You know them. You have seen them in action.

Corporate chameleons know how to blend into their environment. Like the reptile that changes colour to hide in plain sight, hunt its prey or avoid predators, they continually adapt their appearance to suit the prevailing conditions.

Corporate cockroaches operate differently. They thrive in the shadows, emerging when it is safe and scurrying back into hiding the moment someone switches on the light.

Every dysfunctional organisation has characters like these. They are often the people who survive every corporate restructuring, operating-model redesign and leadership transition. Regardless of how dramatically the organisational chart changes, they somehow bounce back—sometimes into positions of even greater influence.

This is not accidental. Survival is their real area of expertise.

They know how to read the room

Corporate chameleons pay close attention to shifts in executive language. They listen for the words and phrases gaining currency in leadership conversations: customer obsession, transformation, accountability, simplification, agility or growth.

They quickly adopt the new vocabulary.

If the chief executive speaks about innovation, they become champions of innovation. If the focus changes to cost containment, they become guardians of efficiency. When culture becomes the priority, they suddenly discover a passion for employee wellbeing.

Their language changes faster than their behaviour.

They understand that, in many organisations, sounding aligned is rewarded more consistently than doing the difficult work required to create meaningful change.

They position themselves near power

Corporate chameleons are highly skilled at visibility management. They know which meetings matter, which executives are gaining influence and which relationships are becoming liabilities.

They carefully pick up the currents of executive conversations and chorus whatever matters most to the chief executive. They rarely challenge the dominant narrative in public. They remain quiet when an issue is contentious, particularly when taking a position could threaten their access or advancement.

Their loyalty is often attached not to principles, people or organisational purpose, but to power.

When one sponsor leaves, they quickly find another. When an executive falls out of favour, they quietly distance themselves. Previous allegiances are rewritten and inconvenient histories are forgotten.

This is not simply networking. Healthy networking is based on mutual value, credibility and authentic relationships. What corporate chameleons practise is strategic proximity: staying close enough to power to be protected, but far enough from accountability to avoid being implicated when things go wrong.

They manage noise and narratives

In dysfunctional organisations, controlling the story can become more important than solving the problem.

Corporate cockroaches flourish in this environment. They operate through private conversations, selective disclosures, informal alliances and carefully planted perceptions. They know what to say, whom to say it to and which information should never appear in writing.

They do not necessarily produce the best results. They produce the most convincing explanations of results.

They know how to take credit when things go well and create distance when they do not. They can turn poor execution into a “change-management challenge,” failed leadership into “employee resistance” and legitimate criticism into a question about someone’s attitude, emotional maturity or ability to collaborate.

While less politically savvy colleagues concentrate on doing the work, these individuals concentrate on managing how the work—and the people doing it—are perceived.

When the light of scrutiny is switched on, they retreat. They become unavailable, cautious and procedurally correct. They may even support the investigation, culture programme or governance intervention designed to expose the very dysfunction from which they have benefited.

Once attention moves elsewhere, they emerge again.

Why they survive restructuring

A restructuring is often presented as a solution to poor performance, cultural dysfunction or unclear accountability. Reporting lines are redrawn. Roles are renamed. Leadership teams are reshuffled. New values are announced and employees are told that the organisation is entering a new chapter.

But corporate chameleons understand something many leaders overlook: organisations frequently change structures without changing the systems through which power is exercised.

If promotions still depend on sponsorship rather than substance, they will find new sponsors.

If executives still reward agreement more than candour, they will continue telling leaders what they want to hear.

If performance is assessed through controlled narratives rather than verifiable outcomes and behaviours, they will manage the narrative.

If difficult truths remain dangerous to express, principled employees will remain silent or leave.

The chameleons and cockroaches survive because the environment continues to reward their survival strategies.

Meanwhile, less politically sophisticated colleagues may lose power and positions. These are often people who believed that strong performance, technical competence, institutional knowledge and commitment to the organisation would speak for themselves. They were working within the formal organisation while others were navigating the informal power system.

After the restructuring is complete, the survivors gradually return to their factory settings. The same behaviours reappear: information hoarding, blame shifting, empire building, bullying, selective accountability and the suppression of dissent.

The structure changes, but the dysfunction remains.

A few years later, the organisation needs another restructuring.

Adaptability is not the problem

There is nothing inherently wrong with reading an environment, building relationships or adapting to change. These are valuable leadership capabilities.

The distinction lies in what the adaptability serves.

Healthy adaptability asks:

How can I help the organisation succeed in this new environment?

Political shapeshifting asks:

What must I appear to be so that I remain protected and powerful?

Healthy leaders adjust their methods while remaining anchored in their values. Corporate chameleons adjust their values—or at least the values they publicly perform—according to whoever holds power.

One is responsive leadership. The other is self-preservation disguised as alignment.

Switching on the light

Organisations cannot restructure their way out of dysfunction if they refuse to examine the conditions that allow it to flourish.

Real transformation requires more than changing boxes on an organisational chart. It requires leaders to ask:

• Who repeatedly survives change, and why?
• Are people rewarded for delivering sustainable outcomes or for managing executive perceptions?
• What happens to employees who raise uncomfortable truths?
• Do leaders examine evidence, or do they rely on the narratives of their trusted inner circles?
• Are the same individuals repeatedly associated with failed teams, high employee turnover or unresolved grievances?
• Does the organisation assess how results are achieved, not merely whether targets are met?
• Are leaders held accountable for the cultures they create around them?

The purpose of these questions is not to punish adaptability or longevity. It is to distinguish genuine organisational value from political survival.

Corporate chameleons and cockroaches do not create dysfunctional systems on their own. They are sustained by cultures that reward appearance over substance, loyalty over integrity and silence over truth.

If an organisation repeatedly changes its structure while protecting the behaviours that made change necessary, it is not transforming. It is rearranging the furniture in a dark room.

Sooner or later, someone must switch on the light—and leave it on.