When change requires you to challenge people's familiar reality, it can be difficult, dangerous work. Whatever the context--whether in the private or the public sector--many will feel threatened as you push though major changes. But as a leader, you need to find a way to make it work.

Ron Heifetz first defined this problem with his distinctive theory of adaptive leadership in Leadership Without Easy Answers. In a second book, Leadership on the Line, Heifetz and coauthor Marty Linsky highlighted the individual and organizational dangers of leading through deep change...