How to Thrive Through Uncertainty and Change at Work
I’ve been working with leaders who face the daunting task of managing wellbeing through redundancies and the stress of imminent AI-upheaval. I’m working with organisations who now understand the need for investment in wellbeing at a strategic and leadership level. Alongside this broad shift in understanding about wellbeing at work, it’s important to remember the impact of these changes on the leaders themselves.
Many of them haven’ta invested in understanding wellbeing at a strategic level, so there’s a sharp learning curve there. Also, managing the wellbeing of others, especially during challenging times, takes skill, practice, and self-awareness. Often, these conversations take a toll on leaders too, and it’s important that they’re also receiving the support and taking care of themselves in their role as a leader.
The past few years have been the most tumultuous and uncertain in recent history. I’d love to say this is a blip in the radar, but global disruption isn’t going away any time soon.
Geopolitical instability, economic pressure, technological disruption, and rapid organisational change have created a level of uncertainty most professionals have never experienced before. Artificial intelligence is accelerating that disruption and creating fear in most ranks of most companies.
People are asking questions that most people never even thought to ask in the decades before:
Will my job still exist in five years?
Do I need to learn entirely new skills?
How do I stay calm when everything feels unstable?
I’ve seen these questions show up everywhere, from boardrooms to Facebook groups, to quiet corridors to kitchen tables.
A Pew Research study found that 52% of workers are worried about AI’s impact on their jobs, and very few people believe it will create more opportunities for them (Lin & Parker, 2025).
Another global survey by EY found that 71% of employees report feeling anxious about artificial intelligence, with many worried about job displacement, salary impacts, and keeping up with technological change (EY, 2025).
This stress plus rising living costs, geopolitical uncertainty, and organisational restructuring, means many people are navigating multiple layers of stress at once. This is exhausting, and you van bet your bottom dollar it has a significant effect on their wellbeing.
Why Change Feels So Stressful
Humans thrive on predictability. We’re wired that way. Not for the predictability itself - trust me, I love novelty - but for the sense of control and safety that a predictable world provides.
As we navigate our daily life, our brains are constantly trying to answer three core questions:
Is it safe?
Can I predict what happens next?
Do I have control?
When constant change disrupts those signals on a regular basis, the sense of being threatened arises.
That’s why uncertainty often triggers:
rumination (going over the same thoughts in your mind)
anxiety about the future
difficulty focusing
emotional reactivity
sleep disruption.
I was working with a team of leaders recently who shared with me how stressed they are about having these conversations and the effect it is having on their mental health, knowing that this disruption is significantly affecting the job security and financial security of their colleagues.
To think that this kind of stress stops at the door when a person finishes work for the day is at the very least naïve, and at worst signalling a psychosocial risk.
Uncertainty in a person’s life is contributes significantly to stress and burnout.
How to Communicate Change
Poorly communicated change by leadership, fuels an increase in anxiety. In fact, less than 20% of employees report hearing from their direct manager about how AI will affect their roles (Crist, 2025) - probably because the manager is just as in the dark as the employee. This lack of communication fuels uncertainty and fear.
In other words, people don’t just need strategy during change. They need psychological safety and clarity. When leaders are just as uncertain as the rest of the organisation, it will be seen in stress levels across the board.
How does a leader communicate about something they’re also in the dark about? Share what they do know, and be honest about what they don’t for starters. When fear takes hold, the instinct to put your head in the sand will be strong. It takes courage to be honest with yourself, first and foremost, and then to share that with others is even more courageous. And with that courage and vulnerability, psychological safety arises, and this is the best way to help guide people through uncertainty.
Courageous Self-Honesty
When there is so much uncertainty, and your instinct is to withdraw, pull inwards, and avoid uncomfortable conversations, you have to step back and examine whether that approach. Is it in the best interests of yourself, your team, or your organisation to avoid uncomfortable conversations?
One of the most common conversations I have with leaders right now sounds like this:
“I’m supposed to reassure my team, but honestly I don’t know what’s coming either.”
And that’s a very real challenge.
The role of leadership is evolving.
Leaders are no longer expected to have all the answers.
But they are expected to:
communicate openly
create psychological safety
support learning and adaptability.
Making space in your calendar to sit with your own uncertainty will help you to develop the empathy and the clarity you’ll need to lead conversations.
Before the start of a working day, take 5 minutes to sit in stillness and examine:
How am I feeling about the changes taking place in the world right now?
How am I feeling about the potential shifts that are coming within my company?
What do I currently know and understand about these changes?
