Kotter's 8-step change model (John Kotter, 1995) is a leadership process for successful change: create urgency, build a guiding coalition, form a vision, communicate it, remove barriers, generate short-term wins, sustain acceleration and anchor the change in the culture. Kotter found that most change efforts fail because one of these steps is skipped.
The 8 steps explained
| Step | What it means | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Create a sense of urgency | Show clearly why change is needed now, using facts about threats and opportunities | Complacency: people do not see the problem |
| 2. Build a guiding coalition | Bring together a powerful group with authority, credibility and skills to lead the change | Change led by one person or a weak team |
| 3. Form a strategic vision | Define a clear picture of the future and the initiatives to get there | A vague or overcomplicated vision |
| 4. Communicate the vision | Repeat it through every channel; leaders model the behaviour | Under-communicating by a factor of ten, as Kotter put it |
| 5. Remove barriers | Change structures, systems and incentives that block progress; deal with resisters | Obstacles left in place |
| 6. Generate short-term wins | Plan visible early successes and reward the people involved | No proof that the change is working |
| 7. Sustain acceleration | Use credibility from wins to tackle bigger changes | Declaring victory too soon |
| 8. Anchor in the culture | Embed new behaviours in culture, recruitment, promotion and leadership succession | Old habits return when the push stops |
Kotter's later book Accelerate (2014) updated the wording, for example "enlist a volunteer army" in place of communicating the vision, and presented the steps as running in parallel. ACCA students should know the original eight.
Kotter vs Lewin
| Lewin | Kotter | |
|---|---|---|
| Stages | 3: unfreeze, change, refreeze | 8 leadership steps |
| Style | Broad, conceptual | Practical checklist for leaders |
| Mapping | Unfreeze | Steps 1 to 4 |
| Change | Steps 5 to 7 | |
| Refreeze | Step 8 |
See our guide to Lewin's change model.
How to use Kotter in the SBL exam
- Read what the case says about the change: who is leading it, how it was announced, how staff reacted.
- Use the steps as a diagnostic: which were missed? For example, no urgency, no coalition, no quick wins.
- Recommend specific actions for the missing steps, tied to named people and facts in the case.
- Link to stakeholder management (Mendelow) and to culture tools such as the cultural web where resistance is cultural.
Worked example
If Historic Places (March 2025 pre-seen) launched a digital transformation by emailing staff a new strategy, a Kotter analysis would show weak urgency (volunteers do not see why change matters), no guiding coalition including volunteer leaders, and no quick wins. Recommendations: share visitor and donation data to build urgency, form a coalition of trustees, managers and respected volunteers, pilot virtual tours at a few sites as short-term wins, then build digital skills into volunteer training to anchor the change.
Advantages and criticisms
Advantages
- Clear, practical and easy to communicate
- Strong focus on leadership and people
- Explains why many change programmes fail
Criticisms
- Top-down and sequential; real change is messier
- Limited employee involvement in shaping the vision
- Little evidence base in the original work
- Can be slow for urgent change
FAQs
What are Kotter's 8 steps?
1 Create a sense of urgency. 2 Build a guiding coalition. 3 Form a strategic vision. 4 Communicate the vision. 5 Empower action by removing barriers. 6 Generate short-term wins. 7 Sustain acceleration and consolidate gains. 8 Anchor the change in the culture.
Who created the 8-step change model?
John Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor, in his 1995 Harvard Business Review article 'Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail' and his 1996 book Leading Change.
What is the difference between Kotter and Lewin?
Lewin's model has three broad stages: unfreeze, change, refreeze. Kotter breaks the process into eight practical leadership steps. Steps 1 to 4 roughly match unfreezing, 5 to 7 the change itself, and 8 refreezing.
What are the criticisms of Kotter's model?
It is top-down and linear, so it can underplay employee involvement and the messy, iterative nature of real change. Skipping or rushing steps, especially urgency and anchoring, is a common reason change fails.