The leadership changed. The priorities shifted. The narratives in the corridor multiplied. And somewhere in the middle of it all, she still had a team that needed to be led.
Organisational transitions test leadership in ways that stability never does. Not because the competencies required are different — they aren’t — but because the conditions under which those competencies must be exercised are so much harder.
The Vacuum and What Fills It
When leadership changes, something predictable happens before clarity arrives: the vacuum fills. With speculation. With projection. With stories — about who’s in, who’s out, who’s aligned with whom, what it all means.
Leaders who are visible, established, and capable become characters in stories they didn’t write. Their behaviour is interpreted through the lens of the transition, not the lens of who they actually are.
And the temptation — entirely understandable — is to manage that. To be careful. To wait and see. To say little until the landscape is clearer.
This is, in most cases, exactly the wrong instinct. Silence in a vacuum doesn’t preserve neutrality. It invites interpretation.
Making Your Position Legible
What I’ve seen protect leaders’ integrity in transition periods is something different from communications management. It’s transparency of principle.
Not: here are my allegiances. Not: here is my position in the new order. But: here are my working values. Here is what I’m here to do. Here is how I’ll show up regardless of who’s asking.
This isn’t naive. It’s strategic — in the deepest sense. Because in uncertain environments, the leaders who are hardest to mischaracterise are the ones who make their operating principles consistently visible.
Coach’s Reflection: In transitions, clarity about who you are matters more than clarity about what will happen. The former is within your control. The latter, rarely.
Call to Reflection: What are the two or three working principles that you would want people to associate with your leadership — regardless of who is watching?
Yatish Chandrasekhar is an Executive Coach and Leadership Consultant at The Yogi Compass. He works with senior leaders across industries to help them discover their True North. If this resonated, he’d love to hear from you.