New global research from Edelman, published 6 October 2026, puts a number on something most leadership teams sense but rarely measure: 76% of employees went through at least one organizational transformation in the past year — and for one in three of them, the experience wasn't positive. That share climbs to 47% in Germany, 44% in Canada and Japan, and 37% in the UK.
That one-in-three isn't evenly spread. Associates — the people with the least influence over how a transformation gets designed — report a negative experience almost three times as often as executives: 49% versus 17%. The people who get the least say in the plan carry most of the damage when it goes wrong.
What a bad transformation actually costs
The cost shows up first in trust, and it's steep. Among employees whose most recent transformation went badly, trust in their CEO drops to 49%, against 82% for those whose experience was positive. Trust in their direct manager falls to 60%, against 85%. Even trust in colleagues who hold different values collapses, from 77% down to 50%. A transformation that goes wrong doesn't just miss its own targets — it quietly erodes the relationships every future initiative depends on.
Why this is a leadership-design problem, not a communications footnote
Separate Gallup research into why employees disengage points at the same mechanism. Unclear, inconsistent, or dishonest communication from leaders is the reason nearly 3 in 10 employees give for feeling disconnected from their organization, and Gallup is blunt about the underlying dynamic: without a genuine employee voice, trust breaks down. Gallup puts the cost of disengagement at roughly $2 trillion in lost productivity in the US alone — a number large enough that "soft" is the wrong word for what trust actually is.
The AI-era stakes: trust decides whether your next transformation lands
This matters most right now because the transformation employees are most likely to have just been through is an AI rollout — Edelman's data puts it at the top of the list, ahead of strategy shifts. And the knock-on effect is measurable: willingness to embrace more AI use sits at 40% among employees generally, but drops to just 18% among those whose most recent change experience was negative. Flip it around: among employees with a positive experience, the share willing to go beyond what's formally expected of them jumps from 57% to 83%, and willingness to commit to a long-term career with that employer rises from 51% to 83%. The business case for leading change well isn't abstract — it shows up directly in whether people follow you into the next one.
Trust isn't the soft part of a transformation. It's the part that decides whether anyone follows you into the next one.
If your last transformation already cost you trust, more communication won't fix the next one. The question is whether leadership and positioning are aligned before you launch it.
Where to actually start
Three things, in order. First, treat trust as something you measure before, during, and after a transformation — not something you assume is fine because adoption metrics look acceptable. Second, give people a real voice in how a change is designed, early enough that it can still shape the plan; Edelman also found six in ten employees fear being monitored without their consent, so if a transformation includes new tracking or tools, say so plainly rather than letting people find out. Third, if a previous transformation already went badly, don't start the next one assuming a clean slate — the data shows that damage carries forward, and repairing it has to be an explicit part of the plan, not a hoped-for side effect.
What this means for how you lead the next one
Most leadership teams still budget a transformation around timeline, cost, and technology — and treat trust as something that will presumably follow if the first three go well. The data says the opposite: trust is the variable that decides whether the other three actually land. That's exactly why I build trust and leadership alignment into a Reinvention Trajectory as its own workstream from day one, not as a communications plan bolted on once the real decisions are already made.
Valuable background information
What percentage of employees have been through a recent organizational transformation, and how many had a negative experience?
According to Edelman's Trust at Work 2026 research (October 2026), 76% of employees went through at least one organizational transformation in the past year — rising to over 90% of executives, 86% of mid-level managers, and 61% of associates. About one in three described the experience as not positive, with the highest rates in Germany (47%), Canada and Japan (44% each), and the UK (37%).
How does a bad transformation experience affect employees' trust in their CEO and manager?
Sharply. Edelman found that employees with a negative transformation experience trust their CEO at only 49%, compared with 82% among those with a positive experience — a 33-point gap. Trust in their direct manager falls to 60% versus 85%, and trust in colleagues who hold different values drops from 77% to 50%.
Does a negative transformation experience affect how willing employees are to adopt AI?
Yes. Edelman's research found that willingness to embrace more AI use sits at 40% among employees overall, but drops to 18% among those whose most recent transformation experience was negative — relevant because AI implementation was the most common type of transformation employees reported, ahead of strategy shifts.
What can leadership teams do to protect trust during a transformation?
Three practical steps: measure trust explicitly before, during and after the change rather than relying on adoption metrics alone; give employees a genuine, early voice in how the change is designed, since Edelman also found six in ten employees fear being monitored without consent; and if an earlier transformation already damaged trust, build repair into the next plan explicitly rather than assuming a clean slate.
Sources
If your organization has a transformation on the roadmap — AI, a reorganization, a merger, a new strategy — the trust data says the leadership design matters as much as the plan itself. Worth checking where you actually stand before you launch it.