If You Keep Avoiding the Problem, You Are the Problem

A reflection from Leading Change by John P. Kotter

This is part of the "Meller Highlights" series with reflections from my personal book highlights.

One thing I’ve been trying to do every day is to pick one idea from my reading and think about how to actually apply it.

Not just understand it in theory, but find a way to live it a little.

Today’s highlight: Leading Change by John P. Kotter

“Whenever smart and well-intentioned people avoid confronting obstacles, they disempower employees and undermine change.”

You can have all the great future vision in the world, a good strategy, the right people, and a clear goal, but if you're not willing to face the hard parts of the game, none of it really works.

And the worst part is that sometimes this avoidance comes from good intentions. You don’t want to upset the team. You don’t want to slow progress. You don’t want to seem negative or bring down the energy.

But when you ignore the obstacle that everyone else can clearly see, it doesn’t go away. It just gets heavier for the people around you.

It shows up in subtle ways…

That blocker nobody talks about in meetings. The recurring problem that keeps coming back, and still no one owns it. The person on the team who isn’t a good fit, but you hope they’ll change. The process that slows everyone down, but no one wants to touch it because it’s “not the right time.”

When leaders look the other way, they send a quiet message: this won’t be dealt with.

So, people stop bringing things up. They start working around the issues. They lose trust in the system. And slowly, the excitement for change fades, not because people don’t care, but because they stop believing anything will actually shift.

Change dies in silence.

If you're in a leadership role, avoiding discomfort is one of the easiest traps to fall into. But it’s also one of the most expensive. Because what you avoid gets louder, messier, and more frustrating over time.

And by the time you finally deal with it, the damage has already been done, not just to the work, but to the culture.

Leading change is about having the ability to name what’s not working. To bring it up before it blows up. To create a space where people feel like it’s safe to speak the truth without being shut down or ignored.

And here’s what’s wild: when leaders do that, even imperfectly, teams notice.

People lean in.
They trust more.
They participate in the change instead of just surviving it.

So maybe today’s reflection is this: what are you avoiding facing?

What’s the uncomfortable truth that’s sitting in the room with you and your team, hoping to be seen?

You don’t need to fix it all today. But you do need to look at it. Because when you don’t, everyone else carries the weight for you.

This is your daily tip, inspired by one of my highlights from Leading Change by John P. Kotter.

If reflections like this help you lead with a little more clarity and courage, subscribe to Meller Notes. One honest step at a time, we move things forward.

This is a free and open article, so I want to check… Was this reading worth a cup of coffee?