Transitions: Managing Change While Maintaining Stability

This article was originally published in December 2024, in the AGA Journal of Government Financial Management, Winter 2025 Issue, pp. 62–63.

Across government, people are constantly working to implement change on a massive scale. Government leadership transitions often make these efforts only more challenging and complex. Teams must ensure the continuity of government programs and services while simultaneously supporting new leaders and adapting organizations to new policy priorities. At the same time, uncertainty, with the shifts in people, processes and technology that come with transition, can make it harder for these teams to do their jobs.

We can help prepare for inevitable transitions by balancing the desire for stability and belonging with the mandate for change. While transition requires leaders to guide change and help teams implement new and different policies, leaders must also focus on team stability, the psychological foundation for high performance. This column shares insights, provides resources and highlights ways for leaders to navigate a dynamic environment successfully.

Managing Change

Policy leadership transitions bring significant shifts in priorities that often require transformational organization changes. As leaders, our job is to build the work environment and provide context for teams to navigate change successfully.

Start with yourself. Leading change requires introspection.¹ A leader needs to understand what support, direction or guidance the organization or team needs to shift to new, urgent priorities. Try asking managers and team leaders for feedback to inform your next steps. For example, are your one-on-ones or other communications providing them with the forum they need to share feedback, ask questions, raise ideas or address risks?

 Understand the change. This includes understanding the forces and processes of change to enable an effective plan.² Perform an environmental scan of policies and priorities and engage with others to learn about these forces and processes. Policy statements, press releases and transition team members can provide context. Sharing what you learn will help the team understand the new direction, set goals and objectives consistent with the vision, and develop an implementation plan.

Create a plan. The Partnership for Public Service’s Agency Transition Guide covers core management principles for overseeing transitions, including planning for change with effective program management and a work plan.³ Early planning should center around what incoming policy officials need to understand about the organization to advance their agenda, including known issues; existing people, processes, and technology; budgets; audit and oversight concerns; and risks. Leaders should anticipate impediments and challenges and implement strong program management principles to enable adaptability.

Communicate. During transitions, staff can feel pushed and pulled in many different directions, which leads to frustration and burnout. Leaders should model and establish norms and safety for honest, open and respectful dialogue to engage and empower staff. Explain the need for actions and how they align with the organization’s purpose. By placing strategy and goals into a broader organizational context, leaders can help people see the purpose, or the “why” behind the change.⁴ Communication goes in both directions—listening and collecting different perspectives, experiences and feedback is equally important. This understanding can inform communications to meet both individual and organizational needs. Leaders can help advance a culture of curiosity, learning and respect for differences by underscoring the importance of collecting diverse perspectives and ideas.

Maintaining Stability

With all of the changes that government transitions entail, maintaining a sense of stability is just as important as managing said change. Uncertainty and organizational change can be disruptive in many ways. New administrations mean not just new policies and priorities, but also new agency policy leaders tasked with implementing these policies. These new leaders bring their own preferences and styles that teams will need to adapt to quickly. It may mean new team structures, policies or processes—in some cases impacting the team’s established social networks, day-to-day rituals and sense of control. It can even impact the sense of value that their work provides them.

While transition requires leaders to guide change and help teams implement new and different policies, leaders must also focus on team stability, the psychological foundation for high performance.

While a leader cannot control these impacts of organizational change, they can help by creating a sense of stability. In a July article from the Harvard Business Review, researcher Ashley Goodall provided several insights into how one can manage stability by focusing on what will be constant.⁵ Goodall’s research showed that what teams did consistently created a sense of ritual. For example, one team ritualized mutual support. Team members started each week with a call to share what they were working on and where they needed help. At week’s end, they recognized team members that helped them or others on the team. This weekly ritual helped ease stress and increased a sense of belonging. Goodall wrote that speaking truth, “even when it describes change, is, in itself, a source of stability.”

Leading Through Transition

As leaders, we must navigate the balancing act of managing change while maintaining stability in order to guide our teams through transition periods. By leveraging best practices to engage and empower staff, we enable high-performing teams and individuals to execute their duties, grow their careers and build better government.

Endnotes

1. Pant, Narayan. “Leading Change May Need to Begin with Changing Yourself,” Harvard Business Review, 2023.
2. Stobierski, Tim. “5 Tips for Managing Change in the Workplace,” Harvard Business School Online, 2020.
3. “Agency Transition Guide,” Partnership for Public Service Center for Presidential Transition with Boston Consulting Group, 2023.
4. Ashkenas, Ron. “To Lead Change, Explain the Context,” Harvard Business Review, 2015.
5. Goodall, Ashley. “Creating Stability Is Just as Important as Managing Change,” Harvard Business Review, 2024.