Change is no longer a phase organizations move through before returning to normal. For most leaders today, disruption is the operating environment.
That reality was front and center in a recent episode of the Make or Break podcast featuring Betsy Summers, Principal Analyst of Future of Work and Human Capital Management at Forrester. In the conversation, Betsy and C2IQ founder, Mo Berkner Boyt, explored what it means to lead people through constant disruption and why organizations need a more human-centered approach to change.
That is exactly why leading through change has become one of the most important leadership capabilities in modern business. From AI adoption and workforce transformation to hybrid work and burnout risk, organizations are facing constant pressure to adapt. The challenge is both operational and deeply human.
For HR leaders, change leaders, and executives, there needs to be a defined strategy and approach to helping people thrive through disruption.
Why Leading Through Change Looks Different Now
Over the past several years, organizations have faced overlapping waves of disruption:
- pandemic-driven workplace shifts
- social and economic instability
- evolving employee expectations
- accelerated AI adoption
- growing pressure to reskill the workforce
Each of these shifts has changed how work gets done. Together, they have redefined what effective change leadership requires.
In previous eras, leaders were often expected to set the direction, communicate the plan, and drive execution. Today, that model is less reliable. The environment is changing too quickly, and too many variables remain uncertain.
Modern leaders do not always know exactly what the future looks like. However, they need to create the conditions that help people navigate uncertainty with confidence, clarity, and resilience.
HR Leadership Has Moved to the Center of Disruption
Few functions have been disrupted more than HR.
In many organizations, HR was once seen primarily as a support function focused on compliance, talent processes, and employee programs. That has changed. Today, HR leadership sits at the center of some of the most complex business questions an organization can face.
Those questions include:
- How do we prepare for AI at work?
- How do we build a more resilient workforce?
- How do we support managers through constant change?
- How do we develop skills fast enough to keep pace with the market?
- How do we protect engagement and wellbeing while performance expectations rise?
These are strategic business issues, core to how strategy is executed and work gets done.
The problem is that many HR teams are being asked to lead through uncertainty without always having the tools, data, or influence required to do it well. When organizations underinvest in the teams focused on human capability, the change becomes harder, slower, and more costly.
The Real Challenge Is Human Strain, Not Just Change Fatigue
When organizations talk about disruption, they often focus on systems, processes, and business models. But the deeper challenge is what constant change does to people.
The pace of disruption can create:
- lower confidence
- higher emotional strain
- decision fatigue
- reduced trust
- burnout risk
- slower learning and adaptation
This is why workforce transformation efforts often stall. Leaders may assume the issue is strategy or execution when the real barrier is human readiness. If people feel overwhelmed, unsupported, or under-equipped, even the best change plan will struggle.
That is why workforce resilience is becoming a critical leadership priority. Change resilience building is helping people recover after disruption, and also building the capability to adapt while disruption is still happening.
The Framework for Leading Through Change: Skill, Will, Hill
In her recent Make or Break podcast appearance, Betsy Summers shared a practical framework she uses to diagnose barriers to performance and change: skill, will, hill. It is a simple but powerful model, and it helps leaders avoid one of the most common mistakes in change leadership: solving the wrong problem.
Skill: Do people know how to do what is being asked?
Sometimes the issue is capability. Teams may lack the technical fluency, communication ability, change resilience, or data literacy needed to perform in a new environment. In a rapidly shifting workplace, skill gaps can appear quickly, especially when new systems, workflows, or expectations are introduced.
Will: Do people want to do it?
Not every challenge is a training issue. Sometimes people understand what is needed but feel hesitant, skeptical, or emotionally depleted. Low motivation, fear of failure, burnout, and lack of confidence can all show up as resistance. In these cases, leaders need to address emotional readiness, not just competence.
Hill: Are structural barriers getting in the way?
Sometimes people have the skill and the will, but the system still makes success difficult.
