Leadership success has long been linked to Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ). However, Adaptability Quotient (AQ) is emerging as the ultimate game-changer. As change accelerates and uncertainty becomes the norm, leaders who can evolve and thrive in the face of disruption will succeed.
“In the world of accelerating change, adaptability is the thing,” says Larry Kihlstadius, chief executive officer of N Star Leaders, a CEO and senior executive of coaching practice, and certified practitioner of AQai Adaptability Assessments. “You can be smart as can be—but if you can’t pivot, if you can’t get out of your own way, if you can’t unlearn what you already learned or have mental flexibility, you’re not going to survive.”
Just look at Blockbuster, Eastman Kodak and Sony, to name a few. Sony invented the MP3 player, which could play multiple forms of content—movies, music and more—but you had to download everything. This was a painful process, according to Kihlstadius. Ultimately, the MP3 player went by the wayside because the company didn’t adapt.
However, if we look at today, technologies like self-driving taxis and AI are poised to disrupt entire industries. The ability to adapt is no longer a “nice to have”—it’s non-negotiable.
Here’s a look at what AQ is and how you can boost your adaptability for leadership success.
The science of AQ
Research by McKinsey & Company identifies adaptability as the critical success factor for navigating transformation and systemic change. But what is AQ?
In business, Forbes says, “it is the ability to adjust course, product, service and strategy in response to unanticipated changes in the market.”
On an individual level, AQ describes a person’s ability to navigate change in real time and under pressure. People who want to remain successful in their careers must be able to adapt—and for some, that may mean developing new skills or ways of interacting with others.
“I think [AQ] gives people permission to believe that they can cultivate the… means to be able to navigate all the change that we’re in,” says Nancy Giordano, an exponential strategist and author of Leadering: The Ways Visionary Leaders Play Bigger. “It’s another way of being able to bundle a whole bunch of things that we’ve been talking to people about for over a decade around curiosity, confidence and empathy with others.”
AQ in action
During a keynote presentation for The Entrepreneurs’ Organization of Albany (New York), global futurist and keynote speaker John Sanei explains that at the beginning of human existence, Physical Quotient—which referred to physical strength and endurance—mattered more than any other leadership skill. However, IQ—which prioritized problem-solving and critical thinking—became the key skill during the Industrial Revolution because intelligence is critical for replicating systems and developing processes to drive efficiency.
In more recent years, a leader’s EQ has taken center stage, emphasizing self-awareness, empathy and interpersonal skills. But today, future of work specialists say that AQ is the new must-have skill for leaders to navigate uncertainty and rapid-fire technological advancements.
“We went from prizing this need for logical thinking and fitting into a system to now celebrating our uniqueness, our creativity and our genius,” Sanei said in a presentation. Leaders and companies that adopt an adaptability mindset are able to find innovative ways to move forward, despite disruptive changes like the pandemic, economic uncertainty and massive technological change.
In her book, Giordano highlights a New York City teacher’s solution for helping kindergarteners observe the 6-foot distance rule when in-person classes resumed: wearing plastic inner tubes.
“That’s AQ in action—thinking about what the problem I’m trying to solve is, what resources I have at my disposal and how I can make it work,” Giordano says.
Some leaders have built successful careers out of their adaptive capacity without realizing that it was an innate skill. For example, in the fall of 2024, Joseph Anderson—a private wealth adviser and founder of The Anderson Financial Group in Saratoga Springs, New York—first heard the term AQ during Sanei’s EO Albany keynote presentation and discovered that “I unknowingly have been living [AQ] my entire life.”
“Growing up on the farm, it was what we’ve always done,“ he adds. “Then, as I ventured out into the real world, I have always been trying to do new things and do things differently. My mind is always on, ‘How can I be more efficient? How can I make this better?’ And it’s exhausting because it never turns off, and it affects everything that I experience in my life…. It’s always a new idea.”
The need for personal connection
Generative AI is radically changing entire industries, from computer coding to accounting, customer service and more. In fact, McKinsey research predicts that “12 million occupational transitions may be needed by 2030.” Organizational leaders who can leverage this can steer their company through the disruption from AI.
