How to Upskill Your Leaders for the Modern Workplace

As the modern workplace becomes more complex and smart technologies like AI spread ever wider, today's workforce leaders, from frontline managers up to executives, face challenges that can't be solved through technical mastery or project management-type skills alone. 

In fact, according to Gallup research, great managers today are defined less by task proficiency and more by how they motivate and engage people. Great leaders foster trust, drive accountability, and overcome resistance. These are skills and behaviors rooted in emotional and social awareness more than anything else, yet many leadership development training programs still focus heavily on tactical management skills.

What is Leadership Upskilling?

Leadership upskilling is the process of developing the soft skills, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and adaptability managers need to lead effectively in a modern workplace. 

It goes beyond technical training by focusing on communication, coaching, decision-making, and people-focused leadership behaviors. Effective leadership upskilling equips managers to navigate change, guide teams through uncertainty, and perform in environments shaped by new technologies, workforce expectations, and rapid organizational shifts. 

That neglect of the human side of leadership has left organizations vulnerable. The Harvard Business Institute’s 2025 Global Leadership Development Study found that emotional and social intelligence ranked as the most critical leadership capabilities for current and future business needs, with 99% of surveyed organizations identifying them as essential and nearly half saying their importance has grown just over the past year.

Despite its importance, emotional intelligence in leadership remains underdeveloped in most organizations. In fact, Korn Ferry’s “Emotional Intelligence: Why Now?” report found that only 22% of leaders demonstrate real emotional intelligence. Worse, there are some indications that leadership rank and emotional intelligence might even be inversely related.

What is Emotional Intelligence (EI) in Leadership?

Emotional intelligence in leadership refers to a leader’s ability to recognize, understand, and manage their own emotions, as well as the emotions of others, to drive better decisions, relationships, and team performance. 

It includes core competencies such as empathy, self-awareness, emotional regulation, and social awareness. Leaders with high emotional intelligence communicate more effectively, build trust, reduce conflict, and create healthier, resilient teams. Unlike innate personality traits, emotional intelligence can be strengthened through deliberate leadership development training.

Why Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Matters

Emotional intelligence is one of the most important leadership skills in the modern workplace. In leadership, this directly influences performance, retention, and organizational health. While quantifying the effects of EI on metrics like productivity, job performance, or employee engagement is challenging, studies have consistently found “a significant relationship between employee engagement, happiness, and general workplace well-being and emotionally intelligent leadership.”

“We need people in our workplace who can connect with others, who display empathy and understanding, (and) who understand emotions,” one corporate vice president told analysts at Capgemini for its Emotional Intelligence: The Essential Skillset for the Age of AI report. “More than ever, emotional intelligence is not just a ‘nice to have’ but a core capability for the future.’’

The good news is that emotional intelligence can be taught through leadership development training.

“Emotional intelligence is a set of skills and behaviors,” writes Harvard University’s Professional and Executive Development division. “While some people will be naturally more adept at certain aspects, EI can be learned, developed, and enhanced.”

Soft Skills Are Critical for Future Leaders

Soft skills often determine leadership effectiveness more than technical expertise. Speaking more broadly, it’s not just “emotional intelligence” per se that’s in demand for leaders. Soft skills in general are just as, if not more, important today than they were in the past for leaders. Communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptability and other so-called soft skills have all become essential in a rapidly changing world where hard technical skills can become obsolete almost as fast as they emerge.

Yet, many companies struggle to build programs that translate these ideas into daily behaviors. Nearly 75% of professionals believe less than half of what they teach in leadership training gets applied on the job. That disconnect suggests many programs are teaching the wrong skills for today’s realities. 

It’s especially important to consider these soft skills in the context of AI. There is some evidence that AI is displacing, or at least substantially changing, work traditionally performed by the managerial class. Fast Company has referred to this phenomenon as “unbossing.” However, AI tools still operate within notable constraints, and soft skills like human judgment and empathy are still required to lead people effectively. Managers who have learned and mastered these human-only skills will be best positioned to navigate AI-driven workplace changes.

The Rise of Adaptable Leadership

In particular, adaptability has become a defining characteristic of effective modern leaders, given how rapidly the modern workplace seems to shift. In an environment shaped by rapid technological change (including the rise of AI) and shifting employee expectations, adaptable leadership enables managers to respond constructively rather than react defensively.

What is Adaptable Leadership?

Adaptable leadership is the ability to adjust behaviors, decisions, and strategies quickly in response to changing circumstances, employee needs, or business conditions. Adaptable leaders stay flexible rather than rigid, use real-time information to guide decisions, and view change as an opportunity instead of a disruption. 

This leadership approach is essential in environments shaped by AI, shifting workforce expectations, and evolving organizational priorities. Adaptable leadership can be strengthened through targeted training, ongoing coaching, and real-world practice. 

Without specifically upskilling leaders in this area, however, that may not be what happens. “Just when leaders need fresh thinking and decisiveness, they tend to fall back on tried-and-true ways,” writes McKinsey & Co. 

Training people to be adaptable, thoughtful leaders doesn’t have to be intensive or onerous, however. In fact, McKinsey recommends “bite-sized” training modules. It describes a global company that trained 5,000 of its top management staff using 20- to 30-minute modules delivered over the course of several months. Participants who engaged with just four to six hours of the modules over three months saw 2.7x improvement in adaptability behaviors and 3x improvement in performance outcomes compared to those who didn’t. 

Getting Help with Leadership Development Training   

Partnering with a Professional Employer Organization allows small and mid-sized businesses to access leadership expertise typically reserved for larger enterprises. PEOs can design scalable leadership development training programs that integrate both technical and interpersonal skill growth, ensuring managers have the emotional intelligence and resilience to lead effectively.

A well-structured PEO partnership supports learning and development strategies in three key ways:

• Strategic assessment: PEO consultants analyze existing leadership competencies, identifying where emotional intelligence in leadership is strong and where gaps may exist. 
• Tailored training plans: They develop training that prioritizes adaptable leadership, from conflict resolution and empathy to AI literacy and decision-making under pressure. 
• Sustained implementation: Instead of one-time sessions, PEOs help embed emotional intelligence in leadership through ongoing feedback systems, performance reviews, and coaching that reinforce daily behavioral change.

In many organizations, HR leaders simply don’t have the time or expertise to manage these layers internally. By outsourcing to a PEO, companies gain access to structured learning frameworks and expert facilitation that drive measurable results.

Key Skills Modern Leaders Must Develop

• Emotional intelligence and empathy
• Conflict resolution and communication
• Adaptability and problem-solving
• Critical thinking and judgement
• Coaching and team development
• Change management
• AI literacy and digital competency

Ultimately, the future belongs to leaders who can think strategically, act compassionately, and adapt continuously. For organizations that recognize that developing people is as vital as developing products, upskilling their leaders is the only way to continuously drive performance, build resilient teams, and navigate uncertainty and change. In the modern marketplace, that’s what true leadership looks like.

CoAdvantage, one of the nation’s largest PEOs, helps small to mid-sized companies with HR administration, benefits, payroll, and compliance. To learn more about our learning management services, contact us today.

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