Identifying Change Fatigue in Teams: Insights from the Energy-Commitment Model

For higher education leaders and managers, the ability to recognize the early signs of team-level change fatigue can determine whether initiatives gain traction or stall under the weight of collective psychological exhaustion.

Change fatigue is marked by a progressive depletion of psychological resources, which erodes the capacity of people to stay engaged in their work, adapt to new demands, and sustain long-term transformation efforts. The Energy-Commitment Model (ECM) describes the relationship between individuals' available energy and their commitment to organizational change and establishes that successful change depends on sustaining sufficient levels of both throughout the transition.^Footnote1 While the ECM offers a useful conceptual framework for understanding these dynamics and the various levers that impact engagement, it also raises a practical question which remains unresolved: How can leaders recognize when change fatigue is taking hold, not just in theory, but as a real-time condition that demands action? This article aims to address this question to help leaders move from anticipating potential areas of fatigue to detecting and managing it during the change process.

Why Recognition Matters

How leaders interpret team behavior during change efforts directly shapes how they respond. For example, when employees appear disengaged, cynical, hesitant, or otherwise struggle to adapt to a change, leaders may assume employees are resisting a particular change and treat it as a motivational issue to be addressed through persuasion or compliance. Or, leaders may believe employees don't have a clear understanding of expectations and respond by providing additional education or training. These assumptions can backfire, with leaders applying reasonable solutions to the wrong root problem and ultimately reducing the effectiveness of their efforts.

Change fatigue is neither unwillingness nor a lack of understanding of what to do. It reflects a reduced ability to sustain effort, attention, and emotional engagement over time. In Swedish, the word orkar means "to have enough energy to." It captures the experience of being unable to act due to energetic depletion, regardless of whether the desire is there. While orkar captures the personal, moment-to-moment experience of depleted energy, change fatigue builds gradually through repeated depletions related to intense, ongoing demands.

Change fatigue is a long-term, systemic condition that can leave individuals and groups unable to adapt to or engage with new initiatives.^Footnote2 While related to issues such as stress, burnout, overload, and other phenomena, it is distinct in both scope and impact (see table 1).^Footnote3 Notably, change fatigue results from the cumulative impact of frequent and intense change inside and outside of the organization. It can affect entire teams or institutions rather than just individuals, and it persists even after specific stressors have been resolved.^Footnote4 Left unaddressed, change fatigue may evolve into change cynicism, a generalized belief that change efforts are futile. Change cynicism is often tied to mistrust in the leadership responsible for the change. Cynicism is frequently mistaken for resistance, but it is more accurately understood as the result of unresolved exhaustion and helplessness in escaping the cycle, rather than defiance.^Footnote5

Table 1. Change Fatigue in Context

Term	What It Describes	How It Differs from Change Fatigue
Change Fatigue	Systemic depletion from ongoing or repeated change	—
Stress (acute)	A short-term response to pressure or demands	Stress is acute; change fatigue builds slowly and persists
Burnout	Individual emotional exhaustion and cynicism	Burnout is typically associated with an individual rather than a whole team or organization
Overload	Temporary excess in task demands	Overload is situational; change fatigue may continue after the initial stressor is gone
Resistance	Pushback or reluctance to engage with a change	Change fatigue is a depletion, not unwillingness
Cynicism	Belief that change efforts are futile or insincere	Cynicism is often a late-stage symptom of prolonged change fatigue, not initial pushback

Addressing change fatigue requires a different approach than these other seemingly similar phenomena. It requires lowering the energy-commitment threshold by implementing strategies that restore energy and support connection and commitment. When change fatigue is misdiagnosed, leaders risk applying solutions that miss the mark, delay progress, and deepen disengagement and cynicism.

