Leadership Momentum: Sustaining Big Changes

By Andrea Bednar | #ConsciousDoing #MasterExecutiveCoach

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The Problem with Big Changes

Most leaders have been here: you rally the team, declare a bold new direction, make the first moves, and feel the energy lift. People nod, lean in, and say, “This is exactly what we needed.”

And then—three weeks later (if that long)—the momentum fades. Meetings slip back into the old rhythm. Urgency disappears into the ether. The organization returns to familiar patterns, as if gravity pulled it back to the way things were.

This is not a failure of vision. It’s a failure of momentum.

And momentum is where leadership either becomes catalytic or collapses.

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Impact Without Momentum Fizzles

In last week’s blog, I argued that the measure of leadership impact isn’t what you do, but what changes in others because of you. Impact matters. But here’s the catch: without momentum, even real impact dissolves.

Think of a courageous decision that briefly unlocked new possibilities, only to be buried under the weight of business-as-usual. Or a team breakthrough that turned into a story people tell—rather than a pattern they sustain.

Impact opens the door. Momentum walks the team through it.

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The Seduction of Big Bangs

Leaders often mistake the big bang moment for transformation. The offsite where everyone cries and bonds. The keynote that lights up the room. The dramatic restructuring. I see meeting planners, leaders, CEO’s going for this big bang moment every single day when they consider hiring us for keynotes, or even, to facilitate a strategy meeting with the senior team. 

Those moments do matter—they shake the system. But shaking isn’t sustaining. And this is the place where I see our client’s most needing support. 

What makes the difference is not the fireworks and tears, but the quiet practices that follow. Leadership momentum isn’t about keeping adrenaline high; it’s about building the rhythms that carry change forward long after the adrenaline fades.

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Momentum is Fragile

Here’s why momentum collapses so easily:

 • The pull of the familiar. Human systems default to old grooves. Without ongoing, supported practices, gravity wins.

 • Overconfidence. Leaders assume the energy of the launch will self-sustain. It never does. I’m going to repeat that: IT NEVER DOES. 

 • Neglect. Leaders move on to the next big initiative before the last one takes root. This one is also emotionally crushing for those who got invested in the last idea. You’ve heard of “program du jour?” 

Momentum requires as much leadership attention after the shift as before. But most leaders get distracted, bored, or resigned too quickly.

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What Momentum Really Looks Like

Momentum isn’t constant hype. It isn’t endless enthusiasm. It’s the steady movement of a team that keeps growing capacity, deepening trust, and aligning action—even when the novelty wears off.

 • In a team with momentum, deep trust stabilizes.

 • Decisions don’t get made faster just this once—they keep accelerating.

 • Ownership doesn’t get handed off—it begins to spread. More ownership across more people.

You see momentum when the effects of impact don’t fade, but accumulate—trust deepening, courage spreading, ownership multiplying.

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A Case from the Field: Signal Clarity in Action

I worked with a global engineering firm where the senior team had just come through a massive transformation effort. They had restructured, clarified roles, and launched new strategic priorities.

For three months, the energy was high. People spoke boldly in meetings. Decisions moved faster. It felt different.

And then… the pulse weakened. Side conversations re-emerged. Leaders hedged instead of debated. Decisions slowed.

We used Signal Clarity from the Team Alchemy framework to diagnose the loss. The problem wasn’t the strategy—it was that the team had lost a shared rhythm. Each leader was tuning into their own frequency again.

We reintroduced a simple practice: weekly alignment checks, 20 minutes, where each leader named where they were seeing clarity and where the signal was muddy.

It wasn’t flashy. But it rebuilt rhythm. After two of those alignment check meetings, momentum returned. Not because of another big push—but because the team had a structure to stay in sync.

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Why Leaders Underestimate Momentum

Leaders love beginnings. They love launches, rollouts, bold declarations. They also love results. But the messy middle—the work of sustaining—rarely excites them.

Why?

 • It doesn’t feel heroic.

 • It requires patience and discipline.

 • It means giving attention to the same practices, again and again.

But here’s the paradox: sustaining momentum is where the real identity-level shifts occur. It’s where teams prove to themselves, we are different now.

Without that, big changes are just big moments.

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The Role of Practices

This is why we emphasize practices. Why we emphasize #ConsciousDoing. A practice isn’t a slogan or a pep talk. It’s a specific action, done with frequency and duration, that turns insight into capacity.

Momentum is practice-made.

A leader who wants to sustain change can’t rely on charisma or intensity. They must install practices—individually and collectively—that keep the new way alive long enough to become the default.

