Why Adaptability Is the Skill that Will Define the Next Decade

If leadership had a stock index, the past decade would look like a volatile chart: sharp spikes of enthusiasm around empathy and inclusion, followed by abrupt corrections driven by political turbulence, social backlash, and technological shock.

According to Andrew Hill, Senior Business Writer at the Financial Times, 2025 may be remembered not as the start of a new leadership era, but as the moment old instincts resurfaced.

“We stand very much in the shadow of the leader of the free world,” Hill notes – a reminder that corporate leadership never evolves in a vacuum.

The geopolitical environment of the 2020s has grown louder, sharper, and more ideologically charged. And while executives are not imitating politics, they are being shaped by the same forces that shape political leaders.

The Quiet Return of Command-and-Control

Across many sectors, especially those tied to US government contracts or sensitive regulatory environments, leaders have begun adopting more cautious language and firmer decision-making styles. Terms like ESG and DEI have faded from public conversation, replaced by a stronger emphasis on operational discipline and “hard priorities.”

Hill calls this a step backwards – but a predictable one.

Periods of volatility reward clarity. Crises reward decisiveness.
And in the absence of stable political signals, many leaders default to the most ancient leadership instinct: tightening control.

Academic research confirms this pattern. A meta-analysis from MIT and UCLA found that during acute disruption, directive leadership often drives faster alignment and reduces early-stage chaos. The first months of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated this vividly; top-down decision-making got organisations moving when no one knew which direction was safe.

But Hill warns of a more dangerous dynamic – one he has observed repeatedly in corporate environments:

“Once you’ve taken command, everybody else falls away. And it becomes difficult to hand back control.”

Command-and-control works… until it quietly corrodes the very conditions required for long-term performance.

Trust declines. Innovation slows.
Middle managers — the connective tissue of the organisation — disengage or burn out.
Younger employees, socialised in a collaborative and transparent digital culture, begin to resist or quietly exit.

In other words: the instinct that stabilises a company in the short term can destabilise it over the long term.

Why Adaptability Is Becoming the Defining Leadership Capability

Amid these swings in leadership behaviour, one capability consistently emerges as the differentiator between resilient and fragile leaders: adaptability.

It is the trait most consistently linked to effective leadership in research by McKinsey, Korn Ferry, and the World Economic Forum.
And for Hill — after decades reporting on organisations through cycles of crisis and reinvention — it is the singular skill that determines whether leaders thrive or falter in uncertain environments.

Adaptability, in Hill’s view, is not flexibility for its own sake.

It is the disciplined ability to shift modes of leadership in response to the moment:

Taking decisive, top-down control when ambiguity is paralyzing.

Stepping back deliberately once the immediate threat passes.

Releasing authority so teams regain autonomy, creativity, and ownership.

Signalling clearly which mode you are in — and why.

Jeff Bezos demonstrated this during the early days of the pandemic. He had stepped back from day-to-day operations, focusing on long-term strategy. But as the crisis deepened, he re-entered operational leadership temporarily — a move that was purposeful, bounded, and reversible.

Many leaders can step in.

Few have the discipline or self-awareness to step out.

Hill distils it into one sentence:

“The key attribute of leaders in a time of extreme volatility is adaptability.”

But adaptability is not simply behavioural. It is also cognitive.

In uncertain environments, leaders who project total certainty risk undermining trust.
Those who articulate the limits of their knowledge — and engage others in navigating ambiguity — often strengthen credibility.

Hill frames it this way:

“Here is what I know. Here is what we don’t know. Let’s work it out together.”

This is not weakness.
It is strategic clarity.

It invites shared intelligence.
It encourages broader pattern recognition.
It reinforces psychological safety — a factor that Google’s Project Aristotle identified as the strongest predictor of team performance.

Rigid leadership may deliver early wins.
Adaptive leadership survives the game.