Change Fatigue Impacts the Team, Not Just the Person

As employees experience energy depletion, they often seek support from team members who are experiencing their own energy-resource challenges, compounding strain and forcing teams to function with fewer resources. This interdependence creates a cascading effect in which change fatigue spreads beyond individuals, affecting collaboration, morale, and decision-making across teams and the wider organization. Over time, even high-performing teams find it harder to collaborate, adapt, or maintain momentum. Without an intentional effort to restore those resources, the result is slower progress, strained relationships, and diminished capacity to absorb further change. Table 2 outlines how change fatigue erodes core team resources, laying the groundwork for identifying when change fatigue may be taking hold.

Table 2. Fatigue Impact on Team Resources

Resource	Fatigue Impact
Time	Tasks take longer due to reduced focus, slower processing, and increased rework
Effort	Teams contribute less discretionary effort, slowing momentum and progress while reducing quality
Cognitive Bandwidth	Decision-making quality drops as teams struggle to prioritize or process complexity
Emotional Resilience	Teams become more reactive, showing signs of frustration, tension, or withdrawal
Relational Capacity	Collaboration, morale, and trust erode as stress accumulates and patience wears thin

Ignoring change fatigue may create a compounding deficit. Each new initiative demands more resources than the team has available. Change fatigue should be understood not as a precursor to change failure, but as a state that must be actively managed throughout the change process.

Purpose of the Study

Drawing on our combined experience in higher education and organizational leadership, we have been researching the impact of fatigue on change initiatives and have sought to create a framework for detecting signs of change fatigue at the team level. This aligns with the ECM's focus on understanding the energy side of the change equation, especially in change-fatigued environments where commitment alone (an employee's internal drive or inclination toward change) is no longer sufficient to trigger engagement.^Footnote6 Developing a framework for recognizing and responding to change fatigue as a current condition is a first step toward equipping leaders with tools to course-correct during change efforts, rather than evaluating energy and commitment only at the outset of an initiative.

Method

Participants were recruited through professional networks, leadership forums, and higher education associations. Respondents were eligible if they held a formal management or leadership role and had firsthand insight into how a team or unit was performing and adapting during change. All participation was voluntary and anonymous to encourage honest responses and reduce pressure to answer in socially desirable ways.

Survey Design

The survey was designed to capture both quantitative and qualitative data with a focus on self-reported change fatigue levels and specific change fatigue signals observed in teams (see Appendix). It consisted of four key sections: (1) overall team change fatigue assessment; (2) open-ended responses where managers described the top signs of team change fatigue; (3) Likert-scale ratings (from one to five) of potential change fatigue signals based on previous research and industry knowledge; and (4) contextual questions about recent organizational changes that might contribute to change fatigue. Survey items were developed based on existing research on change fatigue and were reviewed by a panel of subject matter experts in organizational psychology, change leadership, organizational development, and higher education administration to ensure clarity and relevance.

Data Analysis

We examined how often certain behaviors occurred and how strongly they were linked to reported levels of team change fatigue. Statistical tests were used to compare groups with low, medium, and high fatigue and to identify the most reliable indicators of fatigue. We also reviewed participants' written comments to identify common themes and examples that helped explain the quantitative data. These open-ended responses provided context and deeper insights into what teams are experiencing during change. Finally, the results were analyzed by leadership role to explore how change fatigue is recognized and interpreted across different levels of the organization.

Findings and Discussion

Of the 118 responses collected, fifty-eight met the eligibility criteria. This group included twenty-eight managers or supervisors (48.3 percent); nineteen deans, department chairs, or directors (32.8 percent); seven senior executives (12.1 percent); and four in other formal lead roles such as project managers or team leads (6.8 percent).

Fatigue Is Widespread

Most respondents (89.7 percent) reported that their teams were experiencing moderate or high levels of change fatigue. When asked how levels of change fatigue had shifted over time, more than 60 percent indicated that team change fatigue had increased in the previous six months. Additionally, most (75.9 percent) described change fatigue as moderately or highly widespread across their units. More than 80 percent of teams had experienced three or more major organizational changes within the prior six months, with 17.2 percent describing continuous or overlapping changes.

Observable Signals of Change Fatigue

To understand signals of change fatigue, leaders rated how often they observed nine different behaviors and how much they perceived these behaviors as impacting their teams. Five behavioral signals emerged as statistically significant (see table 3).

