In other words, those who are diminished by the proposed reforms will resist with all their might, while those who might benefit are lukewarm in their support because the benefits of the reform are not yet in hand. Put another way, one person's efficiency reform is the loss of a livelihood / gravy train to another, and the gains of the proposed efficiency are 1) in the future, while the livelihood is threatened in the present, and 2) the gains of the efficiency are disbursed over the entire populace, so that the recipients of the reform have little incentive to fight tooth and nail like those defending their slice of the status quo pie.

This presents the transformational leader with a difficult choice of strategy: the first option--to attempt a wholesale transformation of the status quo in a Big Bang reformation of every agency and institution's budget, leadership and culture--is tempting, as the political capital of the new leadership is strongest at the start, before its opponents have had time to chip away at the new administration's support.

The second option is to choose one or two critical reforms and devote every ounce of political capital to pushing these through. This option is less grandiose, more cautious, but it's also the one most likely to succeed, as the risk in Option 1 (The Big Bang blitzkrieg) is that the political capital of the reformers will be diluted by engaging the armies of opposition that will arise in every threatened agency and institution.