Resistance: A key driver for leading change

Resistance can be seen as negative and counterproductive but what if resistance is telling us something we really should pay attention to? Understanding our personal resistance is not easy, it’s complex. It can be influenced by cultural or political factors, by rational and non-rational thoughts, familial pressures and more. When you couple any of these with personal beliefs it can significantly impact our approach to change.

Change and challenges inevitably bring discomfort and deep uneasiness. Discomfort is something we can spend a lot of time and energy avoiding. We develop strategies that help steer us away from exploring personal difficulties or trying something new. Surprisingly we can also tolerate discomfort if it means challenging the status quo in order to be genuinely authentic. After all the Votes for Women campaigns in the early twentieth century achieved equal voting rights for women after over 30 years of resistance to the status quo.

Unhelpful resistance

Telling ourselves ‘Oh that’ll never work’ or ‘I don’t want to talk or think about this’ when faced with a potential change is a sign that unhelpful resistance is at play. Unhelpful resistance can show up as apathy, a disinterest in something changing or the need for change. Then there’s passivity, knowing something has to change or is changing but being submissive and not getting involved. Unhelpful resistance keeps you in your comfort zone, not questioning those things you’ve always accepted but which are not working in your favour anymore. This keeps you to your current state of being, your status quo.

Helpful resistance

This kind of resistance feels different, it has energy and it can be a powerful motivational force. Helpful resistance can encourage deep conversations and can be an incubator for alternative solutions, innovation and creativity which assist personal growth and make change work. BUT you have to be prepared to consider and question your resistance and to what extent you have internalised external ‘rules’ to keep yourself safe. This safety comes from the natural need to feel that we can handle life. It takes courage to explore and challenge the way that things have always been yet is it the way to personal growth.

Questions for personal growth

• Why am I resistant?
• Why am I apathetic?
• What is it that I'm battling with?
• What am I trying to protect?
• What is getting in the way?
• How is the status quo serving me?
• Where do my values fit with this?