According to Anderson, doubling down on the human connection is a critical way in which companies can thrive during accelerating technological advancements. “The days of taking the numbers and doing the math are over,” he says. “When I started my career, most other advisors were only selling insurance and maybe doing a few mutual funds. We’re [now] doing comprehensive financial planning, integrated planning, tax planning, estate planning, legal documents and business coaching.”
Sometimes, he adds, he feels like a therapist or personal coach. But in moments of hyper-accelerated change, the businesses that prioritize human connection and strengthening relationships will have an advantage.
“The reality is we’re in the human relationship business,” Anderson says. “We spend our time understanding and knowing what’s out there and then coaching our clients to help them have a better life. And that’s never going to go away. [With only] technology, other [companies] will become irrelevant.”
How to boost your AQ
Moving into the new world of embracing adaptability, rather than seeking simply to replicate systems, takes effort. The good news, though, is that AQ isn’t a fixed quality. If you’re willing to commit to thinking differently, you can strengthen your adaptive capacity.
“Learning and leading simultaneously is really hard,” Giordano says. “So how do you build the capacity and the confidence to be able to both learn and take in new information and then make decisions? You have to think about it differently. It’s practice, not a playbook.”
Here are three practical ways that you can boost your own AQ:
1. Embrace curiosity
For Giordano, boosting AQ begins with curiosity. She points to film producer Brian Grazer as an example. For 22 years, he took someone outside his industry to lunch every two weeks.
“It was so he could see the world outside his bubble—and as a result, he is able to see change from a much further distance away, whether that’s an opportunity or whether that’s a threat,” she says. “Taking the time to do that, and taking the time to build networks and relationships, is a huge part of [AQ]. Anyone who’s thinking they can sit at their desk and have all the answers all by themselves is feeling increasingly vulnerable.”
2. Know where you’re at now
Enhancing your AQ also requires knowing your current skill level. You can’t improve until you understand where you currently are, according to Kihlstadius. To do this, he encourages taking an AQ assessment, like the AQai he uses with his clients. Next, he says, get an accountability partner, whether that’s a coach or another person you trust, to give you radical candor.
Then, ask yourself, “What am I missing?” and “What is my blind spot?” Additionally, look outside yourself and ask others, “How would you do X differently?”
3. Let yourself be vulnerable
Finally, Kihlstadius says to be vulnerable. Reflect on how you respond if someone asks you something you’re unsure about. Do you fake it? Do you show vulnerability and say you don’t know? Do you let the idea play out in a true, ferocious debate among friends, or do you politicize it so much that everyone is afraid to disagree with you?
“I think the key here is being vulnerable enough to know that where you are is where you are,” he says. “So often, [people] take assessments and then justify the findings, rationalize the findings, and don’t embrace the findings to actually make true change in their leadership style—and the world is going to leave you behind [if you do that].”
AQ is more than an individual capacity
The most successful leaders will boost their individual AQ and build an organizational culture that encourages others to do the same. However, this kind of culture requires building a workplace where people can experiment. So how do you build adaptive capacity in organizations and the people within it?
Giordano suggests letting people try things without the fear of failure. She points to Booking.com and Expedia as organizations that got it right. They give anyone in their organization permission to change a feature on the website without getting bogged down by the process.
“Anybody can make a change, and within two hours, they know if it was effective or not,” she says. “If it was, they scale it out. If it’s not, then they shut it down. But it doesn’t require putting your personal or career reputation on the line. You just get to try something.”
She adds that if a person believes a potential failure could derail his or her career, they’re likely to invest more time and energy than is profitable and hang on too long in hopes that it will eventually work.
Kihlstadius believes that leaders at any level—from the CEO to the C-suite, down to directors and supervisors—can align their teams around adaptability. “If you all start using the same language, if you all start using the same semantics, if you all focus on the same things, you all become adaptable together—and it’s amazing.”
This article originally appeared in the May 2025 issue of SUCCESS+ digital magazine. Photo from insta_photos/Shutterstock.com
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