A senior leadership meeting with an executive presentation is not just a communication event. In change management, it is a facilitated live engagement or learning intervention designed to turn senior leaders from passive approvers into active sponsors, decision-makers, and visible role models. Prosci identifies active and visible sponsorship as the top contributor to successful change, while PMI found actively engaged executive sponsors to be a top driver of project and program success [Prosci, 2021; PMI, 2014]. (prosci.com)

This action matters because impacted groups watch what leaders do, not only what the project team says. A well-run executive session creates a shared understanding of the change, confirms the leader role, surfaces resistance early, and produces practical next steps that help managers and employees adopt new ways of working.

This action is a structured meeting, briefing, workshop, or leadership forum where senior leaders receive a clear executive presentation and participate in discussion about the change. It usually includes the case for change, expected impacts, adoption risks, decisions needed, sponsor behaviors, and questions from leaders.

Use it when leaders must align on the “why,” speak consistently, remove barriers, cascade messages, or visibly support the change. It is especially useful before major announcements, during readiness planning, before go-live, after resistance appears, or when adoption is uneven across business units. The session can support Kotter-style change phases such as creating urgency, building a guiding coalition, forming a vision, removing barriers, and generating short-term wins [Kotter]. (kotterinc.com)

Start with the adoption outcome, not the slide deck. Decide what leaders must understand, decide, commit to, or do differently after the meeting. Use an individual adoption lens: do leaders need awareness of why the change is happening, desire to support it, knowledge of their role, ability to act, or reinforcement to sustain it [Prosci ADKAR]. (prosci.com)

Prepare four inputs before scheduling the session: the business case, stakeholder and impact assessment, adoption risks, and decision log. Identify the primary sponsor, senior leadership group, change manager, project lead, HR or communications partner, and any business unit leaders who will need to cascade the message.

Materials should include an executive summary, role-specific sponsor expectations, resistance themes, leader talking points, frequently asked questions, and a follow-up action tracker. Prosci’s sponsor guidance emphasizes that sponsors should actively and visibly participate, build a sponsorship coalition, and communicate support to impacted groups [Prosci, 2021]. (prosci.com)

Time the meeting close enough to real decisions that leaders can act, but early enough to shape the change. Avoid using the session only as a late-stage announcement. McKinsey’s transformation research emphasizes shared facts, transparency, and coordinated senior leadership action during transformational change [McKinsey, 2026]. (mckinsey.com)

A company is introducing a new enterprise resource planning system that changes finance approvals, purchasing processes, and manager responsibilities. Two months before go-live, the change manager facilitates a 90-minute executive session with the CFO as sponsor. The presentation covers the business reason, process impacts, adoption risks, training readiness, and decisions needed on policy exceptions.

During discussion, leaders identify that regional managers are worried about slower approvals. The CFO agrees to record a short sponsor message, regional leaders agree to host team briefings, and the project team commits to publish approval-time service levels. The meeting produces a cascade plan, resistance actions, and a weekly adoption dashboard. The value is not the deck; it is the shared leadership commitment created by the session.

Measure the meeting at three levels. First, check immediate outputs: attendance by required leaders, decisions made, risks resolved, action owners assigned, and cascade materials approved. Second, assess leader adoption: sponsor visibility, consistency of messages, completion of leader actions, and ability to answer common employee questions. Third, track downstream adoption: readiness scores, manager confidence, training completion, usage of new processes, issue trends, resistance themes, and reinforcement actions. ADKAR can help structure these indicators around awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement [Prosci ADKAR]. (prosci.com)

Prosci. “Sponsor Checklist for Change Management.” Published April 19, 2021; updated October 31, 2025. https://www.prosci.com/blog/sponsor-checklist-for-change-management

Project Management Institute. “Executive Sponsor Engagement: Top Driver of Project and Program Success.” October 2014. https://www.pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/top-driver-project-program-success

McKinsey & Company. “Collective action, collective success: A CEO’s role in transformations.” June 15, 2026. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/transformation/our-insights/collective-action-collective-success-a-ceos-role-in-transformations

McKinsey & Company. “The people power of transformations,” within “The science behind successful organizational transformations.” February 10, 2017 section. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/successful-transformations

SHRM. “Why Communication Makes or Breaks Change Management.” February 27, 2026. https://www.shrm.org/enterprise-solutions/insights/why-communication-makes-breaks-change-management

CIPD. “Employee voice.” No publication date shown. https://www.cipd.org/uk/views-and-insights/cipd-viewpoint/employee-voice/

Prosci. “The Prosci ADKAR Model.” No publication date shown. https://www.prosci.com/methodology/adkar

Kotter. “The 8-Step Process for Leading Change.” No publication date shown. https://www.kotterinc.com/methodology/8-steps/