In this blog you will:
In most transformation journeys, the route isn’t clear at the start. Priorities shift, dependencies emerge, and decisions need revisiting. In that reality, one question quickly becomes mission-critical:
When transformation ownership is fuzzy, execution slows down, accountability diffuses, and leaders unintentionally step back while “the programme” steps forward. That’s exactly where change leadership must be activated—so the work becomes leader-led transformation, not consultant-led, project-led, or PMO-led.
In The Nutcracker, Anne Kloosterboer (co-CEO of LQ) explains why transformations derail in practice: ownership for the organisational transformation is not felt. When leaders don’t feel it, people don’t follow it.
So how do you make change implementation genuinely leader-led?
A practical way to create role clarity is to distinguish between two core roles in change leadership:
The change leader provides direction and makes the calls. They lead the change with head and heart—setting priorities, initiating the right dialogues, and taking decisions when trade-offs are needed.
This role typically sits with the person who carries the primary responsibility for business results.
The change enabler orchestrates and coordinates the transformation process. They support the organisation with structure, cadence, methods and follow-through.
This role is often filled by strategy, HR, finance, or IT business partners, programme or project managers, change managers, or external consultants.
Important nuance: people can switch roles depending on the moment. An IT director may act as a change enabler while implementing digital solutions across the business, and still be the change leader within their own department.
The point isn’t the job title. The point is role clarity: who leads the change—and who enables it.
A leader-led transformation becomes real when leaders consistently do the work only they can do:
Appoint and guide the team leading the transformation through planning and implementation
Set the course through vision, inspiration, and a compelling change story
Define principles and guardrails, and make key design and investment decisions
Have the tough conversations and reinforce the new behaviours
Coach other change leaders and help them fulfil their leadership role effectively
Change enablers help the organisation move faster and more consistently—without taking over ownership:
Teach the team how to apply change methodologies and techniques in practice
Support the design and implementation of transformation solutions
Identify obstacles, put them on the agenda, and ensure action is taken
Coach leaders to strengthen their change leadership in the day-to-day
If you want to go into more detail on whether the tasks and responsibilities corresponding to change leadership are being executed, take a look at the checklist in the Nutcracker PDF.
To activate change leadership, it helps to let people experience the two roles in workshops.
We ask participants to “wear the cap” that best fits their role in the transformation—change leader or change enabler. That simple exercise makes three things visible fast:
some people are wearing the wrong cap
some need clarity on their role
some don’t yet see what part they play
Clarifying this early has enormous benefits: it prevents drift, avoids duplication, and strengthens transformation ownership where it belongs.
And yes—leaders and enablers can temporarily cover tasks for each other. That’s healthy in a complex organisational change. As long as the balance is not lost, and you remain explicit about who is playing which role.
In many organisations, titles imply change leadership: sponsor, change agent, ambassador, transformation director, and so on. These are often assigned to a select group.
But here’s the downside: everyone else may assume they have no role to play.
A common example: a project gets a dedicated change manager, and the line manager assumes the change manager “owns the change”. In reality, the line manager is a crucial change leader—but because the role wasn’t explicitly named, its importance is underestimated.
Another frequent source of confusion is misleading terminology. Someone heading a transformation programme may carry the title Transformation Director, while functionally acting as a change enabler to the business. The actual business results still sit in the line. The title can unintentionally create passivity among real change leaders (e.g., Business Unit Directors), because it suggests ownership sits elsewhere.
You can still appoint specific roles and titles – sponsors, for instance – as long as everyone is clear about their role in change leadership.
What happens when change leaders are not aware of their role? This is what Niek faced as programme manager during a major ERP implementation.
Business leaders agreed the ERP programme was essential—yet their actions said otherwise. Critical decisions were delayed. Meetings were cancelled. With go-live two months away, Niek recognised the pattern: if this continued, the implementation would fail.
So he asked the CFO (one of the sponsors) to bring the business leaders together for a two-hour session.
Niek shared two stories:
one where the ERP implementation failed, causing business discontinuity
one where the ERP implementation succeeded, went live smoothly, and monetised the intended benefits
He then made the contrast painfully concrete.
Leaders resisted the system, local teams were understaffed, and the project was deprioritised. The central programme office stayed “at the helm”, while red flags weren’t raised—or weren’t received—early enough.
The go-live became a disaster: missed customer deliveries, millions in damage, extreme stress, and multiple burnouts.
Leaders tied their success to a successful implementation. They staffed a strong local team with detailed milestone planning. The central programme team worked with the local team, not instead of them.
Testing and simulations were taken seriously. Progression to the next phase required sign-off by local business leaders. When readiness wasn’t there, go-live was delayed by two months. The eventual go-live was smooth—and enough capacity was freed up afterwards to capture the full value of the system.
The CFO then asked: which case resembles ours most?
The room went quiet. It was clear they were heading for failure.
Finally, the CFO introduced the two roles—change leader and change enabler—and asked the leaders to compare their change leader responsibilities to what they had left to the programme team. The mismatch was obvious.
Once role consciousness was raised and consequences became tangible, behaviour shifted. Leaders stepped back into the change leader seat, missing conditions were put in place, and the eventual go-live went smoothly.
That’s what leader-led transformation looks like: leaders owning the change, supported by enablers—without outsourcing responsibility.
