How to Restructure: A Leader's Guide to Building and Maintaining Trust

Every so often, something comes along that exposes how organisations really demonstrate leadership. And I don’t have to tell you, that a company restructure is perhaps the greatest example of that something. That’s because of what happens when fear, uncertainty and confusion collide. 

I've spent years watching organisations restructure, and most (but not all) follow a similar pattern: 

1. All the overarching decisions are made in a locked room
2. Only the leadership team is briefed
3. Change is announced to everyone else
4. The single biggest priority appears to be "business as usual." 

Here’s what a lot of organisations forget when it comes to a restructure; it doesn’t just change the org chart, it fundamentally changes:

• How people experience work
• How people define their purpose
• How people perceive their value 
• How people imagine their future 

So it’s vital that you, as a leader, remember that the success of a restructure heavily depends on how you communicate it, how you lead your people through it. 

What leaders communicate in a restructure is almost as important as what they don’t! 

When a restructure goes badly, many leaders blame the timing, the market, or change fatigue. But in reality, the biggest constraint on how well a restructure lands sits much closer to home.

People don't follow restructure plans, they follow the way those plans are communicated to them, for example: 

• If you announce a restructure first, and then explain it later, your teams will fill the silence with worst-case stories.
• If you communicate in corporate language, your teams will assume you're hiding something. 
• If you promise clarity you don't yet have, your teams will remember it the day that promise breaks. 

Even though none of these actions are malicious or intentional, they will have a negative impact on your people, your business and the restructure itself.

 

A restructure is not just a comms exercise for leaders! 

There’s a common assumption that tends to surround restructures: “If I get the communication right. For example, “A solid announcement  + a strong FAQ doc and a quick Q&A to show transparency, the rest will take care of itself”. 

It won’t. 

Not to say that the above isn’t helpful or important, but it should not embody your entire restructure strategy. If you base the success of your restructure purely on a robust comms plan, you end up overlooking  the most important aspect as a leader: to help your people make sense of what the change means for them personally. 

They could be asking themselves questions like: 

• Will I still have a job? 
• Does my new manager rate me? 
• Was my old team's work not good enough? 
• What does this say about how much I'm valued here?

And those questions aren’t going to get answered in a slide deck or FAQ doc, no matter how well worded they are. Instead, those questions need to be answered through honest conversations, consistent and confident leadership.

Why? Because at the end of the day, a restructure without that human clarity will lead to an increase in anxiety and uncertainty, not alignment. 

Appreciate that this is the biggest change most people will ever face at work 

Don’t underestimate the magnitude of a restructure, even if the mechanics and org chart aren’t changing dramatically. Why? Because it doesn't just change their reporting lines, it can also challenge their whole work identity:

• Who you work for and how you see them? 
• Who you work with?
• Whether the years you’ve put in still count for something. 

As a leader, you need to remember that if your people’s sense of belonging has come from their team, their manager, or the way ‘things have always been and worked’, a restructure can feel deeply destabilising. 

A big mistake that often occurs is when leaders downplay this and frame it as ‘just a few small changes to the structure’, which can unintentionally invalidate how your people are feeling. And when your people don’t feel seen, that’s when they start to disengage quietly, or worse, start looking elsewhere. 

Leading a restructure successfully is about recognising that, and for your people it’s personal not administrative. In my experience and having spoken to many professionals that have led through it themselves, real lasting trust demands empathy, patience and visibility from leaders. 

Are you reading the room when communicating your restructure?

Given the sensitive nature of a restructure, most leaders know they need to create a clear narrative. So they often talk about efficiency, growth and future readiness, which makes sense. But, communication without situational awareness and an understanding of your people’s actual state, means you will often miss the mark on getting that buy-in, engagement and trust. At DoThinkDo, when we say state we mean people’s current emotional and cognitive condition, which usually changes depending on the situation. This is different to someone’s mindset which is more of a fixed habitual set of beliefs that tend to be constant. 

For example: 

• If your people are grieving the loss of a team, your efficiency narrative can come across as cold and uncaring. 
• If your people have already lost colleagues to redundancies, your optimism can feel insensitive and out of touch

That’s why you need to consider the state of your people, as well as the narrative you communicate. A restructure requires you to slow down and ask: how is my team actually experiencing this right now, today?

An important aspect to any successful restructure is for leaders to acknowledge the  discomfort of transition for their people. This will build trust, which will eventually end up being the real accelerant for success. 

Don’t mistake resistance for unwillingness, it may just be misinformation. 

One of the most damaging mistakes that you can make during a restructure is interpreting quiet resistance (the folded arms in a Q&A, the unanswered emails, the sudden drop in engagement) as difficult behaviour.

People are worried about their role, their team, their manager, and their future. So it’s important to remember that given how many restructures they may have already lived through, this wariness and reluctance is entirely rational. According to research by Weick & Sutcliffe, this is also known as ‘weak signals’, (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) and organisations that successfully navigate change are the ones that stay alert to these faint signals. 

Don’t make the mistake of labeling hesitation as a mindset problem, or you will miss a critical signal: resistance isn't something to push through, it's something to listen to. It tells you where clarity is missing, where trust is fragile, and where support is needed most.

If the last restructure left people feeling unheard, the logical response to any further change will be one of caution. So as a leader, your job is to understand this and evaluate the state of your people to make the process feel safer. This can be done by talking honestly and clearly about what will change and what won’t, being upfront about what you don’t know, and showing people that their contributions have been recognised. 

It’s also important to remember that it’s okay not to have all the answers, it’s more important to be confident and honest about what you communicate. If not, you’ll be at risk of creating a leadership vacuum that can get filled with rumours, negativity and mistrust. 

 

Top tips to communicate a restructure successfully

Now let’s talk about what effective leadership communication really looks like in a restructure. 

Firstly it starts with something you can’t outsource: Ownership. You need to own the restructure process and show up for your people, you need to: 

• Treat the restructure as a human transition not a project one
• Communicate early and honestly (regardless of having all the answers or not) 
• Allow space and time for questions, doubt, grief and confusion
• Acknowledge the uncertainty that will arise without amplifying it
• Reinforce the value of people’s past contributions, their efforts and their feelings

Above all, you need to recognise that a restructure is as much about trust as it is about structure. People don't commit to a new org chart because it's logical, they commit because they still feel valued and purposeful within it.

Make no mistake, a restructure will expose how you lead

How you lead your people through a restructure will reveal a lot about you as a leader, how you respond to uncertainty, anger and fear, whilst also managing the technical process.

This is one of the hardest things your people will face at work, so leading them through it well doesn't require the perfect structure, but it does require honesty, empathy, judgement, and courage.

That’s why at DoThinkDo we created a programme, Leading Through Change, which can help leaders navigate changes like restructures with confidence and clarity, while also understanding the state of their people and how to bring them on the journey with them. Leaders will learn how to adapt their messaging and their communication styles, manage challenging conversations and guide their people to understand and engage with change. 

You can find out more and get in touch here: https://dothinkdo.com/programmes/leadership-and-talent 

At the end of the day, the organisations that restructure successfully will be the ones whose leaders are brave enough to admit that it’s hard, communicate accordingly with empathy and honesty, and who are constantly looking out for the state of their people.

A restructure may be about the shape of the organisation, but the leadership required to get it right is always  about the people inside it.