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What Kills Momentum

Let’s be clear about the common killers of leadership momentum:

 1. Inconsistent modeling. If you and your senior leaders don’t embody the change consistently, momentum will die.

 2. Competing priorities. When the next shiny initiative distracts attention, the last one erodes.

 3. Unmeasured progress. Without noticing wins—small or large—teams lose sight of why they’re sustaining effort.

 4. No accountability. Without shared ownership, everyone assumes someone else is carrying the change.

Momentum doesn’t collapse because the change was wrong. It collapses because leaders let go of the discipline to sustain it.

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From Spark to Sustaining

So how do you move from a spark to sustained momentum?

 • Keep naming the new behaviors out loud, and calling them out in the team’s practice when they happen so they become the story the team tells itself.

 • Build a simple, visible scoreboard for the change you’re sustaining.

 - What will you measure?

 - How will you measure it? (Create more than one way to measure)

 - When will you discuss the realities and wins on the scoreboard? 

 - Who will you discuss the scoreboard with? What outcome will you create for that conversation?

 • Hold short, steady “momentum checks” to notice slips and progress. Encourage your leaders to do this with their directs as well. 

 • Ensure accountability by being clear about roles, responsibilities, reporting structures, and timing. Most importantly - be sure that accountabilities are distributed. Create a collaboration among the accountability holders. 

 • Treat conflict, friction, and setbacks as opportunities for learning, growing, and as showing you the way towards sustainability. 

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Case from the Field: The Bottleneck CEO, Revisited

Last week I told the story of a CEO who broke his bottleneck habit by handing off ownership. That breakthrough mattered. But what mattered more was what came next.

Momentum required him to keep saying no to his old reactions. For six months, he practiced declining to weigh in on decisions that weren’t his to make. Make no mistake - this was hard. 

At first, his team kept circling back, testing whether he’d revert. But each time he refused, the team grew more confident. Eventually, the habit shifted from his identity to theirs: they no longer sought his permission for what was theirs to decide.

That’s leadership momentum. Not the spark of one bold handoff—but the compounding effect of refusing to backslide.

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Sustaining Momentum Requires Friction

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: momentum doesn’t survive in ease. It survives in friction.

Teams that never face pressure relapse. Teams that use friction—debates, conflict, setbacks—as showing the way to sustainability deepen their capacity for momentum.

Momentum isn’t about smooth sailing. It’s about using everything (including turbulence) to reinforce the new identity.

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Momentum Isn’t Energy, It’s Infrastructure

Momentum isn’t a mood or a vibe. It’s not “our energy is high.”

Momentum is a system condition: the interplay of trust, clarity, ownership, and resilience, practicing, experimenting, and compounding.

When leaders stop treating momentum as hype to maintain—and start treating it as a system to sustain—they stop chasing adrenaline and start building permanence.

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What You Can Do Now

You don’t need another launch event or vision statement. You need to sustain the change you’ve already begun.

That means:

 • Talking about the ‘why’ we’re doing this at least weekly.

- Holding the practices steady.

 • Staying consistent longer than feels natural.

 • Choosing one or two practices and repeating them relentlessly.

- Supporting your accountability holders (even if it feels like you shouldn’t have to)

 • Naming wins often enough that the team remembers why it’s worth it.

- Remembering: it’s easier to start than to sustain. What makes the difference is whether you can keep your own energy steady as the novelty fades.

Big changes matter. Sustaining them matters more.

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Engage With This Now

Inquiry:

Where has momentum faded after a big change in your leadership? Ask this—not to assign blame, but to notice the system’s default pull. What can you learn when you see how quickly the familiar pulls you back? What’s the job of the default pull (or what’s right about the backwards pull - what does it keep in place)?

Action:

Choose one change initiative in your organization that sparked energy but has since slowed. This week, bring the team together for a short conversation: what’s worth sustaining here, and how do we re-ignite it? Everyone takes one action generated in the meeting within 36 hours. 

Practice:

For 30 days, hold a weekly, 20-minute “momentum check.” Ask your team: What feels like it’s on a wonderfully greased slide? Where are we slipping back? Where are we sustaining? Where do we need friction to deepen the new way? Keep it short, keep it steady. Watch momentum compound over time. After 30 days, have the team evaluate this momentum check practice. What has it produced? Do we keep it, tweak it, or change it? 

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Last Word

Leadership momentum isn’t about hype, fireworks, or inspired tears. It’s about discipline. It’s about staying with the change long enough that it becomes identity, not activity.

Leadership impact is the change you spark. Leadership momentum is keeping that change alive long enough to matter.

In the age of AI—where efficiency is cheap—the only leaders who matter are those who can sustain the human momentum no machine will ever touch.

Andrea Bednar is a Master Executive Coach specializing in Leadership Development. Connect with Andrea at www.AndreaBednar.com for more insights on conscious leadership and operational excellence.