Leadership for Today’s Organization: Implications for Human Resources

By Edwin Mouriño, Ph.D., President & Founder, Human Intelligent (HI) Workplace

The State of today’s Organization

Present organizations are facing a variety of changes. These changes include an aging and multigenerational workforce, a growing multicultural workforce, a growing skills shortage, growing use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI), a faster demand for organizations to adapt and change, increasing stress at work, and changing expectations from the workforce. This has led to the defining word for 2025 being “uncertainty” (Ahir, Bloom, & Furceri, 2022). The questions to consider are whether your organization and its leadership are ready, and if your Human Resources (HR) department is preparing them for these changes that are taking place simultaneously?

Today’s society and workforce are increasingly older and multigenerational, with the aging baby boomers and now with four generations in the workplace. Presently, there are more 60-year-olds than 5-year-olds (Taylor & Lebo, 2019). It is also increasingly multicultural, with Latinos making up 78% of entrants into the workforce in this decade (Latino Comprehensive Report, 2024) , and their average age is 27 compared to 40 for non-Latinos. There is also an increasing skills shortage in most fields, from nursing, to manufacturing, technology, commercial airline pilots by 2030 (especially since they have to retire by the age of 65), construction, engineering, agricultural, among others.

Some believe that the fast growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will address the skills shortage and other areas. This has also created a concern for some in the workforce, who expect to be replaced by AI. Yet if history is any indicator, when the PC came into existence, it displaced 3.5 million jobs and created almost 20 million new jobs. The Economic Forum has indicated that AI will eliminate 92 million jobs but create 170 million jobs by 2030.

The State of Today’s Workforce

This same workforce has changing and evolving expectations, particularly since the pandemic. This means organizations need to adapt and change, yet it has been found that 66% of organizational change efforts fail. This means that leaders need to understand their workforce and adapt to their changing expectations, yet 71% of leaders feel significant stress, and 40% have considered stepping down (DDI, 2025).

Today’s workforce is looking for purpose, mastery, happiness, to be appreciated, well-being, and wants to increasingly work remotely or in a hybrid environment. Yet they too are feeling stressed and believe they lack leaders who are empathetic, compassionate, and listen to them, when only 8% of leaders have been found to be effective listeners and communicators (Hougaard & Carter, 2018).

This has led to an increasingly disengaged workforce that is costing organizations trillions of dollars in lost productivity (Gallup, 2018), higher absenteeism, higher accidents, lower loyalty, and lower profitability. It turns out that a leader has a bigger impact on their employees’ health than their doctor, and for 70% of employees, their biggest stress at work is their boss, with stress making work the 5th cause of death (Pfeffer, 2018).

In the past and still some today have typically viewed their workforce as a human resource to be managed for optimal productivity (Hougaard & Carter, 2025). And those times are gone or going. When people feel engaged, purpose-driven, and supported, it leads to increased productivity, innovation, and commitment (Westover, 2025). When employees are led by leaders who are aware, wise, and compassionate, it leads to a growing workforce that is more trusting, committed, psychologically safe, and satisfied with their work (Hougaard & Carter, 2025).

It has been found that when the workforce feels trust in their organization and leaders, it leads to less stress, higher productivity, more engagement, less burnout, more energy, and fewer sick days (Zak, HBR, 2017). Some of this is being highlighted in Great Place to Work organizations, where they experience 8x more revenue per employee, and leadership is fundamental (Fortune Great Place to Work, 2025).

Leaders for Today’s Workforce

Today’s workforce is expecting their leaders to care for them, and this is going to require leaders to use their minds. We have learned from those who study neuroscience, neuropsychology, and NeuroLeadership that our brains need a leader to create environments that feel safe and secure. Today’s workers need leaders who communicate well, facilitate understanding, and create fair and transparent processes, so that our brains do not waste precious effort in guessing or trying to understand what to do next.

In order for leaders to do this, they need to understand that when they step into their role as a manager, they become a celebrity, quasi-psychologist, quasi-sociologist, and quasi-anthropologist. I say celebrity because the spotlight is always on them. The workforce is watching what they do and say.

I say quasi-psychologist because when they interact with someone on their team, they bring their psychology to the exchange.  They show up with their own personal issues, whether this be their insecurities (for example, impostor syndrome), their thoughts on the topic at hand, their opinions or beliefs about who they will be interacting with, or whatever family issues they may be working through, etc.  It has been written that a manager has a bigger impact on their employees’ health than their doctor.

The quasi-sociologist role is about the impact on team dynamics.  It has been written that a leader has a 70% variance impact, both positive and negative, on their teams.

The quasi-anthropologist role is because leaders drive, enable, create, and are ultimately responsible for their organization’s culture. Leaders have an opportunity to create an engaged or disengaged workforce environment. They have the opportunity to create a psychologically safe environment. Depending on the organizational culture, they create will help their organization differentiate itself from its competitors.

Human Resources’ Role

In all of these changes, HR needs to play a key strategic role and partner with senior leadership. HR should consider the following:

1. In support of the organizational strategy, assess the state of their organization. How effective are the leaders? How is the workforce feeling about working in their organization? How engaged are they, and how healthy is the organization?

2.         Develop a comprehensive human capital strategy and plan to address the above. This should include a change management strategy that takes a holistic approach. That includes expected changes, the behaviors needed for the organization to achieve a healthy organizational culture, the development needed by leaders and the workforce, and lastly, the performance accountability mechanisms and rewards to enable the change. Without these last two, the initiative might not achieve its goals.

3.         Ensure there is extensive and ongoing communication throughout the initiative for the changes, the why for the changes, and the benefits for all in the organization.

4.         Create evaluation metrics for the initiative and intervention that show the business impact of the human capital initiative and investment.

5.         Continue to adjust and evolve, as this is a journey and not a destination. As your organization improves at making the organization a “Great Place to Work” with both positive human capital rewards and bottom-line implications.

Organizations can adapt to these changing times, as some are already addressing these changes. They need to ensure they don’t become organizations that were great at one time, such as Blockbuster, Circuit City, Sears, GE, and others, who today either do not exist or are shadows of the great organizations they once were. Most of these organizations prioritized the bottom line and placed their most important resource, their workplace humanity, in a secondary position.

The question to consider is whether your organization and leadership are adapting to these changes and whether you are taking a comprehensive and systemic approach in partnership with HR? I hope so. As Mr. Spock used to say, live long and prosper. Dr. Mouriño is an experienced professional with many years of leading, supporting, and consulting on areas focused on Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, and Workplace Strategies.

Dr. Mouriño is an experienced professional with many years of leading, supporting, and consulting on areas focused on Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, and Workplace Strategies.  Dr. Mouriño is an Air Force veteran and brings broad industry experience that include Aerospace, Government, Utility, IT, Military, Higher Education and Fortune 100 companies,   He is founder and president of Human Intelligent (HI) Workplace, an organization focused on helping leaders help themselves through leadership, human capital trends, and executive coaching emphasizing the area of Human Intelligence (HI) in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  He has spoken at numerous professional venues in the U.S. and internationally and presented in Spanish. He has written numerous articles on human capital trends with implications for organizations and its leadership.  He is the author and co-editor of several books and numerous articles on related topics.