HR Leadership Development for Navigating Change
October 8th 2026 | Posted by Jo Thompson
HR leaders spend much of their careers developing other people, yet their own development can easily take a back seat. Over time, that can leave their own leadership growth standing still, particularly as the demands of a senior role continue to grow. That gap drove What’s Your Next Master Move? A leadership framework for Senior HR Professionals, a virtual boardroom from HR Recruit led by Penny Wood.
“The more senior you become, sometimes the less your value is about how much you personally deliver.”
Rethinking HR Leadership Development
Penny asked senior HR professionals to put the people agenda aside for 45 minutes and create some space to think about their own careers. Problems land daily, diaries fill fast and the pull back into operational detail seldom eases, but at senior level, she explained, doing a great job is not always enough. Her prompts focused on visibility, influence over outcomes and building a reputation that will continue to create opportunities in the future.
HR Leadership Development and Inner Friction
Penny described the obstacle as inner friction, comparing it to driving with the handbrake stuck halfway while the engine screams and fuel burns. Habits that once helped build a career can eventually start limiting it, with common reactions including speeding up, hiding frustration behind a cheerful face or continuing to take on familiar tasks because they feel safe and manageable.
Rather than simply asking people to find more energy or work harder, her approach is to identify and remove the buried anchor holding them back.
The Master Move Method
Penny framed the process as a practical sequence across three stages:
- Audit: Pause and chart where pressure, routines and blind spots originate, allowing the root cause to surface before trying to solve it.
- Identify: Select the single action with the greatest leverage, focusing on the constraint rather than its symptoms by asking what problem sits behind the problem.
- Execute: Define the action in one sentence and describe the outcome, then act within 48 hours, set a clear success signal and enlist an honest accountability partner rather than simply a cheerleader.
Without that first action, the plan remains an intention, making it all too easy to slip back into the same patterns and priorities.
Cutting Strategic Drag
Strategic drag comes from tasks that continue simply because they have always been done, adding cognitive load without necessarily producing results. Drawing on her experience as an executive coach at a technology company adapting its learning strategy around AI, Penny encouraged the team to ask: What is no longer relevant? What consumes energy without producing results? What would we not begin today?
The answers helped cut activities, pause pilots and speed up decisions. She then asked attendees to identify up to five demands on their own time and consider what could be dropped, delegated or reworked.
“Clarity without execution is just what I call intellectual comfort.”
Coaching Outcomes
Penny shared two examples of how focused changes can deliver results. One legal technology specialist improved her visibility through clearer positioning and personal branding, leading to greater recognition and new opportunities. Another client secured a pay rise of at least 10% after building a business case using benchmarks and testimonials. Both demonstrate why effective HR leadership development does not always require a complete overhaul but can begin with one precise change.
In Summary
Few HR professionals truly lack ability; more often, they lack the space to think beyond their everyday workload. Penny’s advice was to strip out unnecessary tasks, choose one decisive action and take it within two days, because awareness only creates change when it leads to a purposeful first step.
