Elevating Leadership Influence in a Changing Business Landscape

In today’s complex and fast-evolving business landscape, senior HR leaders find themselves at a critical inflexion point. Transformation is no longer a choice—it’s a constant. Yet driving meaningful, sustainable change requires more than new strategies and structures. It calls for courageous leadership, cultural sensitivity, and a deep understanding of context.

At our recent HR roundtable in Hong Kong, we had the pleasure of co-hosting a panel discussion with Shirley Ko, Vice President HR Asia Pacific at Kering Group, Carolyn Hammond, Madeleine Price and Sanghita Bhakta to discuss what it truly means to elevate leadership influence in today's changing business landscape.

Context Is the Starting Point

Every transformation journey begins with context. HR leaders were aligned in the view that a deep understanding of the organisation’s internal landscape is a prerequisite for meaningful change. Whether a company is beginning its digital evolution or rethinking decades-old leadership structures, change must be anchored in current-state realities.

Culture, decision-making dynamics, historical leadership styles, and what the business values (and measures) all shape the conditions for progress. Without that grounding, even the most compelling global best practice may fail to gain traction. The CHRO’s role is to decode this internal reality and design people strategies that are both forward-looking and context-sensitive.

By understanding where the business truly is, versus where it aspires to be, HR can act as a translator and guide, rather than a prescriber of one-size-fits-all solutions.

Bridging Differences to Build Bold Leaders

As organisations become more global and matrixed, leadership influence is no longer about hierarchy or geography but about agility and adaptability. Rather than emphasising cultural differences, the conversation focused on building leaders who can flex across contexts, listen deeply, and lead with relevance in diverse environments.

Programs that foster cross-regional collaboration, peer feedback, and experiential learning are proving to be powerful enablers. Whether through rotational assignments, shared projects, or structured exposure to unfamiliar markets, these experiences build not just capability but confidence.

Importantly, these efforts shift not only the leaders being developed, but also how talent is perceived and leveraged across the organisation. They serve as both development opportunities and change interventions.

Courage Is Built, Not Taught

One of the most urgent themes from the discussion was the need to reframe courage. Courage is not a nice-to-have in times of disruption, innovation, and ambiguity—it is core to leadership effectiveness. However, as many participants shared, courage is not innate. It is cultivated.

Psychological safety was highlighted as the foundation for this cultivation. Leaders must actively create environments where risk-taking is welcomed, failure is seen as learning, and speaking up is not penalised. Courage, then, becomes a practice, not a performance. It shows up in the daily behaviours of asking questions, surfacing disagreement, and owning decisions.

HR plays a critical role in embedding these norms through role modelling, storytelling, and shaping leadership expectations. Courageous cultures do not happen by accident. They are intentionally designed and constantly reinforced over time.

HR as Coach, Catalyst, and Change Partner

Elevating leadership influence is not just about developing leaders—it is also about the role HR plays in enabling them. Today’s HR leaders must move fluidly between multiple roles: strategic advisor, systems architect, and personal coach.

This duality was strongly emphasised at the roundtable. As advisors, HR must challenge the business, bringing data, insight, and the willingness to speak uncomfortable truths. As coaches, they must create space for leaders to reflect, grow, and confront blind spots.

These roles are not mutually exclusive—they are mutually reinforcing. And they require deep trust, consistency, and credibility. One participant summed it up nicely:

It’s not about getting a seat at the table. It’s about being the one who helps shape what gets talked about at the table.

Equipping Future-Ready Leaders

Traditional leadership pipelines are under pressure. The pace of change, the rise of AI, and shifting workforce expectations all demand a new set of leadership traits: curiosity, resilience, emotional agility, and digital fluency.

To meet this challenge, HR is expanding the definition of leadership readiness. Structured programs are supplemented with real-world learning: cross-functional projects, global rotations, and peer-driven development. Reverse mentoring is also gaining traction, recognising that young leaders often hold the keys to new consumer behaviours, technologies, and mindsets.

Equally critical is the work of helping experienced leaders unlearn. As the world changes, so must the deeply ingrained beliefs and habits that once drove success. Reflection, vulnerability, and the humility to say “I don’t know” are fast becoming leadership superpowers.

Leading for the Long Game

These points point to a final, resounding theme: transformation is a long game. Leadership development, cultural change, and organisational reinvention do not happen overnight. They require patience, consistency, and resilience.

The function must evolve for HR to lead effectively in this long game. Legacy systems, bureaucratic processes, and rigid mindsets are no longer fit for purpose. Instead, HR must operate with agility—simplifying what’s complex, experimenting with new approaches, and embedding technology into every aspect of its work.

Perhaps most importantly, HR must hold itself to the same standards it expects of others. That means modelling courage, practising curiosity, and staying connected to the business and to the people it serves.

Embedding Leadership Influence Into Everyday Practice

The message from the roundtable was clear: HR's and the leaders we support's influence must be both strategic and human, bold and reflective.

Elevating leadership influence in today’s business landscape requires a rebalancing. It is not enough to shape strategy; we must also shape belief. It is not enough to drive performance; we must also build trust. And it is not enough to develop leaders for today—we must equip them for what’s coming next.

As HR professionals, we are not only enablers of change—we are architects of transformation. The work is long, and the landscape keeps shifting. But if we stay grounded in context, build confident and courageous leaders, and commit to evolving ourselves, we can shape not just better organisations, but better futures.

A sincere thank you to Shirley, Carolyn, Madeleine, and Sanghita for leading such a thoughtful and impactful discussion, and to everyone who joined us and shared their valuable experiences.