The Wheel of Change in Action: A Real Operations Head Case Study
How I applied Marshall Goldsmith's Wheel of Change to my own Operations Head Shrimant's real leadership challenge — and what every manager in India can learn from it.
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"The Wheel of Change in Action: A Real Operations Head Case Study","description":"How I applied Marshall Goldsmith's Wheel of Change framework to my Operations Head Shrimant's real leadership challenge — a practical guide for Indian managers in 2026.","image":"https://avinash-gallery-worker.avinashchate-abc.workers.dev/avinash-1775992335358-4zbtta.webp","keywords":"wheel of change leadership,Marshall Goldsmith framework India,operations head leadership challenge,create preserve eliminate accept,leadership framework for managers India,corporate leadership training Pune,leadership development 2026,Avinash Chate leadership","articleSection":"Leadership, Personal Development","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Avinash Chate","jobTitle":"Founder & Director, The Future Corporate","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/avinashchate","https://www.youtube.com/@AvinashChate"]},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Avinash Chate","url":"https://avinashchate.com"},"datePublished":"2026-06-28","inLanguage":"en"} Most leadership books give you frameworks that feel brilliant in theory and vanish the moment you step back into Monday morning. I wanted to write something different in The Winning Edge, The Champion Mindset — real tools applied to real people with real pressures. Chapter 12 is about one of those tools: Marshall Goldsmith's Wheel of Change . And the story I use to bring it alive is not a famous CEO or a Harvard case study. It is the story of my own Operations Head, Shrimant. Shrimant manages more than 50 employees spread across multiple locations. He is brilliant at the technical side of his work, trusted by his team, and deeply loyal to the organisation. But when I sat down with him one afternoon and asked him a simple question — "What does your leadership actually look like right now, versus what it needs to look like?" — the conversation that followed was the most honest, most useful planning session either of us had experienced in years. I am sharing that session here because I believe every manager reading this has a Shrimant-moment waiting to happen. All it takes is sixty minutes and the right framework. What Is the Wheel of Change? Before I walk you through Shrimant's story, let me give you a clean picture of the tool itself. Marshall Goldsmith's Wheel of Change is built on four quadrants. You ask yourself four questions about your current leadership behaviour: CREATE — What new behaviours, habits or systems do I need to build that do not exist yet? PRESERVE — What is already working well that I must protect and continue? ELIMINATE — What am I currently doing — or tolerating — that is actively costing me and my team? ACCEPT — What is simply the reality of my role that I need to stop fighting and start working with? The genius of this model is in its balance. Most leadership planning sessions focus only on what to add — more skills, more processes, more meetings. The Wheel of C…
← Back to all articles · Book Avinash Chate
By Avinash Chate — Maharashtra’s #1 Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker. .