try new restaurants, and travel to unfamiliar places. People willingly change careers, start businesses, move across the country, and pursue relationships that reshape their lives.

So perhaps people do not hate change as much as we say they do.

People love change when they choose it. They are far less enthusiastic when change chooses them.

That distinction matters because much of the change we experience at work does not arrive by invitation. A new leader takes over. Technology changes how the work gets done. A trusted colleague leaves. The company restructures. Budgets shrink, expectations increase, and the future becomes harder to predict. Even when the change is necessary—or ultimately beneficial—the uncertainty surrounding it can feel threatening.

People love change…not!

Or, at least, not always and not immediately.

Your Brain Has Entered the Conversation

I recently read Dr. Jason Jones’s new book, NeuroAdaptive Leadership: Upgrade Your Brain to Lead with Clarity, Confidence, and Speed in an Era of Disruption. It offers a science-based explanation for something I have observed throughout my career: our response to change begins internally before it becomes visible externally.

Jason explains that our brains naturally seek familiarity and predictability. When disruption occurs, we may become more reactive, defensive, rigid, or fearful. This is not necessarily because we are unwilling to grow. It may be because our brains are trying to protect us.

That understanding does not excuse unproductive behavior, but it can help us respond to it more effectively.

Too often, leaders interpret hesitation as stubbornness, questions as negativity, or caution as a lack of commitment. We focus on correcting the behavior without becoming curious about what may be driving it. Yet if the brain is responding to change as a potential threat, another presentation about the business case will not automatically make people feel safer.

Leaders must address both the logic of the change and the human experience of it.

This is one reason Jason’s book resonated with me. It makes brain science understandable without losing its practical value. His A.D.A.P.T. model guides leaders through five connected practices: Attune to Disruption, Decode Thought Patterns, Align Identity and Intention, Program Adaptivity, and Transfer through Culture. The model moves adaptability from something we hope people possess to something leaders and organizations can intentionally develop. Jason provides a helpful overview of the model here.

The central message is both challenging and encouraging: adaptability is not simply a personality trait. It can be practiced, strengthened, and reinforced.

Before You Lead Their Change, Manage Your Own

Leaders are not standing outside of change directing everyone else through it. We are experiencing it too.

We have our own fears, assumptions, and internal reactions. We may feel pressure to have answers we do not yet possess. We may worry about how the change will affect our credibility, authority, team, or future. If we do not recognize those responses, they will influence how we communicate and lead.

Our urgency may become impatience. Our uncertainty may become overcontrol. Our discomfort may cause us to shut down honest questions from the very people whose support we need.

This is where self-awareness becomes a leadership responsibility.

When disruption occurs, we must pause long enough to notice what is happening within us. What story am I telling myself about this change? What am I afraid of losing? What familiar pattern am I trying to protect? Am I responding to what is actually happening, or to what I fear might happen?

Pause. Reflect. Pivot.

That pause creates room between the stimulus and our response. It allows us to move from reaction to intention. We can then approach the change with greater clarity—and give others the space to do the same.

One statement from Jason’s book captures the urgency of this work:

“The future belongs to leaders who can rewire themselves and adapt faster than the disruption around them.”

That is a powerful leadership challenge. We cannot lead tomorrow’s organizations with yesterday’s thinking patterns. We cannot create adaptable teams while remaining rigid ourselves. And we cannot ask people to move confidently through uncertainty if we treat their natural responses as inconveniences to overcome.

Adaptability Must Become Part of the Culture

Change leadership is not only about getting people through one initiative. It is about strengthening their capacity to navigate the next one.

That capacity is shaped by culture. Leaders teach people how to respond to change through what we model, tolerate, reward, ignore, and repeat. If questions are punished, people will conceal their uncertainty. If every mistake is treated as a failure, people will avoid experimentation. If leaders become visibly frantic whenever plans shift, the organization learns that disruption should produce panic.

What’s rewarded is repeated.

The opposite is also true. When leaders reward curiosity, thoughtful risk-taking, honest dialogue, and learning, those behaviors become part of how the organization operates. When we acknowledge discomfort without allowing it to control the decision, we demonstrate emotional agility. When we openly revise our thinking in response to better information, we make adaptability visible.

This is how personal change becomes organizational capability.

Jason describes this movement as transferring adaptability through culture. It is an important reminder that leaders’ internal patterns do not remain internal. How we think, regulate our emotions, and respond under pressure affects the people around us. Our teams take cues from us about whether change is something to fear, endure, explore, or shape.

Change Still Needs a Catalyst

People may never love every change they experience. That is not the goal.

The goal is to help people become more capable of facing change without being controlled by fear, fixed thinking, or automatic reactions. It is to create enough clarity and trust that they can move forward even when every question has not been answered. It is to help them see themselves not merely as recipients of disruption, but as participants in determining what happens next.

That kind of leadership begins within.

NeuroAdaptive Leadership gave language and science to many of the human dynamics I see when helping leaders manage change. It offers the right balance of research and practical application, making the concepts both digestible and actionable. I gave it five stars and will be recommending it to my clients because the leaders who succeed in an era of constant disruption will not necessarily be those who know the most. They will be the ones willing to keep learning, unlearning, and rewiring.

People love change?

Sometimes.

But with intentional leadership, they can learn to meet it with greater clarity, resilience, and confidence. And when they do, change becomes more than something happening to them. It becomes an opportunity they are prepared to shape.

Change needs a catalyst. That catalyst must be adaptable.