Change Confidence: Reclaiming Inner Ground in Uncertain Times

Author: Gisela Wendling, Ph.D.

We often think of confidence as something solid, something we either have or don’t. But during deep change, especially when it’s personal or high-stakes, confidence can suddenly fall away. What once felt stable can feel shaky. You might question your instincts, hesitate to speak or wonder if you are still the kind of leader others trust.

This is not unusual. In fact, it may be a sign that something important is happening beneath the surface.

Ego Loss or Emergent Self?

In transitional moments, what the Liminal Pathways Change Framework™ calls the liminal phase, leaders often experience what feels like a collapse of familiar confidence. The strategies, roles and instincts that used to work no longer feel aligned. It can feel like a breakdown of identity, as if the person you’ve known yourself to be doesn’t quite fit the current reality.

But this is not necessarily a crisis. Often, it is an invitation.

In psychology, this disorientation is sometimes referred to as ego restructuring. This is a temporary unraveling of how we make sense of who we are. It is not unusual. It is often the way transformation begins.

What begins to emerge is not a louder or more certain version of confidence. It is something quieter. It is the capacity to stay present, grounded and aligned even when outcomes are unknown. This is not confidence based on having all the answers, but on being in a creative relationship with uncertainty.

What Is Change Confidence, Really?

Change confidence is often misunderstood as boldness, certainty or the willingness to charge ahead. In reality, it arises more quietly—from grounded presence, not performance. Although it is not the primary aim of the Change Maker’s Competency Wheel™ (Wheel), it is a natural expression of what becomes possible when you develop the underlying transformational competencies.

The Wheel helps individuals, leaders and guides cultivate the inner clarity, emotional steadiness, somatic awareness and practical understanding needed to navigate complex transitions. When these capacities deepen, change confidence emerges: an embodied sense of steadiness and orientation in the midst of uncertainty.

The Wheel is inspired by Gandhi’s use of the spinning wheel as a daily practice of renewal and resistance. Just as Gandhi’s spinning reclaimed agency and shaped possibility, the Wheel points to the alchemy at the heart of transformation—the way disruption, when consciously engaged, can be spun into insight, meaning, resilience and new direction. It reminds us that we become the change not through sheer will, but through attunement to what is unfolding within and around us.

Seen this way, change confidence is not a fixed trait or something to perform. For a leader, it shows up as the ability to stay flexible yet grounded as emotions rise and fall. For a facilitator or coach, it means supporting others without rescuing or controlling the process.

Ultimately, this form of confidence is less about asserting readiness and more about growing readiness, moment by moment, in response to what is emerging. It comes from connection to your own internal landscape, to others in the field of change and to deeper sources of meaning and support. It says: “I may not know exactly where we’re going, but I trust my capacity to meet what comes next.”

The Change Maker’s Competency Wheel

The Change Maker’s Competency Wheel outlines four domains that work together to support this kind of confidence:

Change Literacy (Mind): Understanding how change works, developmentally, emotionally and structurally, gives leaders orientation and helps them make meaning, even when plans fall apart.

Inner and Outer Guidance (Spirit): Drawing from intuition, values and trusted sources of support strengthens a leader’s connection to what matters most and offers orientation when logic alone is not enough.

Emotional Fluidity (Heart): The ability to work with emotion, rather than avoid or suppress it, allows leaders to stay connected, honest and human, inviting trust and deeper participation from others.

Somatic Awareness (Body): Tuning into physical signals, such as tension, fatigue or activation, helps leaders recognize early signs of stress or misalignment and make grounded, wise choices.

When these dimensions are in alignment, leaders experience whole-system coherence. This is a state in which their thinking, feeling, sensing and deeper knowing are fully integrated and interactive. In this state, confidence is embodied.

How Change Confidence Supports Growth

The Transformational Competency Assessment is designed to support leaders in strengthening their capacity to navigate transformation. It reflects where you are currently resourced, and where you may feel under-supported, across all four domains of the Wheel.

Here is how working with the Assessment can help:

1. Awareness Builds Choice: You cannot shift what you cannot see. The Assessment surfaces patterns, such as when confidence drops in emotionally charged moments or where your conceptual framework needs strengthening.

2. Naming Reduces Shame: Losing confidence in the middle of change does not mean you are failing. It means you are human. The Assessment helps normalize the disorientation and invites compassion rather than judgment.

3. Integration Supports Alignment: By reflecting on the interplay between body, mind, heart and purpose, you begin to build internal alignment. Confidence becomes less dependent on control and more rooted in coherence.

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening… What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope.”

—Thomas Merton

A Confidence of a Different Kind

Change confidence is not the absence of fear or doubt. It is the ability to stay in relationship with what is unfolding, even when clarity is incomplete. It allows you to move through, relate to others and lead change, not because you are unshaken, but because you are willing to stay present.

It is what allows a leader to say, “I don’t know yet, but I’m here for it.”

Change confidence is not a mask. It is not a role. It is an inner alignment that holds steady, even when the world around you is shifting.

Learn more about The Change Maker’s Competency Wheel, take the new Transformational Competency Assessment in our workshop, Stepping Into Your Transformational Agency (SITA), or grow your capabilities as a transformational leader through our leadership coaching offerings.

If you would like to bring this workshop to your organization or engage our consulting services, please contact us at [email protected].