Table 3. Statistically Validated Fatigue Signals with Interpretations

Validated Signal	Description	Interpretation
Errors and Oversights	Mistakes, missed deadlines, or rework	Cognitive overload and performance breakdown
Last-Minute Absences	Unplanned absences or schedule changes	Behavioral withdrawal from overload
Slower Output	Decreased speed or momentum	Energy depletion; reduced work pace
Fewer Ideas and Less Initiative	Less creativity, innovation, or discretionary effort	Reduced engagement and psychological energy
Collaboration Breakdown	Increased isolation, tension, or team withdrawal	Strongest signal; indicates social strain and fragmentation

Leaders shared the following observations and things they find the most concerning in open-ended survey responses:

• "They (team members) try hard to adapt, but change comes at them fast."
• "Collaboration is becoming more difficult, along with the lack of ideas and willingness to take initiative."
• "The increased mistakes, missed deadlines, or oversights. My team works hard to minimize mistakes and oversights, but with so much changing, it becomes increasingly difficult to know what is going to happen until it happens. We learn for next time, but it may be annoying/inefficient for this time."

The remaining four signals—(1) low participation in meetings, (2) increased frustration or negativity, (3) over-reliance on a few individuals, and (4) delays in routine tasks—did not meet the threshold for consistent statistical association. However, increased frustration or negativity and overreliance on a few individuals appeared frequently in open-ended responses, suggesting that change fatigue may not be evenly distributed across teams. In some cases, particularly where negativity is present, unaddressed change fatigue appears to morph into change cynicism.

The following responses illustrate how change fatigue manifests across teams:

• "Higher level of errors and increased negativity or complaints."
• "Increasing reliance on a few key people."
• "The erosion of trust and participation."

These findings point to a core set of behavioral signals that are both measurable and observable, while also highlighting where the qualitative insights diverge from the statistical results, particularly around sentiment and workload distribution. These behaviors reflect the ECM's focus on energy depletion and indicate when teams might slip below the engagement threshold, even when they remain committed to change.

Structural Disruptions Amplify Fatigue

Across the open-ended responses, one theme stood out more than any individual behavioral signal: structural disruption. While the survey focused on team-level change fatigue behaviors, many participants said that leadership turnover and repeated reorganizations often led to unclear roles, shifting priorities, and breakdowns in coordination and relationships. These conditions made change fatigue more persistent, more intense, and harder to manage.

"It's hard to prioritize and get things done when you're exhausted all the time and constantly expending mental energy adapting to the latest change. Change here comes from the university level, the college level, and the division level, and those layers do not coordinate and plan together, so they're often rolling out different things at the same time, or back to back to back, and it doesn't leave us with enough time to do our actual jobs."

Reorganizations and similar changes disrupt so many parts of people's mental model that they can be more destabilizing than expected. All changes require teams to adapt, but structural changes alter the routines, relationships, and role clarity that make ongoing adaptation possible.

It's important to note that although structural changes are particularly impactful, they are sometimes necessary. Executives may need to realign teams, introduce new leadership, or restructure departments to remain responsive, efficient, or financially sustainable while adapting to the changing organizational needs. However, these changes carry a higher energy cost than other types of change and therefore raise the commitment threshold. Even relatively small initiatives can become more draining when they're layered on top of an environment where the organizational foundation already feels unstable.

Fatigue Is Seen Differently Based on Leadership Tier

While change fatigue was evident across roles, the level of reported change fatigue varied significantly by leadership tier. Forty-two percent of managers and supervisors were most likely to report high change fatigue, while only 28 percent of deans and directors and 14 percent of senior executives said the same.

Table 4. Change Fatigue Levels by Leadership Role

Role Group	High Fatigue	Medium Fatigue	Low Fatigue	% High Fatigue
Manager/Supervisor	10	14	0	41.7%
Dean/Director	6	11	4	28.6%
Senior Executive	1	5	1	14.3%

These findings suggest that change fatigue is experienced and recognized differently depending on where leaders sit in the organization. Managers and supervisors are embedded in the daily operations of their teams, where signs of change fatigue may be more immediate and visible.

