One sentence caught my attention this week.
16 July 2026In a thought-provoking article published in the Financial Times (15 July 2026), Mark Freebairn, Partner and Head of the Board, Chair & Non-Executive Director Practice at Odgers, was quoted as:
“If I’m a chair, I have to think that there is a world where the CEO goes tomorrow, there’s a world where the CEO goes in two years and a world where the CEO goes in five.”
On the surface, it’s a comment about succession planning but I think it highlights something much bigger.
It recognises that uncertainty is no longer the exception. It has become part of leadership itself.
The same article goes on to suggest that executive search firms are placing increasing emphasis on a leader’s “inner game”—qualities such as self-awareness, self-management, resilience, identity and adaptability—alongside their technical expertise.
That made me reflect. At Resourceful People Group Ltd, we’ve long believed that helping leaders thrive requires more than technical capability alone. It requires us to understand and leverage the combined power of IQ, EQ and AQ (Adaptability Quotient) if we’re to navigate an increasingly complex and constantly changing world.
For many years, organisations have invested in helping people better understand themselves through personality profiling and related psychometric tools. I genuinely believe these remain incredibly valuable because they help us understand our natural preferences, communication styles and how we build stronger relationships.
But perhaps organisations now need to ask an additional question. How do people respond when the environment changes around them?
Not when everything is going to plan, but when information is incomplete. When priorities shift. When uncertainty increases. When the answer isn’t obvious.
Perhaps that’s why I increasingly see personality and adaptability not as competing ideas, but as complementary ones.
Personality helps us understand preference. Adaptability helps us navigate what’s next. The encouraging news is that organisations no longer need to rely on instinct alone. Today, we have robust tools that help us understand both personality (through Insights) and adaptability (through AQai – Adaptability Assessments & Coaching), giving leaders richer insight than ever before.
In a world of AI, economic uncertainty and continuous transformation, I don’t believe organisations need to choose between understanding personality or adaptability. I truly believe the future belongs to organisations that understand both.
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
As leaders, are we now placing enough emphasis not only on who people are, but also on how they respond when certainty disappears?
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