During periods of significant disruption, HR leaders are critical in sustaining alignment and organisational unity, enabling businesses to manage ambiguity, realise long-term objectives and avoid strategic drift.

The future of work is being forged in the crucible of disruption and fragmentation. Technological innovation, economic volatility, evolving social expectations and geopolitical instability are accelerating the pace – and complexity – of change. Without deliberate focus, this volatility can gradually pull attention and effort away from an organisation’s core strategic priorities.

For executive teams, the implications are clear: disengaged workforces, splintered strategies/ strategic drift, reactive leadership and decisions that entrench long-term risk.

As a result, a clear picture is emerging of just how difficult innovating at an organisational level has become in this era of permanent noise.

PwC’s 2025 Global CEO Survey found that while just under two thirds of respondents have taken a significant action towards business-model reinvention over the past five years, only 38 per cent of CEOs globally, and just 23 per cent in Australia, said they had been able to develop an innovative product or service during that time. 

It also found that only 55 per cent of global CEOs believe their business will be economically viable within 10 years if they stay on their current path (compared to 74 per cent of Australian CEOs), meaning transformation will continue to be a key executive priority for the years ahead.

In this context, it’s not surprising that HR leaders are feeling pressure from CEOs and the board.

“More and more, executives are looking to CHROs to answer the question of how their organisations can innovate,” says Justin Angsuwat, Chief People Officer at Culture Amp.

That innovation needs to occur at both the workforce and executive levels. 

“We’ve gone from a world of relative certainty to one where playbooks and gut feels don’t cut it any more,” he says. 

For employees, middle managers and leaders alike, the realisation that ‘normal’ no longer exists can be deeply destabilising.

“People are feeling untethered,” says Whitney Johnson, CEO of Disruption Advisors. “They’re feeling unmoored.”

This is leading to a concerning trend for business leaders. Gartner found that as the amount of change has increased – from just two unplanned, enterprise-wide changes in 2016 to 12 in 2024 – employees’ willingness to embrace change has decreased (from 74 per cent in 2016 to just 41 per cent in 2023).

When the pace of change outstrips employees’ capacity to adapt – and innovation is a non-negotiable – organisations risk drifting from their core objectives.

In this context, HR leaders play a critical role in anchoring strategy, enabling adaptability and ensuring change efforts deliver real, sustained impact.

Avoiding the false-certainty trap

Empathetic leaders may be inclined to try and provide a sense of certainty to teams during disruptive times. 

Wojciech Materka, Adjunct Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, notes that leaders’ instinct to do this stems from an outdated concept: that organisations are more likely to achieve positive change outcomes through idealistic framing.

“We overvalue vision, mission, bold statements and charismatic leaders. And, as leaders, we have an expectation that change should be inspiring and visionary, and that it should lead to breakthroughs.”

For teams, however, change – particularly under pressure or amid disruption – rarely feels this way.

“Depending on where the organisation is in the process, their actual experience could be: ‘I’m lost. This is painful. I don’t know if I can do it. There’s a part of me that hates this idea.’”

Change doesn’t always need to be bold or revolutionary to be effective. Small, well-timed shifts can build momentum and trust. For example, an organisation could improve team adaptability not through sweeping reforms, but by introducing short, fortnightly retrospectives. 

This simple rhythm could create space for reflection and adjustment – and help teams feel more in control during a period of uncertainty.

Romanticising change – or projecting false certainty – can inadvertently drive organisations into a state of freneticism, where urgency overrides clarity and teams become reactive rather than strategic.

Culture Amp’s work with elite sports teams offers a parallel for business. 

Its research shows that top-ranked teams, despite operating in high-pressure, fast-changing environments, consistently reported a more reasonable workload than lower-ranked teams. 

Crucially, these high-performing teams also led the league in player substitutions – proactively rotating their best talent to preserve energy and sustain performance.

This mindset – valuing rhythm and recovery over relentless effort – holds lessons for the business world. During periods of accelerated change, organisations don’t just need momentum; they need direction. 

Without structured moments to pause, reflect and recalibrate, even high-performing teams risk drifting from core priorities.

Read HRM’s article ‘How to build a business case for stability during times of constant change.’

That’s where HR can play a pivotal role.

Johnson calls it “engineering strategic pause points”. These aren’t just wellbeing tactics but strategic disciplines that prevent strategic drift.