Executives, in contrast, may operate at a distance from these dynamics. Their visibility into team change fatigue is often filtered through metrics, reports, or secondhand updates, rather than direct observation. They may also have greater autonomy and access to resources that buffer their own experience of change fatigue. Because their role is to drive organizational change, they may experience a cognitive bias toward reinforcing that role, which may cause them to unintentionally downplay or miss signs of team fatigue.

This creates a perception gap with meaningful consequences. When executive leaders, who are farther from the front lines, assume that change fatigue is mild or under control, they may underestimate the need for support, pacing adjustments, or interventions until signs of change fatigue escalate into disengagement, missed goals, or attrition. These role-based differences don't reflect neglect or indifference; they reflect the realities of leadership and organizational structures. The challenge is to bridge these different perspectives so that change fatigue signals are acknowledged and addressed before they escalate.

Together, these findings suggest that recognizing and managing change fatigue requires attention to behaviors and alignment across roles, awareness of structural strain, and ongoing calibration of change intensity.

Limitations

As a convenience sample, the study reflects the perspectives of self-selected higher education leaders and may not represent all institutional contexts. The findings should be interpreted as indicative of patterns rather than as predictive or causal.

Implications for Practice

This study underscores that change fatigue is both widespread and has measurable and visible signals, but it is not always evenly recognized across an organization. Managers and supervisors tend to detect behavioral and relational change fatigue signals earlier, while senior leaders may see a more filtered or delayed picture. For senior leaders tasked with driving long-term student and institutional success, recognizing the impact of change fatigue on organizational strategy and transformation becomes a vital part of their approach.

Implications for Leaders and Managers

• Watch for the behavioral signals, especially when they cluster or persist during or after significant changes. These signals may include increased errors and oversights, unplanned or last-minute absences, lower team output or momentum, a noticeable drop in new ideas or initiative, and breakdowns in collaboration. When these signs accumulate or continue over time, they may indicate that a team is operating below the threshold needed to remain engaged with change.
• Don't confuse change fatigue with resistance, and watch for emerging cynicism. Resistance calls for persuasion, but change fatigue requires energy restoration. When change fatigue and negative sentiment appear together, cynicism may be taking hold. Addressing cynicism calls for more than persuasion—it requires rebuilding trust while simultaneously managing change fatigue. Bolstering capacity, and therefore lowering the energy commitment threshold and changing mindsets, can shift how teams reengage with change.
• Account for the high energy costs of structural changes. Structural shifts deplete more energy than procedural or technical changes because they disrupt the systems teams rely on to adapt. Leaders should buffer these changes with relational stability, clarity, and recovery time.
• Bridge the perception gap. Leaders at all levels need aligned visibility into team conditions. Managers may need more support and flexibility, while senior leaders may need additional feedback loops that capture team strain as a risk to success before it leads to failure.

Looking Ahead

These findings help operationalize the ECM by describing concrete signals leaders can look for to detect change fatigue in real time. By identifying these signals, leaders can take targeted action to restore momentum and support teams throughout the change process.

While this study focused on identifying signals of change fatigue and how they vary by leadership level, it also raised deeper questions. Future work will offer more detailed guidance on how different types of change (e.g., structural, procedural, cultural, and technical) carry distinct change fatigue risks and how leaders can better buffer those changes to preserve sufficient team energy and commitment for change initiatives to succeed.

Appendix

Survey

Section 1: Identifying Change Fatigue in Teams

1. Overall, how would you assess your team's current level of change fatigue?

• ☐ Low Fatigue—Minor slowdowns, but overall functioning well.
• ☐ Medium Fatigue—Noticeable strain, some team struggles.
• ☐ High Fatigue—Major disruptions, reduced effectiveness.