What information do I still need to find out?
What emotions arise in me when I think about the future for myself, my team members, and the people I care about?
Where does this emotion sit in my body? Can I get a sense of the sensation, location, weight, or a way to describe it?
What do I know to be true in myself and for others that can give certainty in this time?
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WHAT Skills Matter Most in an Uncertain World
The conversation about thriving in disruption is often framed around resilience or toughness. But I think that framing is incomplete.
The real capability people need today is adaptability.
Adaptability means:
learning quickly
adjusting expectations
staying psychologically flexible
experimenting rather than resisting change.
People who are adaptable tend to learn new skills faster and thrive more easily during disruption, and organisations with adaptable cultures experience stronger performance and growth.
Many people I speak with aren’t interested in learning about AI or taking on new skills.
Some people are mid-way through their career. They’ve already been through major learning cycles and what they really want is to get through the next 10 to 12 years and retire. What they don’t realise is that their 10-year plan might get cut short and that the best way to hang on is to have a flexible plan of growth - yes, even later in their career.
Helping people to increase flexibility and adaptability sits at the heart of Sunrise Well training sessions like, Mastering Wellbeing Through Change.
Helping leaders to understand the necessity of self-care in uncertain times is what underpins sessions like, Empowering Leaders With Self-Care.
Because when people learn to regulate their stress and stay flexible during uncertainty, the entire organisation benefits.
Practices for Navigating Change
With self-regulation you’ll find co-regulation.
When change happens, uncertainty and fear are contagious. Your instinct might be to join the chaos, or to pretend nothing is going on, but both of these result in disconnection from the people around you, and a lack of tuning in to your own internal signals about the change.
Finding spaces for self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-soothing will enable you to address the internal messages your body is sending you, self-regulate from the bottom up, and find genuine connection with others.
In order to self-regulate and tune in to your internal signals, you’ll need a regular self-regulation practice which includes:
sitting in stillness, noting internal shifts and tensions
slow, rhythmic breathing
awareness of yourself in the environment and social context you’re in
This is the muscle you build through consistent practice. A muscle that enables you to tune in, not only to your own reactions, but also to attune with others and respond dynamically to changing situations.
Your own journey through change
As we continue to navigate technological disruption, economic pressure, and global uncertainty, a useful question to ask yourself is:
What skills or habits will help me stay steady when my external circumstances change, and what can I do to boost my ability to thrive in times like this?
Because when people develop the capacity to adapt, they don’t just survive uncertainty.
They grow through it.
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Or are you hoping to bring evidence-based behaviour change to your teams?
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It requires you to have an in-depth understanding of the topic, skills in research and presenting, and an ability to adapt and be flexible when project needs change.
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References
Crist, C., (2025), ‘‘Leadership Vacuum’ Prompts AI Anxiety At Work, Report Finds’, HR Drive, 10.11.25, accessed 14.03.26, <https://www.hrdive.com/news/leadership-vacuum-prompts-ai-anxiety-at-work/805113/>
Ernst & Young. (2023), ‘New EY Survey: Most Australians Use AI At Work, But Few Feel Supported By Leadership’, EY Press Release 25.08.26, accessed 14.03.26, <https://www.ey.com/en_au/newsroom/2025/08/new-ey-survey-most-australians-use-ai-at-work-but-few-feel-supported-by-leadership>
Lin, L., & Parker, K., (2025), ‘Worker’s Views Of AI Use In The Workplace’, PEW Research Center, accessed 15.03.26, <https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/02/25/workers-views-of-ai-use-in-the-workplace/#:~:text=Differences%20by%20AI%20use,AI%20use%20in%20the%20workplace.>
Mercer, (2024), ‘HR technology’s impact on the workforce’, Mercer, 2024, accessed 16.03.26, <https://www.mercer.com/en-ch/insights/people-strategy/hr-transformation/hr-technologys-impact-on-the-workforce/>
PwC, (2025), ‘Global Workforce Hopes And Fears Survey’, PWC, 12.11.25, accessed 13.03.26, <https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/issues/workforce/hopes-and-fears.html>
Sadeghi, S., (2024) ‘Employee Well-being In The Age Of AI: Perceptions, Concerns, Behaviors, And Outcomes’, Conference Paper: Conference: ICOBHRM 2024 : International Conference on Organization Behavior and Human Resource Management, 01.09.24, accessed <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383912292_Employee_Well-being_in_the_Age_of_AI_Perceptions_Concerns_Behaviors_and_Outcomes>