Start Less, Finish Better: Leading Through Change Fatigue At Year's End

If you lead people, you can feel it in the air at the end of the year.

On paper, it's “reflection and planning season”, but in reality, it often looks like:

• Half the team is exhausted

• The other half is pretending not to be

• And every leadership meeting comes with a slide titled “2026 Priorities.”

  
  

Every year around this time we tell ourselves the story that January will be a "fresh start" with new goals, new initiatives, and new strategies.

But the uncomfortable truth is that for a lot of people, “new” has often turned into “more.” And the more things you stack on top of a year that was already heavy, the faster you slide from possibility into change fatigue.

What change fatigue actually feels like

Change fatigue doesn't just happen...it's not like people are just resistant or that they don't like change.

Change fatigue usually sounds like:

• “Didn’t we just roll out a new process for that?”

• “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure which version we’re using anymore.”

• “If I wait this out, this initiative will probably disappear like the last one.”

So really, it's not that people are against change, it's more that they are tired of the whiplash of poorly planned changes. They are tired of re-learning systems that never get enough time to stick. They are tired of being told that every new thing is “urgent” and “transformational.”

So if you are thinking about how to lead into a new year, the question is not:

“How do I get my team excited about all this new stuff?”

A better question is:

“What would it look like to give my team a sense of stability and direction at the same time?”

This is where Pillars & Walls comes in.

A quick refresher: What is Pillars & Walls?

In my book, Pillars & Walls, I talk about two simple categories that exist in every organization:

• Pillars are the non-negotiables. The values, practices, or commitments that define who you are at your best. If you remove them, the whole structure shifts or collapses.

• Walls are the structures that can move.The policies, processes, org charts, tools, and routines that are meant to protect the pillars, not replace them. Walls can be knocked down, repainted, rebuilt, or relocated.

  
  

Change fatigue often happens when leaders keep reconfiguring walls without ever naming the pillars.

If your team can't answer, “What is staying the same no matter what?” then every new change feels like a threat. When the pillars are clear, change can stop feeling like a complete identity crisis and starts feeling more like renovation/innovation.

It's definitely not easy, but possible.

Year-end reality check: What actually stayed stable this year?

Before you announce a single new initiative for next year, try this with your leadership team:

1. Name three to five true pillars.These are not slogans/buzz words. They are practices you actually protect with time and behavior.For example:

   • “We give direct reports honest, developmental feedback at least quarterly.”

   • “We design meetings so that the people closest to the work speak first.”

   • “We do not trade psychological safety for short-term results.”

   If you cannot point to real evidence that you defend it, it is not a pillar yet. It is a poster.

2. List your big “walls” from this year.These might include: new performance management tools, a revised org chart, a new LMS, a coaching program, a strategic planning process.

   Ask: Which of these walls actually helped hold up our pillars, and which ones were just… boxes we built because someone said we needed more structure?

3. Be honest about the churn.Where did you abandon something you launched in January? Where did you introduce “pilot” after “pilot” without a clear through-line?

   
   

This reflection sets you up to use Pillars & Walls as a practical filter, not just a metaphor.

Using Pillars & Walls to fight change fatigue in the new year

Once you have named your pillars and walls from this past year, here are three moves you can make going into the next one.

1. Start the year by telling people what will not change

Most leaders start the year talking about what is new.

Try flipping that:

• “Here are the three things that are not changing this year, no matter what.”

• “Here is how these pillars will show up in our decisions about staffing, budget, and priorities.”

• “If a proposed change conflicts with these pillars, we will either not do it or we will redesign it.”

You reduce anxiety when people know what they can count on. Pillars provide that anchor.

2. Put every “new idea” through a walls audit

Before you say yes to another initiative, ask:

• Which pillar is this meant to support?

• Which existing wall will we remove or redesign to make space for it?

• Who will actually own the maintenance of this wall, not just its launch?

Change fatigue explodes when leaders keep adding walls and no one is allowed to knock any down.

If you introduce something new without retiring something old, you are not innovating. You are hoarding.

3. Make tradeoffs visible, not secret

Behind the scenes, leaders make tradeoffs all the time. The problem is, your staff often only sees the “add,” not the “remove.”

Use Pillars & Walls language out loud:

• “We are sunsetting this report because it is not actually supporting our pillar of meaningful data use.”

• “We are redesigning our team meeting structure because the current wall is getting in the way of our pillar of voice and collaboration.”

• “We are keeping this messy, imperfect process in place for another year because, while it is annoying, it still serves our pillar of equity better than the alternatives we have.”

People can handle imperfection. What wears them down is feeling like decisions are random, reactive, or politically motivated instead of grounded in anything real.

What about when you are the one tired of change?

Let’s be real for a second. Sometimes the biggest source of change fatigue is not “staff.” It is you.

You might be:

• Tired of defending the same pillar in every budget meeting.

• Tired of explaining the vision while the walls keep shifting around you.

• Tired of being the person who sees the long-term pattern when everyone else is stuck in this week’s fire.

Using the Pillars & Walls frame is not only for your team. It can help you diagnose your own exhaustion:

• If you are exhausted because you have no pillars, you will feel like you are rebuilding your identity every quarter.

• If you are exhausted because you have too many walls, you will feel like your job is maintaining a museum instead of leading a living organization.

• If you are exhausted because your pillars and your public decisions do not match, you will feel like you are constantly out of integrity.

End-of-year is a good time to ask yourself privately:

“What do I want to be a pillar in my leadership?”“What walls have I helped build that I regret?”“Where do I need to be braver about aligning my behavior with what I say matters?”

That is the real leadership work.

Bringing this to your team in a real way

If you want to use Pillars & Walls with your team, here is a simple structure for a 60–90 minute start-of-year session:

1. Warm-up: Timeline of change.Have people jot down the major changes they experienced this past year on sticky notes and quickly group them. Name the impact. Not to complain, but to tell the truth.

2. Pillars: What held us up anyway?Ask: “In spite of all that, what did we still protect?” Capture the behaviors, norms, or decisions that felt non-negotiable in a good way. That is your raw material for pillars.

3. Walls: What needs to move?Look at your current processes, meetings, tools, and policies. Ask:

   • “Which of these is truly protecting a pillar?”

   • “Which are we keeping out of habit or fear?”

   • “If we could knock down or rebuild one wall in the next quarter, what would it be?”

4. Commitments: Start less, finish better.Close by asking:

   • “What will we not start this year?”

   • “What will we finish or clean up before we launch anything new?”

   • “How will we hold each other accountable for calling out when a wall stops serving a pillar?”

If you are over performative change, you are not alone

A lot of leaders secretly feel guilty about how much change they have pushed through the system. Some of it necessary. Some of it is reactive. Some of it might be because “everyone else is doing it.”

The end of year is your chance to reset the pattern, not just the calendar.

• Name your pillars.

• Get honest about your walls.

• Start less. Finish better.

  
  

And if you want support bringing this into your organization in a structured way, this is exactly the work I do through Learning & Leadership Consulting.

Whether it is a Pillars & Walls workshop with your leadership team, a series for managers on leading through change fatigue, or a strategy session to align your 2026 initiatives with your actual pillars, we can design something that meets you where you are without adding more chaos to your plate.

Your people are not tired of change...they're tired of change that isn't clear and meaningful.