Business leaders today are making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information—and far less time to get them right. Artificial intelligence is accelerating change across every industry, customer expectations are evolving faster than organizations can adapt, and traditional business models are changing overnight. For many leaders, the question is no longer if disruption is coming, but how to lead through it without losing momentum—or people—along the way.
It was this reality that set the stage for our fourth annual Women’s History Month event in Phoenix, where we brought together clients, prospects, and future leaders to learn about the mindset, strategies, and tools they need to thrive during periods of change. They heard inspiring personal insights from these leaders on how they’ve navigated moments of transformation in their professional lives:
Jaime Taets, Founder & CEO, Keystone Group International
Sharon Chen, Chair of the Department of Information Systems & Co-Director of the Center for AI and Data Analytics (Mindful AI Center), Arizona State University
Rebecca Clyde, Co-Founder & CEO, Botco.ai
Katie Drews, Senior Director, Enterprise Tech & Data, Andersen Corporation
The following is a summary of the event.
Resilience is the new leadership advantage
Taets focused on the path to success and building resilience through change, not in spite of it. Beyond the individual highlights, awards, and accolades, Taets said success isn’t a linear process.
“The problem with success is that it's fluid,” Taets said. “There is no finish line. And as leaders right now, success feels pretty elusive because some days it doesn't feel like winning at all. And it's hard to keep going in this pace of global risk and uncertainty.”
In the face of constant change, Taets said, what matters is how you change the definition of success and how you show up every day even when things don't go according to plan. After making a series of decisions that cost her business hundreds of thousands of dollars, for example, Taets took a life-altering chance.
“I went to my bucket list and said, ‘I am so gripped with fear right now. What is one thing on here that scares me more than where I'm at right now?’” Taets said. “I decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro on my own. I did this because I didn't feel successful, not because I wanted to be successful. I did this because I knew a better version of me was on the other side of it. At the top of the mountain, I was going to become someone different because I was proving to myself that I was resilient.”
After spending a week on the side of a mountain living in a tent with no running water, Taets had a revelation. “What the mountain taught me was that my edge was different than what I thought it was. That I had more in me than my normal day-to-day autopilot life was ever going to show me. I can now look at change and say, yes, it's going to be hard, and it's going to be sweaty and messy. But I'm better on the other side of it.”
For many business owners, AI is the imposing mountain to climb. Taets acknowledged that the transition to AI will impose many changes in our lives, but it also presents an opportunity to come out better on the other side.
“A lot of it is our mindset,” Taets said. “What the mountain taught me is that the people who will risk going too far, stepping all the way to the edge, are the ones who can see where we're going. You have to get to the top of the mountain to see what your next mountain is. And that's where we're at. Whether it's AI or it's something else, we are in a stage where the next five years will be more disruptive than the previous 40 combined.”
Taets shared three keys that have helped her come out the other side of periods of change.
Strengthen your growth muscles. “Figure out how much of a growth mindset you have. The change that is coming at us already, the uncertainty that we are all leading through, is not going to slow down. A growth mindset is simply the belief that you will get through it.”
Get out of your comfort zone. “You've got to stop going to the same places, talking to the same people, doing the same things. Our world will not change if we don't choose to change. The only way to grow is to go through fear and to learn.”
Be agents of change. “It is our time to step forward as leaders and say, I'm not OK with the way it's been. And I'm not OK with who I've been because I want to be more. There's another version of every single one of us through all the trials and tribulations that are going to come, whether it's AI or it's the next crisis. Each thing we go through is preparing us for the next hard thing. Resilience is a muscle, and if we never exercise it, then we don't have it when we need it.
From control to curiosity
Overcoming adversity is part of every leader’s journey. Sometimes, it requires a shift in mindset to effect healthy change in an organization. For Katie Drews of Andersen Corp., it’s leading with empathy.
“Change is hard individually, and change is harder when it's being done to you,” Drews said. “And as you're navigating that, empathy is critical. If you don't understand where somebody's coming from, then seek to understand. Figure that out and help them through it, because once they're on the same page, the transformation's much easier to come to life.”
It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that leaders should have the answers to every question that comes their way. But that’s an impossible standard to meet. As Rebecca Clyde of Botco.ai discovered, acknowledging that you don’t know everything can also be an effective leadership quality.
“I remember early in my career trying to feel like I needed to know everything,” Rebecca said. “Then I suddenly realized that's impossible and I started taking the opposite approach. Knowing that I know nothing and just asking questions, and creating an environment where people feel safe asking questions.”
Sharon Chen of Arizona State University cited the importance of breaking out of patterns. As an example, she related the story of creating the nation’s first AI in business master’s degree program. Realizing the tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot were going to rapidly transform the workforce, she proposed an AI in Business degree program in response to an immediate and emerging industry need. The problem was that it often takes three to four years to get a degree program in place -- for good reason as it reflects the care required to build a rigorous and well-vetted academic program. But Chen challenged that assumption in a period of rapid and highly uncertain change.
“If you think about it that way, your prediction is going to be correct,” Chen said. “But not because your prediction is correct, but because you act according to that timeline. Long story short, we made that degree program available the very next year. We need to understand sometimes that it's structural constraints that could be challenged, and sometimes it's a cultural habit that we need to challenge.” The experience illustrates a broader point: while rigor and structure remain essential, in highly dynamic environments, waiting for certainty can mean falling behind and risking that even the most carefully designed programs may no longer be relevant by the time they are ready.
Hiring for what AI can’t replace
By some measures, in 1980, the average half-life of the skills a person acquired was enough to last for most of their career. Today, it's less than five years. As Taets pointed out, most of our organizations aren't equipped to train workers to keep up with an ever-accelerating pace of transformation. As innovation continues to evolve, what should leaders prioritize when thinking about how to hire and how to coax the best performance out of the next generation?
For Chen, it means moving beyond thinking of AI as a means of improving efficiency. Instead, when we think of it as a value-creation tool, that dictates the kind of talent your organization will require. That means prioritizing what Chen called higher-order capabilities, such as critical thinking, creativity, and ethical reasoning.
“Of course, technical literacy would remain very important, but we need to hire beyond this,” Chen said. “I would urge organizations to hire for adaptability, then curiosity, and then learning agility.”
Change may be inevitable, but how leaders respond to it is a choice.
The leaders who shared their stories in Phoenix offered a clear message: resilience is built, not innate. Whether it’s redefining success, leading with empathy, challenging long-held assumptions, or hiring for adaptability over pedigree, thriving in a rapidly changing world requires intentional action.
For business leaders, the opportunity now is to pause and ask:
Where do I need to strengthen my own growth mindset?
What patterns—organizational or personal—need to be challenged?
How am I preparing my team not just to use new tools like AI, but to think, learn, and adapt continuously?
The leaders who will succeed in the next era aren’t waiting for certainty. They’re building resilience, curiosity, and courage today—knowing that every challenge is preparing them for what comes next.