“What are you going to do with the leaders who will not change, that we have not done”, is a paraphrase of a comment that comes from almost all mid level early in the engagement conversations. Of course the reverse from senior leaders replaces leader with person.
Problems here; pay attention.
Change management is not a coercive process to convert individuals. The focus does not need to be on resistance. To direct energy to those who someone assumes will dig in is insulting to that person and should be embarrassing to the person who asked. When someone displays a resistive behavior there is a reason. If you expect to get any change to happen you must plan on addressing those reasons, which, by the way, is the answer to the question, because reasons are never really addressed-it is too painful.
Addressing those reasons open up a spiders web of connections to structure, process, performance measures and internal politics. It is amazing how quickly CM becomes transformational. Or, as is typically the case, more coercive.
My response to the question/comment is something to the effect of “what is your access to senior leadership”. It usually appears tenuous at best. My version of access is influence; theirs if often more about emails answered. If you do not have a collaborative link to leadership then not only will the empathetic approach not work, but neither will the coercive.
As an external the link to the leadership is usually the first move to address their concerns. If they are talking about the same people/person then I see an invitation for a three way collaboration rather than an unscalable wall.