2. How has your team's fatigue level fluctuated over the past six months?

• ☐ Consistently low—Minimal fatigue throughout.
• ☐ Mostly stable—Some fluctuations but no major shifts.
• ☐ Increased progressively—Fatigue has built up steadily over time.
• ☐ Fluctuated significantly—Periods of high fatigue followed by recovery.
• ☐ Decreased progressively—Fatigue was high but has been improving.

3. How widespread is change fatigue among your team members?

• ☐ Not widespread—A few individuals are experiencing fatigue, but the majority are unaffected.
• ☐ Moderately widespread—Some groups within the team are affected, but others are still operating normally.
• ☐ Highly widespread—Fatigue is common across most of the team and is impacting overall team functioning.
• ☐ Extremely widespread—Fatigue is present in nearly all team members and significantly affects work outcomes.

Change Fatigue Signal	Frequency (1 = Never, 5 = Very Often)	Impact on Team Effectiveness (1 = No Impact, 5 = Major Impact)
Increased work errors (e.g., mistakes, missed deadlines, or oversights)
Lower participation in meetings or discussions
More last-minute absences or schedule changes
Slower work output or decreased efficiency
Increased reliance on a few key people to carry the workload
Fewer new ideas or willingness to take initiative
More frustration, complaints, or negativity about work
Delays in completing routine tasks that were previously done on time
Collaboration has become more difficult (e.g., team members are more withdrawn)

4. Which of the change fatigue signals in the previous question concerns you the most? (open-ended response)

Section 2: Organizational Context and Change Frequency

5. How many major organizational changes has your team experienced in the past six months?

• ☐ 1–2 major changes (e.g., large technical implementations, strategic direction shifts, significant funding changes, restructures, top-level leadership changes)
• ☐ 3–5 major changes
• ☐ 6+ major changes
• ☐ Continuous or overlapping changes

6. What is your role in the organization?

• ☐ Senior Executive (President, Provost, VP, Associate VP)
• ☐ Dean, Associate Dean, Department Chair, Director
• ☐ Manager or Supervisor (Academic or Administrative)
• ☐ Other:

7. Additional comments on your team's experience with change fatigue: (optional, open-ended response)

8. What has your team done to manage or cope with change fatigue? (optional, open-ended response)

Notes

1. Joseph Drasin and Tacy Holliday, "Navigating Change Fatigue: The Energy-Commitment Model for Organizational Change," EDUCAUSE Review, November 6, 2024. Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.↩
2. Cody B. Cox, Emily Gallegos, Gregory J. Pool, K. Matthew Gilley, and Natasha Haight, "Mapping the Nomological Network of Change Fatigue: Identifying Predictors, Mediators and Consequences,"Journal of Organizational Change Management 35, no. 4/5 (2022): 718–733. Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.↩
3. Jeremy B. Bernerth, H. Jack Walker, and Stanley G. Harris, "Change Fatigue: Development and Initial Validation of a New Measure," Work & Stress: An International Journal of Word, Health & Organisations 25, no. 4 (December 2011): 321–337; "Work Change: More Changes Produce Greater Levels of Fatigue, Leading to Increased Burnout, Strain, Intention to Leave and Decreased Engagement," Human Resource Management International Digest 31, no. 5 (2023): 8–9. Jump back to footnote 3 in the text.↩
4. Ibid. Jump back to footnote 4 in the text.↩
5. Noufou Ouedraogo and Mohammed Laid Ouakouak, "Antecedents and Outcome of Employee Change Fatigue and Change Cynicism,"Journal of Organizational Change Management 34, no. 1 (2021): 158–179; John P. Wanous, Arnon E. Reichers, and James T. Austin, "Cynicism about Organizational Change: Measurement, Antecedents, and Correlates,"Group & Organization Management 25, no. 2 (2000): 132–153. Jump back to footnote 5 in the text.↩
6. Drasin and Holliday, "Navigating Change Fatigue." Jump back to footnote 6 in the text.↩

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Tacy Holliday is an Adjunct Professor at University of Maryland Global Campus.

Joseph Drasin is Assistant Vice President at University of Maryland.