It’s hard to imagine a more challenging time to advance career ambitions, with the escalating possibility of global recession and workforce disruption brought about by artificial intelligence, not to mention the most uncertain geo-political environment of our times. Traditional boundaries are being re-drawn. Trust is being eroded in government, business and the media. Workplace loneliness is increasing in recent studies, and it’s that lack of connection and feeling of isolation that can compound the already ambiguous pathway towards future career success.
In our executive coaching practice, we see many professionals struggling to sense make around how to thrive in environments of escalating change. Sometimes this is personal – individuals who have succeeded holding certain capabilities and strengths who struggle to let go of these when change defines that they are no longer strengths in the new context. Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey talk to this in their research as immunity to personal change – hidden beliefs that thwart attempts to change. Sometimes these situations involve inner concerns around the downsides of changing, even when there appears to be a strong case to do so.
Change agility is central to successful career progression in the era of disruption, so a good starting point is to think through the assumptions you are making that may block the kind of personal change required to be ready for new roles or careers to emerge. Letting go of old strengths and habits and embracing new strengths and habits fit for the times is key to being ‘match fit’ as new opportunities emerge and show a personal capacity to read the environment and adjust accordingly.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs Report (2025) is the latest instalment of a series of research pieces aiming to provide insight into the changing nature of work and what is driving it. It highlights emerging and declining job types and capabilities, and projects likely scenarios around this leading into 2030 and beyond. Amongst this disruption, now impacting white collar workers and professionals with the rise of AI, there is also opportunity – the emergence of new jobs and roles to replace those now achieved through AI and automation. The need to rapidly upskill forms part of a healthy career journey, where lifelong learning is now an essential mindset for all employed adults.
What remains interesting from a career perspective is that the very commodity that makes us human is becoming more valuable. Social influence, for example, is a key emerging capability as is leadership, although the context for leadership is changing. In the future, leaders may manage fewer people but encounter greater complexity in the roles, requiring an understanding of how to best interface human with artificial intelligence. The most important capability in this according to the WEF is critical thinking. Why is this so?
MIT researchers recently concluded a brain scan study using ECG scans on what ChatGPT does to your brain when humans write essays and the results speak for themselves. Those who wrote their own essays without assistance from artificial intelligence or even search engines showed the strongest brain activity with multiple regions of the brain working together to produce the result. Maintaining high levels of critical thinking will continue to be a career advancing capability, with more interviews focusing on scenarios to demonstrate this in candidates over time.
Many leaders have grown their skills in a world where individual performance is the greatest indicator of career progression. Whilst individual results get us through the door, it quickly becomes about our ability to see a bigger picture. Collaboration with others to deal with sticky problems and challenges requires those with career ambition to see things at the enterprise level, rather than being a functional expert contained within their organisational patch. How often do you lift your head above the dashboard to see that bigger picture and partner with others in pursuit of something that might change the organisation entirely? Arresting time as well as a dose of altruism to work outside of your KPIs defines someone who not only gets collaboration but offers that rarer mindset of seeing the system in its entirety.
Are you starting to think about your career and your potential next steps given this escalating ambiguity? A good place to commence is to list the portable or transferrable skills that you offer, aligned to emerging workplace capabilities. Defining yourself functionally has limitations. How would you describe the value you bring in your approach to work? What competitive advantages do you offer, for example, an ability to challenge habits that no longer serve in yourself or others, or an ability to collaborate to solve challenging problems.
Next, know the self-limiting or underpinning beliefs that may hold you back from personal change. Help others to see those in themselves as well. Refine your capabilities in leading change through understanding how psychological transitions work, and how you can accelerate this adoption of the new in yourself and others.
Think about your future self. Making money along the way in any career is important but so too is the legacy you want to leave behind and that sense of satisfaction looking back which acknowledges the role that self-esteem has in happiness and fulfilment. What would a satisfying career look like when looking back on it? What will have made it worth the effort and struggle. What will keep you on track when disruption happens knowing that there are many ways to achieve your career ambitions, even though your younger self may not have realised this at the time.
A final thought. In the words of Wayne Gretzky, the famous ice hockey player, “You can exhaust yourself trying to follow the puck around the field. I try to anticipate where the puck is going to be and am there and ready to accept it”. Think of your career in those terms as a basis for success in disrupted times and get busy on the ultimate work in progress – yourself!
Paul L Mills
April 2026