That might include:
- fragmented technology
- unclear ownership
- poor incentives
- broken processes
- competing priorities
- limited access to data
This is where many organizations misdiagnose performance challenges. They train people for problems caused by structure.
The value of Betsy’s skill, will, hill framework is that it helps leaders pause, diagnose, and respond with greater precision.
Why Data and Technology Matter More in the Future of Work
Strong people leadership still requires empathy, trust, and communication. But in the future of work, that is no longer enough on its own.
The HR and change leaders making the greatest impact today are increasingly comfortable with two things:
1. Technology as a driver of employee experience
Technology is more than infrastructure. It shapes how people work, learn, collaborate, and adapt. Leaders do not need to become technical experts, but they do need to understand how systems affect workforce behavior and performance.
2. Data as a foundation for better decisions
Anecdotes are not enough in an environment this dynamic. Leaders need better visibility into the workforce so they can identify risk, opportunity, and readiness earlier.
That includes measuring questions like:
- How resilient are teams during change?
- Where is adaptability strongest or weakest?
- Which groups may be at greater risk of burnout?
- What capabilities are emerging or declining?
- Where are barriers slowing adoption?
Organizations that can measure human capability more clearly are better positioned to respond to disruption without relying on guesswork.
Why Adjacent Skills Matter When Adapting to AI at Work
One of the most important shifts in workforce strategy is moving from static role thinking to dynamic skill thinking. This is especially important when adapting to AI at work. As AI changes task distribution across roles, many employees are asking the same question: what skills will matter next?
A useful answer lies in adjacent skills.
Adjacent skills are capabilities that sit close to one another, making them easier to build over time. For example, someone with strong written communication may be able to develop public speaking more easily. Someone familiar with one technical platform may adapt faster to another.
This way of thinking creates better learning pathways because it helps organizations:
- build more realistic reskilling strategies
- support career mobility
- identify hidden potential
- reduce disruption during workforce transitions
Instead of asking whether a person can make a dramatic leap into an unfamiliar future role, leaders can ask a more effective question: what strengths already exist that can be extended into what comes next? Using the skill adjacency framework is a smart, efficient way to develop talent in a disrupted environment.
The New Leadership Imperative: Help People Thrive in Uncertainty
In a volatile environment, leaders cannot pretend to have all the answers or project false certainty. Employees need honest leadership, better support, and clear investment in their ability to adapt.
Leaders should focus on:
- grounding teams in what is true now
- helping people recognize transferable strengths
- reducing friction and structural barriers
- building confidence through measurable growth
- creating learning paths that match real workforce needs
This is where human capability becomes a competitive advantage. Organizations that build measurable change resilience, stronger connection skills, and greater adaptability are better equipped to navigate disruption without losing engagement, trust, or momentum.
Human Capability Is the Advantage That Lasts
We’re never going back to ‘the way things used to be.’ Disruption is not going away. AI will continue to reshape work. Market conditions will keep shifting. Leadership demands will keep evolving.
The organizations that succeed will invest in the newest tools while simultaneously building the human capability required to use those tools well. That will require investing in the skills, systems, and support structures that help people adapt without burning out. If leaders want to improve performance in a disrupted world, they need to look beyond process change and focus on what truly drives sustainable transformation: resilience, adaptability, connection, and confidence.
That is what makes leading through change possible. Increasingly, it is what will separate organizations that merely survive disruption from those that grow through it.
What to Do Next
If this conversation resonates with the challenges your organization is facing, here are three practical next steps:
1. Listen to the episode
Hear the full conversation with Betsy Summers on the Make or Break podcast for deeper insight into leadership, HR, and the human side of disruption.
2. Assess the skills that matter
Use the C2IQ assessment to measure the human capabilities within your organization that shape change readiness, including resilience, adaptability, and connection. A more measurable view of workforce skills can help leaders move from intuition to action.
3. Explore more C2IQ blogs
Dive deeper into the trends shaping change leadership, workforce resilience, and human-centered transformation with more insights from the C2IQ team.