HR leaders face a historic amount of disruption, and their timeline from planning to action keeps shrinking while the imperatives increase. Here’s what HR leaders say about the challenges and opportunities.

To help HR leaders better manage and lead during these times, Gartner conducted an annual survey of more than 800 HR leaders and identified the top 5 priorities for HR in 2023. Top of the list is leader and manager effectiveness, but many HR leaders will also prioritize change management, employee experience, recruiting and future of work.

Priority No. 1: Leader and manager effectiveness

This is a priority for 60% of HR leaders, and 24% say their leadership development approach does not prepare leaders for the future of work.

As organizations and society evolve, so do the expectations for what leaders are responsible for, making their roles increasingly complex. Today’s work environment requires leaders to be more authentic, empathetic and adaptive. These three imperatives represent a new call for leadership: “human” leadership.

Even though HR leaders try to build commitment, courage and confidence in leaders to help them answer the call, human leaders remain few and far between. Leaders do need commitment, courage and confidence to be effective human leaders; however, HR’s typical approaches do not address the barriers that are holding leaders back. These obstacles include their own (very human) emotions of doubt, fear and uncertainty. 

To help leaders deliver on the need for human leadership and prepare them for the future of work, recognize their humanity and directly address these emotional barriers.