Leadership is one of the strongest predictors and enablers of an organisation’s capacity to change (Supriharyanti & Sukoco, 2023).At the same time, the role required of leaders has evolved – from riding predictable waves to navigating choppy, unpredictable tides.

That was the starting point for our recent Leadership Unscripted workshops, which paired current psychological research on adaptive leadership with candid reflection from the leaders across industries in the virtual room. Here's what stood out.

Uncertainty is now the baseline, not the exception

The session opened with a sobering data point: the IMF's World Uncertainty Index – a quarterly measure of global economic and policy uncertainty – has more than doubled in its five-year average since 1990. More than a third of large organisations are undergoing some form of transformation at any given moment (Mankins & Litre, 2024), and employees report experiencing around ten distinct changes a year (Morain & Aykens, 2023).Uncertainty, in other words, has moved from being a temporary storm to the climate that leaders now operate in permanently.

This shift matters because it changes what “good leadership” requires. Traditional change management models were built for change that was planned, discrete, and had a clear end date. Today's change is often continuous and emergent, with no fixed finish line – which means leaders need a different, more durable kind of capability than a one-off change project ever demanded.

The stabiliser role comes first

Recent research from Schmidt Harvey & Adler (2025) describes five roles that leaders juggle simultaneously through constant change: Navigator, Learning Guide, Pilot, Engineer, and Stabiliser. All five matter, but the discussion in the room kept circling back to one insight: you can only really lead and navigate others through change once the Stabiliser role is given priority.

The logic is straightforward but easy to forget under pressure. Leaders can only offer other people stability if they have some of their own first. Stability isn't the opposite of agility but what makes agility possible. Just as a ship needs a sturdy hull before it can adjust its sails to shifting winds, leaders need emotional agility, deliberate self-care, and clear boundaries before they can adapt well to what's coming at them. Skip that step, and every other leadership role becomes harder to sustain.

No leader plays all five roles alone

The group's next observation: no one person can hold the Navigator, Learning Guide, Pilot, Engineer, and Stabiliser roles all at once, all the time. Rather than a gap to apologise for, this was reframed as the case for collaborative leadership – treating the roles as something a leadership team carries together, drawing on each other's strengths and skillsets as resources for change, rather than something any single leader is expected to master solo.

Making that work in practice takes open and honest discussion within the team: what does the current stage of change actually require, and who on the team holds that skillset already? Just as important is naming, without defensiveness, where the leadership team's gaps sit and which capabilities still need to be developed. Approached this way, the five roles become less a checklist for any one leader and more a shared map for the team to navigate by.

Reflection and connection are vital resources

A second theme, both in the research and in the room, was how easy it is to keep moving without ever pausing. When you're at the centre of change – holding direction, managing competing demands, deciding with incomplete information – stopping can feel indulgent. But the leaders who sustain effectiveness through prolonged change aren't the ones who push hardest without stopping; they're the ones who build reflection into their routine (Schmidt Harvey & Adler, 2025).

Connection matters just as much. Leaders in the session spoke about the value of processing change with others rather than in isolation – surfacing what's surprising, comparing notes, and making sense of ambiguity together. This lines up with research on sensemaking: making meaning out of an ambiguous, stressful situation has real effects on wellbeing, motivation, and performance, and that meaning-making is rarely a solo exercise (Bennett, 2021).

Change brings a mix of emotions – and that's expected

The room reflected honestly on the emotional texture of leading through change: it's rarely one feeling all the way through. Different phases surface different reactions – sometimes energising, sometimes exhausting, often both within the same week. The research backs this up. Emotional agility means noticing emotions, treating them as information rather than instructions, and choosing a response deliberately rather than reacting on autopilot — not forcing positivity or suppressing discomfort. A 2025 Gallup survey found that hope is the most desired quality people most want from their leaders right now – ahead even of trust – which puts real weight on a leader's ability to sit with their own mixed emotions long enough to offer that hope authentically to others.

Core values as a compass – and a filter

Several participants reflected on how clarifying their core values helped them navigate uncertainty, not just by giving them direction, but by helping them see what to let go of. When you're clear on what actually matters, it becomes easier to identify the tasks, habits, or expectations that no longer serve that purpose. This mirrors the workshop's framing of psychological flexibility: know your anchor (what stays constant), read your reactions clearly rather than being driven by them, and then navigate with intention toward what matters, rather than defaulting to habit or the pressure of the moment.

Small, practical steps protect wellbeing and performance

Finally, attention turned in the room to ways leaders can live these values in practice. Supporting leadership wellbeing doesn't require a wholesale rethink of the working week –small, deliberate habits go a long way. Walking meetings came up as a favourite example: a simple swap that builds in movement, a change of scenery, and often more honest conversation, all without adding anything extra to the calendar.

The takeaway

None of this suggests change is about to get easier or slower. But the combination of research and lived experience pointed to a consistent message: adaptability gets built deliberately, through stabilising first, leading the five roles as a team rather than solo, reflecting and connecting often, making room for the full, mixed range of emotions, staying anchored to values, and taking small protective steps towards leading flexibly through uncertainty.

References

Ahir, H., Bloom, N., &Furceri, D. (2020). 60 years of uncertainty. Finance & Development, 57(1),58–60.

Bennett, K. (2021). Leaders’ adaptive identity development in uncertain contexts: Implications for executive coaching. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 19(2), 54–69.

Clifton, J., & Vigers, B.(2025, February 11). What do people need most from leaders? Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/655817/people-need-leaders.aspx

Dai, G., Harvey, V. S., &De Meuse, K. P. (2025). Thriving during turbulent times: The role of consulting psychologists in building change capability. Consulting Psychology Journal, 77(4), 305–328.

Mankins, M., & Litre, P.(2024). Transformations that work. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2024/05/transformations-that-work

Morain, C. O., & Aykens, P.(2023). Employees are losing patience with change initiatives. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2023/05/employees-are-losing-patience-with-change-initiatives

Schmidt Harvey, V., &Adler, S. (2025). Leading in perpetual whitewater: Roles leaders can play. Consulting Psychology Journal, 77(4), 374–401.

Supriharyanti, E., &Sukoco, B. M. (2023). Organizational change capability: A systematic review andfuture research directions. Management Research Review, 46(1), 46–81.

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