TL;DR
- Leading through transformation isn’t a choice, it’s just the job for communicators and marketers who want to stay relevant.
- Change feels hard because it’s a foundational reset where routines break, roles shift, and teams resist.
- Real transformation happens when you intentionally reallocate not just budget, but time, energy, attention and access.
- Learning (and unlearning) should be built into how you operate during transformation. This is where you prioritize experimentation over perfection.
- Burnout doesn’t make a big entrance, it sneaks in. So, normalize rest, check in with people, and lead with boundaries.
- Flexibility is critical, but staying anchored to your business goals is the North Star your team needs when everything else is shifting.
Bottom line: Transformation isn’t waiting for any of us to be ready, and you don’t need to have all the answers to lead through it. The real work happens in the messy, human moments where you choose progress over perfection and bring your team with you. You just have to keep showing up.
How to Lead Through Transformation Without Burning Out
You may have noticed, but it’s a mess out there.
Our industry is more uncertain than ever. We just came out of the longest government shutdown in history, and as I write this, I’m sitting in O’Hare hoping my flight isn’t delayed.
Like I said, things are a mess.
I’m not saying we should all give up, or that things are doomed. But things are rough, and we should acknowledge that.
This shouldn’t be anything new to anyone reading this. We spend most of our days navigating uncertainty, adapting our programs, and delivering results.
But somehow this feels different.
We’re being asked to rebuild the landscape, all while hiking it in broken boots, during a thunderstorm, with a team that keeps asking, “Are we there yet?”
There’s economic uncertainty, rapidly changing consumer behaviors, technology we have to figure out, geopolitical unrest, layoffs, reorganizations, new metrics, tighter budgets, and a reenergized demand to prove our value in C-suite terms.
And have I mentioned that’s just before 9 a.m.?
As a communications professional and leader, a husband, a father, and a human being, I feel it, too.
These past few years have tested every one of those identities. I’ve tried to be everything to everyone, keep the plates spinning, and project confidence when internally I was Googling (or asking ChatGPT), “Does this situation warrant me freaking out?”
And yet, this is the job. Not the tactical stuff, but leading through uncertainty.
Getting through what we’re all experiencing requires a leadership mindset, not just marketing or communications expertise.
The good news is that we’re uniquely equipped to lead in this moment. We understand storytelling, stakeholder engagement, agility, and strategy, so this should be our moment. It won’t be easy, but let’s take a look at how we can do it.
Change Feels Hard Because It Is
Here’s something you should know about me: I hate change, and I love routines.
Every morning, I feed the horses, get my son ready for school, make breakfast, check emails, walk him to the bus, pour a second cup of coffee, and sit back down at my desk. This is my ritual. Mess with it, and the whole system breaks.
I’m guessing you have your own version of this.
But that’s us—humans crave routine. So, when we talk about transformation, it’s no wonder that people dig in their heels. We see it in the workplace all the time. Angry looks, passive-aggressive emails, snide remarks, and so on.
But resistance isn’t always about being stubborn. It often stems from misaligned incentives, lack of clarity, team member burnout, siloed structures, or the simple fear of the unknown.
Let’s also be clear that this isn’t about politics. Yes, that’s part of it, but the level of change we’re experiencing organizationally, culturally, and technologically is more of a foundational reset in how we need to think and operate.
Our job is not to have all the answers, as much as I wish I did. But we should task ourselves to guide our teams through the discomfort with clarity, purpose, and a little bit of grace, because change is hard for everyone, especially those not in charge.
What Leading Through Transformation Looks Like
OK, you get it, we’re in a transformational period.
So what does leading through transformation actually look like for marketers and communicators?
I can tell you it looks different for us than for others inside your organization. It’s also not a pretty chart and a pep talk for your team. It should be gritty, real, and human, and it requires us to flex new muscles to help others do the same.
Here are six areas where that shows up most frequently:
1. Reallocating Resources with Intention
I’m not just talking about money. Time, energy, focus, and access are just as valuable as your budget. During transformation, every one of those is up for renegotiation. You may need to shift your team’s focus, reassign budgets, or decide that a project you used to pour hours into just doesn’t deserve that kind of attention anymore.
The most effective leaders can look into their crystal ball and make decisions that are aligned with the future state of their team, organization, and industry. That means prioritizing what supports business goals, supporting integration over duplication, and saying no to legacy projects that no longer serve your team.
2. Redefining Roles & Responsibilities
The lines between marketing, communications, and other areas have been blurring for years, and it’s time to reckon with what that means moving forward. If you’re still clinging to rigid job descriptions, it might be time to gently let those go.
Earned media experts are now SEO drivers, social media strategists manage communities and analytics, and content managers connect an ecosystem that drives awareness and results.
Roles are evolving based on where value can be delivered, not on titles. But those shifts require clarity and intention so your teams understand what they’re being asked to do, why it matters, and how it connects to the bigger picture.
3. Creating Space to Learn (and Unlearn)
I’ve managed a variety of crises over the years, and one thing I’ve learned is that there isn’t always a “right” answer, especially during times of transformation. If you’re hunting for that right answer, you’re missing the point. Transformation requires the ability to learn as you go and to unlearn what you previously thought was right.
