How Leadership Belief Powers the Most Successful Transformations

As the pace of change accelerates, the stakes for business transformation have never been higher. Our latest research reveals a critical insight: the single most powerful driver of successful transformation isn’t the strategy you choose, but the belief your leaders share about the journey ahead.

Russell Reynolds Associates’ Transformational Leadership Study finds that transformation is no longer a choice; it’s an imperative. Nearly three out of four (74%) business leaders surveyed believe their organizations are on a path to failure without fundamental change in the next decade. And despite widespread recognition of the need to transform, less than one in three (29%) leaders say that their organization has been very or extremely successful in its transformation efforts.

Our research shows numerous factors that impact the success of any transformation effort. Many success drivers are obvious—clarity of your transformation strategy or the role participation plays in building commitment. But the most surprising? Belief. It turns out that organizations in which senior leadership share a belief that change is necessary, and that the path forward is the right one, have a much higher success rate than those where belief is not widely held by senior leaders. Throughout this research, belief emerges not as blind optimism, but as leaders’ collective confidence in a transformation approach that they have helped shape and stress-test.

Belief in the transformation: A true differentiator

A striking gap exists between commitment, understanding, and belief at the top of organizations. When we asked C-level leaders to rate their personal commitment to and understanding of their organization’s transformation efforts, most responded positively (Figure 1). The vast majority described themselves as extremely committed (81%) and agreed that they understood the transformation their organization is undergoing (77%). Yet fewer than half (43%) believed their organization was taking the right approach to transformation.

Figure 1: The commitment-understanding-belief gap

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates 2025 Transformational Leadership Survey | Among C-level leaders (n=485)}

This gap matters

While commitment and understanding certainly play a role in shaping transformation outcomes, when compared to executive belief, their impact diminishes. We found that belief in the transformation approach is exponentially more influential in transformation success –9.4x more than commitment and 14.2x more than personal understanding (Figure 2). Importantly, belief does not emerge in isolation. It reflects a leaders’ confidence that the transformation approach is realistic, well designed, and worthy of the collective effort. When there is an absence of belief, it may signal not simply a resistance to change, but unresolved concerns about the quality or viability of the transformation itself.

This mirrors the patterns we observe in our client work, where we see misalignment between individual, team, and organizational readiness for change. Why? Because leaders and teams often over-or under-estimate their own readiness, and because few fully grasp that transformation requires a structured, sustained process, not merely strong intent.

Figure 2: Relative importance analysis: Executive outlook on the factor’s driving transformation success

^{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates 2025 Transformational Leadership Survey | Among C-level leaders (n=452)}

Belief is not just about trusting a process, but about seeing evidence and proof points along the journey. When CEOs and C-suite leaders believe the organization is taking the right approach, transformation efforts are far more likely to yield favorable results. Still, fostering belief is no simple feat. Organizations are complex human systems, shaped by not only processes and structures, but also culture, habits, and history. These elements create organizational inertia–a powerful resistance to change that can undermine even the most ambitious transformation agendas.

In other words, if leaders do not truly believe that the transformation is being approached in the right way, even the most committed teams may struggle to deliver meaningful change. This finding reframes the challenge: before driving transformation across the organization, CEOs must ensure their top team is aligned around a transformation approach they genuinely believe will work. In situations where belief can’t be established, it may in fact be an early warning sign that elements of the transformation plan itself may require more careful review.

Leadership actions that build organizational belief

CEOs must do more than set strategy—they must actively cultivate conviction across the leadership team. This requires more than declaring a vision; it’s about co-creating purpose, inviting leaders into the transformation journey, and modeling the courage to change. Relentlessly communicating purpose, encouraging productive disagreement, and building a compelling narrative are all essential for driving belief from the top.

But building belief isn’t just a matter of words; it’s tangible leadership actions that bring people into the process. Leaders can turn conviction into momentum by:

• Crowdsourcing change: Engaging the organization by asking what needs fixing, not just relying on top-down mandates.
• Creating proof points: Delivering visible, tangible evidence that change is happening.
• Empowering discovery teams: Tasking teams to uncover what’s not working and to share their findings.
• Fostering shared experiences: Developing collective experiences and shared stories to build belief.
• Earning trust by action: Building trust through consistent proof and follow-through, demonstrating that trust is earned by action, not just by words.

In this way, leaders move from simply setting direction to inspiring genuine belief, turning transformation from an abstract idea into a shared organizational movement.

From belief to action: The C-suite as catalyst for change

Once belief is firmly established within the leadership team, the work shifts to activating and sustaining that belief across the broader organization. Developing this shared belief across your leadership team helps then filter this transformation through the entire organization, as people are more likely to follow leaders they believe in. The C-suite must do more than simply endorse change; they must become catalysts, clearly articulating the case for transformation, “waking people up” to the need for change, and maintaining momentum throughout the journey. This means amplifying belief by identifying and empowering influential leaders at every level, fostering honest dialogue, and making the transformation narrative compelling and accessible. By aligning incentives and reinforcing desired behaviors, C-suite leaders create the conditions for lasting change to take hold.

Embedding change through collective belief

Ultimately, successful transformation isn’t just about strategy or leadership intent. It’s about building an organization where change is part of the culture and belief in the journey is continually renewed. When belief in the transformation journey is nurtured at all levels, change becomes more than a mandate: it becomes a shared movement and an enduring part of the culture. Through persistent leadership and collective conviction, organizations can overcome inertia and build lasting resilience.

Want to learn more about organizational inertia, the pillars of transformational leadership, or how to create the conditions for lasting change ?

Download our full research report

Authors

Ela Buczynska is a member of RRA’s Center for Leadership Insight. She is based in Chicago.

Gabrielle Lieberman leads RRA’s Center for Leadership Insight. She is based in Chicago.

Bob Marcus is a senior member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Leadership Advisory practice. He is based in New York.