By designing work and systems that protect bandwidth for critical thinkers – for example: creating buffers for overextended leaders; protected time in a team’s diary for strategic thinking; automation of administrative duties; deploying temporary support to stabilise key initiatives – HR can help leadership teams maintain strategic alignment under pressure.

“You’re in a position to create targeted buffers for people who have responsibility for mission-critical initiatives.”

These buffers could include reassigning some of their responsibilities or facilitating temporary administrative support. 

“It’s like creating an ad-hoc temporary SWAT team that provides buffers of stability around specific individuals.”

“As an HR leader, you are well-versed in psychology and behavioural domains, so you’re in a position to work with people to translate high-level priorities into specific, small, observable goals.”   – Whitney Johnson, CEO, Disruption Advisors

Avoiding abstraction

Another common response – abstraction – often takes longer to reveal itself as counterproductive. 

“When things are disruptive, we can become abstract very quickly,” says Johnson. “We fall back on ‘customer focus’, ‘operational excellence’ – things get diffuse.”

CHROs can help counteract this pattern by helping leaders appreciate the difference between conceptual and behavioural responses to challenges, she says.

“Help your executive colleagues clarify what they mean when they say ‘operational excellence’ and what capabilities this actually entails,” she says.

Instead of an abstract goal such as ‘drive operational excellence by improving collaboration’, establish clear behavioural expectations, such as ‘cross-functional teams will hold weekly integration meetings with standardised agendas and decision logs.’

“Human behaviours are what ultimately drive value,” says Johnson.

Similarly, she says organisations can steer teams away from the abstraction trap by encouraging leaders and managers to translate high-level priorities into specific, small, observable goals that allow them to better direct, motivate and optimise teams.

This approach can support productivity at both the micro and macro-level by tending to both employee wellbeing and team KPIs.

“Make them as small as possible: ridiculously small goals that allow people to not only gain momentum, but also to feel like they have control over their situation and can start to move through things, so they’re not paralysed by the disruption,” says Johnson.

Coaching through strategic drift

The coaching that HR leaders provide to executive teams, boards and employees is essential to maintaining focus and cohesion during uncertainty. 

At a time when CEOs and frontline employees alike are grappling with the discomfort of constant reinvention, HR is uniquely positioned to help leadership navigate not just emotional responses, but also strategic implications, such as avoiding decision paralysis; misalignment between strategy and workforce capacity; and breakdowns in team cohesion.

“The human brain runs on a predictive model. When we attempt something challenging and new… most of those predictions are inaccurate,” says Johnson. “Dopamine, the chemical messenger of delight, drops, and [people might] feel uncomfortable, discouraged or impatient.”

“We overvalue vision, mission, bold statements and charismatic leaders. And, as leaders, we have an expectation that change should always be inspiring, it should always be visionary, and it should lead to breakthroughs.” – Wojciech Materka, Adjunct Professor of Organisational Behaviour, INSEAD

Some cultures may resist acknowledging the emotional responses being felt across workforces. That, says Materka, makes HR’s job all the more vital.

As the functions, methods and tools of business evolve, so too do the implicit psychological contracts between colleagues.

“People need to reassess: ‘How do I deal with you?’ and ‘How do you deal with me?’ in circumstances where my friend at work might become my boss, or leave, or get more resources than I do,” he says.

These could be guided peer dialogues, targeted reflective prompts in team retrospectives, or transformation workshops that explore shifts in authority, proximity and recognition – essentially addressing questions of identity and meaning that people often struggle with in times of disruption and uncertainty. 

“These can help teams navigate emotions and reduce the risk of distortions they can cause, such as envy, resentment or idealisation, from being acted out.

“[This helps] individuals get unstuck from the stories they [tell] themselves to help them temporarily deal with the perceived threats – and frees them up to make new meaning and opportunity.”

It’s only by fully acknowledging the psychological discomfort that disruption creates that organisations can maintain focus and, ultimately, excel.

“As HR professionals, you have the tools and the expertise to explain why ‘the personal’ is not something to avoid.”

HR leaders sit at the intersection of people, performance and purpose, with a rare view across the whole organisation, Materka adds. 

“This allows you to see and diagnose unmet organisational learning needs – not just skills gaps, but also meaning gaps – which can then lead to transformative learnings for the business.” 

A longer version of this article first appeared in the June/July 2025 edition of HRM Magazine.

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