You’ve heard all the cliches—building the plane as we’re flying it, building the road as we’re walking it, or if you’re in the Army, building the tank as you’re driving it.
All of these require experimentation, space for learning (and unlearning), and permission to try things that might not work. Leaders have to model this idea and provide space for their teams to embrace it.
Curiosity, humility, and a little bit of “we’ll figure this out together,” can go a long way.
4. Avoiding Burnout in the Process
We’ve all been there. Burnout is sneaky, and it doesn’t always show up as a five-alarm fire. More often, it sneaks in one meeting, email, and assignment at a time until you realize you haven’t heard a joke in a team meeting in a month.
During these transformational times, we tend to live by Dory’s motto: “just keep swimming,” with our heads down, checking boxes, and pushing forward.
But you can’t outwork burnout (believe me, I’ve tried), and your team can’t either.
So, what do you do?
First, stop pretending it’s business as usual, because it’s anything but. You need to normalize rest, establish boundaries, and make recalibration a regular part of the process. At the end of the day, you need to put your people first and build in time for personal check-ins that aren’t just thinly veiled status updates.
5. Learning From Others
Gini Dietrich tells a story about her agency days when her boss would come into the office and spend the next hour looking through magazines, newspapers, and other relevant publications. She viewed it as a status thing, but in reality, her boss was ensuring she was informed on the latest news because, well, that was her job.
Staying informed is your secret weapon. I try to consume a lot of news, industry, and otherwise. Not because I’m trying to be the smartest person in the room, but because things are changing daily, and staying informed helps me help my team and clients succeed. More importantly, it also helps me prepare for what’s next, instead of reacting to what just happened.
6. Staying Flexible, But Anchored to the Mission
Staying flexible is something I preach daily, and it’s something we all know we have to do. Sometimes it’s all we have. While you have to adapt, you can’t lose sight of your objectives and what success really looks like.
When you don’t know which way is up, you’re staring at a dozen priorities that need to be delivered before COB today, and requests are coming in quicker than you can hit shift+delete, your business goals should be your North Star.
Be sure to keep them front and center, and if you need to, print them out for your team so they are always visible, so your team knows them, sees how their work ties in, and understands why it matters. That kind of grounding gives your team purpose when everything else feels like it’s up for grabs.
The Leadership Stuff No One Prepares You For
Leading during transformational times can be rough, and it’s not always pretty. Yes, we see a lot of the post-campaign social media content congratulating your team, your friends, and your colleagues, but getting there is sometimes messy and confusing.
I’ve led teams through company crises, layoffs, tragic incidents involving both employees and customers, and cultural transformation moments that forced real-time leadership and reflection. And I can tell you none of it was easy. This is the human side of leadership that can keep you up at night.
What made it hard? There were many things, including prioritizing people while also delivering performance, not to mention protecting my own well-being (sometimes unsuccessfully) while trying to show up fully for everyone else, and accepting that I couldn’t fix everything. And then there was learning to lead even when I didn’t have all the answers, which was most of the time.
But those moments also taught me what leadership really looks like, both in my leadership and in the leadership of others. I was surprised over and over by how resilient people can be when they feel supported. I saw creativity and courage emerge when we gave teams the space to figure things out together.
I also saw how much resistance can come from the top when change starts intruding on someone’s comfort zone. As we said earlier, people naturally resist change, even if the house is on fire.
As much as I have learned from those experiences, the learning continues today. I do, however, come back to a few core lessons that guide me:
- Progress (and results) over perfection, because perfect is a mirage, and progress gets you home.
- People first—always. It’s not just a nice saying; it’s how you build loyalty, trust, and long-term results.
- Necessity is the mother of invention. When everything feels like it’s crumbling, that’s often when the most creative, game-changing ideas emerge.
- Effective beats polished. I don’t care how shiny your deck is if it doesn’t move the needle or show results.
We don’t get to lead in a vacuum; we lead in real life, with real people, in real time. It’s chaotic and unpredictable, and it’s exactly where meaningful leadership lives.
You’re the Leader You’ve Been Waiting For
This isn’t a campaign you can launch and call it a day. This also isn’t a quick fix, and it’s definitely not business as usual.
This is our job now, like it or not. Leading through change, guiding your team through uncertainty, and finding steady ground even when that ground keeps shifting is messy, complex, and flat-out exhausting.
But it’s also where some amazing things can happen. When you embrace transformation as an ongoing priority rather than a destination, you start to lead differently.
You ask better questions, listen more, prioritize people, and focus on outcomes. Then you get scrappy, you get clear, and you get moving.
And here’s the awesome part—you don’t need someone to hand you a perfect playbook, because, well, it doesn’t exist.
Remember, this time is unlike anything else, so it’s up to you to create the playbook for what works for you, and believe me, you have everything you need. Just keep showing up, asking “What’s next?”, leading like it matters, because it does.
At Spin Sucks, we talk about how the future of communications is integrated, strategic, and measurable. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t. But it does need leaders who can guide teams through this transition.
And you? You’re exactly the kind of leader this moment needs.
© 2025 Spin Sucks. All rights reserved. The PESO Model is a registered trademark of Spin Sucks.
