Everyone deserves a page through change

In organisations facing relentless change, leaders are often told to rebuild trust. But trust at scale doesn't rebuild. It breathes, expanding and contracting with every pressure. This article explores what actually sustains people through constant change, and why shared authorship matters more than chasing trust.

Change as a boxing match

Sometimes change feels like a boxing match. You step into the ring knowing you'll take a few hits; it's part of the job. Some you absorb and keep moving. Others catch you in the gut, the air disappears, your vision narrows, and all you can think is breathe. Just as you get your rhythm back, another hit lands.

In one organisation I led, that was the pattern for six years: two significant structural change processes, two sector reforms and a pandemic. It never really ended, for our people or our sectors, and it isn't supposed to. This is the match we choose to step into. The question is how we keep breathing through it, and how we help our people breathe through it too.

The moment it hit me

I remember one meeting clearly. Someone said, "You've lost our trust, and I don't know how you're going to get it back."

That landed like a punch. It was the last thing I wanted our people to feel. I believed I was pouring everything into showing care, creating safety and putting people first, but that isn't how it felt to some of them. In that moment, it felt like none of it was enough.

Over time I realised the flaw wasn't so much in the effort as in the assumption. You can't rebuild trust, not at scale, and not in a system that never stops moving.

Trust doesn't rebuild. It breathes.

Organisational trust isn't a structure. It's a breath. It expands and contracts with every pressure: funding, reform, leadership change, political shifts, technology waves.

Brené Brown describes seven elements of trust: boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, non-judgement and generosity. But even if you address all seven, you may still miss the bigger picture. Crisis-communication expert Philippe Borremans points to Peter Sandman's work, in which trust is just one of twelve "outrage factors" that shape how people respond under stress.* The others, including fairness, control, responsiveness and morality, move on their own rhythms.

When fairness dips or people lose control, trust tightens. When leaders act with moral clarity and genuine responsiveness, the breath steadies a little. So we need to stop chasing trust on its own. The air will always thicken and thin. The work is to keep the organisation breathing, especially when the hits keep coming.

How we kept breathing

We focused on what we could control: our rhythms. Regular kōrero and catch-ups. Weekly updates. Open feedback loops. Investment in our bicultural journey, including te reo, tikanga and mātauranga Māori. Reconnecting with our organisational identity reminded us who we were when everything around us was shifting: our passion and our purpose.

Our values became daily anchors:

• Tika: doing what's right, even when "right" looks different to each person.
• Pono: staying true to ourselves and our kaupapa.
• Aroha: leading with respect and care, especially when pressure rises.

Over those six years, revenue grew from seven to nine million and then contracted again as the funding tide turned. Through every shift, our funders stayed with us and our people kept fighting for what we were there for. That's resilience: keeping confidence and belief alive when certainty and stability aren't on offer.

Shared authorship, shared breath

That resilience isn't a solo act. It's collective, kotahitanga in motion: different minds standing together and writing the next line.

When we faced a 10% funding cut, we ran design sprints. People's ideas shaped what came next: which programmes we'd prioritise or close, how we'd model our fees, and how we'd begin exploring digital tools. It wasn't about consensus or perfect alignment. It was collective authorship under pressure, giving everyone a part in designing the way forward.

In practice that meant sharing information early, even when it was uncomfortable. Co-designing direction rather than seeking input after the fact. And explaining the "why" behind decisions so people understood both the context and the outcome.

When everyone owns a piece of the story, no one is left guessing what's next. Each person holds a fragment of the picture, and the leader's job is to gather those fragments, make sense of them together, and co-author the next draft of the future. It's shared authorship with accountability. Everyone deserves to write a page, even when they don't agree with everything being written. And if you're part of the story, you fight for it.

What holds

There's no calm after the crisis anymore. So the work isn't rebuilding or repairing trust. It's supporting people through the stressors, holding fairness, control, responsiveness, morality and trust in balance, so people can keep faith in the next round.

That's what resilience looks like now: staff who stay and still believe, stakeholders who keep backing the vision, organisations that remember who they are between the punches, and leaders who keep doing their best to protect their people and their purpose. Small, human systems that keep everyone breathing together through constant change.

Reflection

• What sits underneath the trust you're chasing? Which of boundaries, reliability, accountability, vault, integrity, non-judgement and generosity is under most strain?
• What other factors, such as fairness, control, responsiveness and moral clarity, are affecting your team right now?
• How might your leadership change if you focused less on being trusted and more on creating conditions people can rely on?
• What systems, rituals or rhythms could keep your team breathing together through constant change?

A big part of leadership today is keeping your people breathing when the air gets thin.