Rebecca, a managing partner of a law firm in New York, was faced with an executive order from the White House to explain her firm’s diversity policies or risk losing government contracts. She was torn. Should she bring it to a partner vote, make the call herself or resign in protest? Driven by loyalty to her people, she chose to stay and fight.

Her daily mindfulness practice helped her stay centred during what she described as a “circular firing squad”. Whatever she did, someone was going to take a shot at her. Guided by her principles and sense of duty to the firm and her partners, she chose to condemn the order, standing firm in her belief in diversity. In the aftermath, a judge in Washington DC blocked parts of the directive, and some firms joined a collective effort to challenge it. Others, wary of future backlash, rolled back their diversity policies and shifted to pro bono work instead.

Not every leader held their ground – but Rebecca did. Her story is a reminder of what responsible leadership looks like under pressure, and a prompt to ask: What does it take to lead responsibly today?

The challenge of responsible leadership

Responsibility invites different meanings for different people, but for leaders today, it’s non-negotiable. As Sumantra Ghoshal wrote in 2005, business schools had trained students to think in narrow, amoral terms. What matters, he said, isn’t changing people, but changing the context they work in. Good leadership, then, is about building the conditions for responsible behaviour.

While much has changed over the past two decades, the challenge of responsible leadership has only intensified. Organisations now invest in stakeholder engagement, sustainability strategies and leadership development programmes aimed at building responsibility into the way people lead.

Yet, the current swirl of geopolitical tensions, technological advancements and shifting workforce expectations demands more from leaders. Responsible leaders are needed, ones who, like Rebecca, can act with clarity when disruption hits.

What helps them do that? Three traits stand out: attention, authenticity and agility. Together, they form a simple framework for leading responsibly in uncertain times.

Attention

Organisations increasingly recognise the value of attention – being attuned to stakeholders, market shifts and emerging risks. High-performing leaders must stay focused and balance immediate tasks with long-term vision. But how do they decide what to prioritise? Where should they channel their attention when tasks and people issues arise without pause?

Many turn to multitasking as a quick fix. The results are usually sub-optimal: engagement diminishes, and people shift from human beings to human doings.

To address attention deficits and workplace anxiety, many organisations have implemented mindfulness programmes. In Managing the Unexpected, Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe underline the importance of a mindful organisational culture. In fast-paced, high-stakes environments, leaders need to move from relying solely on time management to mastering “attention management” – embracing uncertainty while maintaining strategic focus.

Research supports this. Astudyby Eric Bane and Bradley Brummel found a positive link between workplace mindfulness and job performance, and a negative link between mindfulness and staff turnover intentions.

Some companies have taken this further. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff describes mindfulness as central to a culture of innovation. He encourages what he calls the “beginner’s mind”– looking at the world with “unencumbered eyes and avoiding inside-out or homogenous thinking that can lead to blind spots and missed opportunities.” To support this, Salesforce offices have mindfulness zones on every floor.

In a recent senior management program, we asked participants to engage in a short meditation practice before each session, starting with 60 seconds on day one and increasing to three minutes on day three. Participants reported deeper satisfaction with the pedagogical sessions, improved well-being and a general commitment to continue the practice. For many, it signaled a need to slow down and reset – a rarity in people’s busy lives today.

Authenticity

Bill George, former Medtronic CEO, calls on leaders to find their “True North”and lead with purpose. Authenticity requires ethical clarity, self-reflection and trust. This keeps leaders aligned with their own ethical principles when pressure builds.

Ethical leadership, according to INSEAD Professor N. Craig Smith, is built on three elements: value orientation, articulation of the corporate values and a clear vision for the future. When leaders ignore any of these, they weaken trust and make people less likely to speak up across the organisation. Research by Knoll and Van Dick supports this, showing that authenticity is positively linked to employee voice and negatively linked to silence.

The four primary reasons employees remain silent are fear, futility, lack of pro-social behaviour and opportunism. To encourage ethical behaviour, organisations need to create transparent whistleblowing policies that ensures employees can voice concerns without retaliation and promote a culture of integrity. 

In practice, it can be incredibly hard to lead authentically amidst the day-to-day busy-ness. Too many leaders focus solely on KPIs and targets, with little sense of where the organisation is heading. Providing a clear vision requires people to raise their eyes above the pavement of everydayness and fix a point on the horizon of purpose and meaning. It aligns people and gives meaning to what they do. Without it, coordination weakens and momentum fades. 

Agility

Responsible leaders must be able to adapt to disruption while holding firm to ethical standards. The pace of change – from generative AI to geopolitical instability – makes long-term planning increasingly difficult. It’s hard to predict the next month, let alone the next three years.

To meet this challenge, leaders must set up their organisations to be flexible enough to test, adapt and adjust, with a high tolerance for error. This means creating space for rapid prototyping and innovation, backed by confidence and resilience – even when the ground keeps shifting. An agile CEO builds a purpose-driven culture where experimentation is encouraged and failure is accepted as part of progress. Leaders like Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos have embraced this approach, making agility a core part of how their organisations operate.

Agility is already being tested on multiple fronts. Generative AI is just one example of the complex terrain leaders now face. It brings opportunities and ethical dilemmas, and most organisations know it must be integrated thoughtfully. Moreover, with restricted access to capital, tariffs, sanctions and rising political risks, the need for agility becomes even more urgent.

To develop responsible leaders, business schools and companies must support this leadership shift. Leaders who master the three A’s of responsible leadership will not only build resilient organisations but also inspire the next generation of responsible leaders. The demands have changed, and leadership needs to change with them.