How to Lead Meaningful Change When Youโre Not at the Top
Mar 16, 2026Most leadership advice is written for people at the top.
Most change, however, is led from the middle.
That tension runs throughout this conversation with Andrea Dunn.
Her work required navigating priorities from senior leadership, concerns from faculty, operational realities from staff, and lived experiences from students—all at the same time. No single authority could make that work happen alone.
What made the difference was credibility built through relationships.
Andrea describes how successful change required early conversations, transparency about trade-offs, and respect for existing workflows. Rather than treating resistance as obstruction, she treated it as information—often revealing timing issues, workload constraints, or values that needed to be honored.
One powerful insight from this episode is how change feels different depending on where you sit. A small process update can feel trivial to leadership and overwhelming to those supporting it daily. Leaders in the middle are uniquely positioned to translate between those perspectives.
The payoff of this kind of leadership is trust.
When people feel seen and heard, they are more willing to experiment, adapt, and support shared goals. Change becomes something people participate in—not something that happens to them.
If you’re leading without positional authority, this episode affirms an important truth: influence grows through empathy, consistency, and follow-through. You don’t need the final say to make a meaningful difference.
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