July 10, 2025

How UK Leaders Can Turn Volatility into a Foundation for Long-Term Strength

The UK economy in 2025 is a study in contrasts. Inflationary pressure remains persistent, wage demands are rising, and post-Brexit regulatory shifts continue to disrupt talent flows and operations. Yet amid the fog, there are flickers of opportunity. Growth forecasts are modest but positive, and emerging technologies are driving new efficiencies and productivity gains. 

For C-suite leaders, the challenge is to steady the ship while steering it forward. That requires more than short-term reaction. It demands strategic resilience—the ability to flex, adapt, and endure through disruption. Leaders must shift mindsets, evolve organisational design, and instill trust across the workforce to weather volatility and come out stronger. 

The Current Climate: Pressures Preventing Resilience 

Leaders tell us they’re feeling the squeeze from every direction—budgets are tight, teams are restless, and the rules keep changing. The weight of expectations from all sides can feel relentless, but the real test is balancing immediate pressures with the future in mind. 

Korn Ferry's latest insights suggest that UK organisations are operating in an environment where short-term decision-making cannot come at the expense of long-term agility. Planning must be dynamic. Investment must be surgical. Communication must be constant.   

The cost of indecision or inflexible leadership is too high. 

Building Organisational Agility for Uncertain Times 

To start building organisational resilience, leaders must focus on agility. Agile organisations don’t just react faster—they are built to adapt. They embrace surprises as part of the landscape, ready to shift gears smoothly, without losing sight of their goals. 

In fact, a recent industry report shows that organisations with high agility and resilience are significantly better equipped to navigate complex shocks. Meaning, they excel when experimenting, learning, and recalibrating quickly. 

Their structures allow for rapid redeployment of resources. Their people are empowered to take initiative. Their cultures support experimentation, even in uncertain conditions. 

“Resilience is unconsciously transmitted in the way top leaders show up, as well as in structures and set-piece communications. Anxious executives make for anxious organisations. Today’s C-suite need to understand their visibility and manage their emotional state so as to project confidence and stamina, knowing that uncertainty and paradox characterize our lives as far as the eye can see.” Lucy McGee, Senior Client Partner, Korn Ferry

Resilience is not a fixed trait. It’s an organisational capability that can be built-through design, through culture, and through leadership. 

Leaders must invest in: 

  • Strategic workforce planning that anticipates disruption 
  • Operating models that enable speed without sacrificing rigour 
  • Leadership development that equips teams to lead through ambiguity 

With agility in place, organisations can respond not just with strength, but with precision. 

“Resilience is unconsciously transmitted in the way top leaders show up, as well as in structures and set-piece communications. Anxious executives make for anxious organisations. Today’s C-suite need to understand their visibility and manage their emotional state so as to project confidence and stamina, knowing that uncertainty and paradox characterize our lives as far as the eye can see.” Lucy McGee, Senior Client Partner, Korn Ferry

Workforce Resilience: Trust and Well-Being as Strategic Assets 

Agility sets the stage, but resilience is personal. Teams feeling financial stress, burnout, or career anxiety aren’t just ‘disengaged’—they’re hurting. Leaders who step forward, acknowledging and directly addressing these human pressures, transform anxiety into trust. 

This starts by implementing well-being programs that go beyond lip service, flexible working arrangements that reflect reality, and internal mobility that signals opportunity. All send a message: we are in this together. 

Examples of this include rethinking pay so people feel genuinely valued during tough times, leaders visibly supporting flexible working to show it's okay to be human, and rewarding executives for real improvements in how employees feel about their jobs. 

Korn Ferry is showcasing this by supporting organisations to embed well-being as a strategic priority, helping leaders reframe wellness as a lever for performance, aligning hybrid work policy with workforce insights, and creating transparent progression frameworks that link employee growth with organisational goals. 

This is not just about retention. It’s about performance. Research by the CIPD found that one third of employers who offer health & wellbeing initiatives see better employee engagement and an overall healthier company culture. Resilient workforces drive business continuity, innovation, and customer trust. 

Leadership Communication as a Catalyst for Stability 

But structure and support alone aren’t enough. In a volatile landscape, silence is unsettling. Teams freeze when they don’t hear clear messages. True leadership isn’t about perfect announcements—it’s about honest conversations, showing people you understand and care. 

The most effective leaders today are visible, empathetic, and honest. They don’t promise what they can’t deliver. But they do share direction, rationale, and the why behind the what. 

In doing so, they build credibility, even when plans shift. They create a sense of psychological safety, even when conditions are unstable. 

Confidence and transparency from the top can be a stabilising force for both operational and emotional resilience. Rebuilding trust through transparent, empathetic leadership is essential for sustaining business continuity amid systemic uncertainty. 

Integrating Strategy and People to Strengthen the Organisational Core 

If recent years have taught leaders anything, it’s this: people strategy is business strategy. 

Whether it’s adapting reward structures to match inflationary pressure, designing hybrid work that actually works, or ensuring compliance with fast-evolving UK employment law, leadership must treat people decisions with the same rigour as financial ones. 

Today’s smartest organisations use data to understand what their people really need, how it affects their culture, and why that matters for their bottom line. From predictive attrition modelling to AI-enabled coaching, the integration of people insight into business planning is no longer optional. 

The organisations leading the resilience charge are the ones bringing these worlds together—seamlessly. 

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Leading Forward, Not Just Through 

Economic haze may be the new normal, but it does not have to mean constant crisis. With the right strategies in place—and the right mindset at the top—UK organisations can lead not just through uncertainty, they can actively define what comes next. 

Resilience isn’t about hunkering down. It’s about building the capability to move forward with purpose and adaptability. 

Download our factsheet to discover how Korn Ferry's Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) solutions can enable your organization to adapt swiftly and build resilience in uncertain times. 

Key takeaways

  • How navigating economic uncertainty requires a shift towards agile structures and responsive strategies to build organisational resilience
  • Why investing in employee well-being and fostering a culture of trust are critical for building a resilient workforce
  • Why C-suite leaders must treat people strategies as foundational to business continuity, embedding them into financial and operational planning alike 

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Lucy McGee

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