The Middle Manager: Leadership’s Most Critical — and Most Underestimated — Lever

Executives often talk about leadership as if it sits on the top floor. Hill disagrees.

“Middle managers are the muscle tissue that connects senior leadership with the frontline.”

Yet they are also where transformation routinely stalls. McKinsey’s data shows that 70% of large-scale transformations fail, with resistance or misalignment in middle management listed as a primary cause.

Hill calls this the “permafrost layer” — not because managers lack ambition, but because they lack clarity, context, or capability.

If middle managers fail, strategy does not bend.
It breaks.

For organisations preparing for the next decade, investing in the adaptability, autonomy, and judgement of middle managers may be the most overlooked source of competitive advantage.

AI, HR, and the Redefinition of Human Leadership

No reflection on leadership in 2025 is complete without confronting the organisational impact of AI. But Hill avoids the utopian and the apocalyptic. He looks instead at the structural tension AI exposes – particularly in HR.

Many organisations now automate up to 80% of routine HR queries.
Efficiency has improved. Costs have dropped. Speed has accelerated.

But the implications are far more profound.

Hill points out the uncomfortable, unspoken question that inevitably surfaces:

“If AI can do 80% of the work, why do we need 100% of the humans?”

HR stands at the uncomfortable intersection of two responsibilities:

Helping the workforce adapt to AI, upskilling, reskilling, and navigating new forms of collaboration.

Managing the human consequences of AI adoption — including redefining roles or, in some cases, managing reductions due to automation.

Yet Hill underscores a truth that many technology-led narratives ignore:

“For the most complex and difficult issues, you still want to talk to a human being.”

It is a reminder that the most valuable HR functions — judgement, ethics, conflict resolution, fairness — are not automatable.

As AI handles more administrative volume, the role of HR must evolve from operational gatekeeper to strategic interpreter of human complexity.

Few organisations are ready for this shift.
Those that are will set the tone for the next generation of workplace leadership.

Decision-Making When No One Has the Full Picture

Leaders today operate in what the IMF calls the most uncertain economic environment in more than two decades. Algorithmic complexity, geopolitical fragmentation, supply-chain fragility — all contribute to a world where perfect visibility is impossible.

Hill’s view is clear:

“Not taking the decision is itself a choice.”

He draws on an analogy from sport: the tennis player’s split-second preparation before a serve — feet moving, weight shifting, ready to adapt instantly to the unknown.

In leadership, the same principle applies:
Momentum matters more than precision.

Analysis paralysis is no longer a neutral act.
It is a competitive risk.

Skills Over Titles: The New Architecture of Leadership

Perhaps Hill’s sharpest insight is aimed at a long-standing organisational blind spot: how leaders are chosen.

Hierarchy has long been the default logic of decision-making. Hill argues that this model has quietly expired.

“Increasingly, it’s not about the title. It’s about the skills you bring to the table.”

In domains like AI governance, cybersecurity, behavioural science, sustainability, and data ethics, expertise often sits deepest in the middle of the organisation – not at the top.

Companies that cling to rigid hierarchies will slow themselves down.
Companies that assemble teams around capability, not rank, will accelerate.

The next decade of leadership will belong to organisations that can reconfigure themselves around distributed expertise — and support leaders who know how to activate it.

The Leadership Mandate for 2026

The leaders who thrive in the next decade will not be the most forceful — but the most adaptable.

Flexible in their style. Clear in their communication. Honest about uncertainty.
Disciplined in knowing when to lead from the front and when to lead from the centre.

Hill captures the mindset with a quiet line that may be the most important lesson for organisations preparing for the future:

“Here is what I know. Here is what we don’t know. Let’s work it out together.”

Leaders who can embody that posture — curious, collaborative, strategically agile — will not only guide their organisations through volatility. They will shape the next chapter of the global leadership agenda.

Insights from Headspring’s Learning Rewired conversation with Andrew Hill (Financial Times), hosted by Thiago Kiwi