The Future of Work Is Deeply Human

I went through a massive burnout in 2003. It happened after an international move to France when I was placed with a boss who was dead set against having an American on his team. He thought good leadership meant keeping me at work doing menial tasks late into the evening, often closing the day by telling me how I would never be a great leader like him, and how miserably I had failed in creating the writing or presentations I was working on. It literally made me ill – I stopped eating and sleeping well for months, dreading going into the cesspool of that office.

After I finally quit corporate in 2005, my whole body would tremble just looking at skyscrapers and thinking of suits, heels, and makeup. I didn't know if I'd ever return, even though my first decade in the corporate world had brought me many rushes of joy, getting to work on big projects with fun teams.

What healed me was when I began to enter those high-speed corporate offices from a coaching perspective. After I'd been coaching for several years, I started writing curriculum for Coach Development Institute-Africa, under the guidance of a phenomenal woman named Eileen Laskar, to whom I still owe such a debt of gratitude.

The Leadership That Heals

Eileen’s leadership is what Brené Brown describes in Strong Ground as the kind that holds connection, discipline, and accountability in equal measure. A leadership rooted in humanity. She was the first PCC coach, and later the first MCC coach, in sub-Saharan Africa. She brought me into some of the finest hotels in Nairobi to train CEOs, CFOs, HR directors, and other senior leaders from some of the biggest international firms like Barclays Bank, GSK, Safaricom, and others.

Every time we worked together, she gave me clear, heartfelt feedback that was kind and honest. If she appreciated the way I had woven metaphor into my facilitation, she told me. If she didn't appreciate an offhand remark that felt hurtful to her, she told me that, too. She gave me enormous amounts of autonomy in my writing and teaching, whilst also checking in and offering her thoughts.

When we held our debriefs, she often paused as she was speaking to ask, "Your thoughts, Christi?" Her leadership felt more like friendship and equality. We were both devastated when my visa was not renewed and my family had to leave Kenya far sooner than anticipated. I stayed on her team remotely from France for several years.

The Human Skills Revolution

Grounded, brave, compassionate leadership is what we are all hungering for. We don't want louder leaders; we want leaders who listen, who connect, who express their thoughts, feelings, and doubts – and invite others to do the same.

True leaders are always looking to maximise others' strengths through excellent listening and empathy. Brené Brown’s new book Strong Ground brings those themes home, inviting us to hold the paradox of modern leadership, to be both grounded and daring, disciplined and compassionate.

The Future of Jobs Report 2025 notes, not surprisingly at all for those of us in the coaching world, that the most in-demand skills are resilience, empathy, flexibility, and social influence.

These aren’t abstract concepts. They come alive in the real world through coaches like Bob Armour, who joined our Awaken community after a career working with executives.

In the Awaken Voices podcast Beyond Business: The Role of Emotions in Executive Coaching, Bob shares how learning to navigate his own emotions helped him foster openness and trust in the leaders he coaches. His reflections show how vulnerability and strength can coexist, and how emotionally aware leadership transforms not only teams but lives.

I can't tell you the number of times Awaken Coach Institute grads have messaged me during or soon after their coach certification training programme to tell me about their big promotion at work, because these are precisely the capacities cultivated through coach training.

More Than Professional Training

Awaken’s coach certification course is more than professional training; it’s a journey in courageous leadership - a leadership that begins within. Every time I guide this course, I’m reminded that we are all transformed in one another’s presence. Myself included.

This is formation for people who want to live and lead differently, with love, presence, and trust.

If we want to reclaim our humanity as leaders, we need to:

• Attune first, then structure. Before setting systems in motion, pause to sense what’s truly happening - the fears, the hopes, the stories shaping your team. Structure without attunement becomes control.
  
  
• Nurture first, then challenge. Growth happens in safety. When people feel seen and valued, they naturally stretch toward their potential.
  
  
• Join with, then lead forward. Leadership isn’t standing ahead; it’s walking alongside.
  
  
• Prove ourselves trustworthy, then relate with trusted others. Trust is never demanded. It’s demonstrated through consistent, compassionate presence.
  
  

The Paradox of Speed and Slowness

Though the world moves fast, transformation happens in slowness. It happens when we pause.

The skills the Future of Jobs Report calls essential, empathy, resilience, adaptability, can’t be downloaded or accelerated. They emerge through reflection, through sitting with discomfort, through the slow work of becoming.

In coaching, I see this daily. The breakthrough rarely comes from pushing harder, but from stopping long enough to listen. To ourselves, to others, to what’s wanting to emerge. In our coach training, we honour this with silence. Not awkward silence, but sacred silence - where insight surfaces, where laughter and tears both have space to belong.

This is the same spaciousness that defines coaching at its highest level. The kind of mastery where presence becomes transformational. If you’d like to explore what that looks like in practice, read What Makes MCC-Level Coaching Unique. It’s a reflection on how, at the Master Certified Coach level, conversations become less about technique and more about being, a practice of deep trust, stillness, and soul-level transformation.

The Spiritual Work of Leadership

Our work ahead isn’t just digital; it’s spiritual. The leaders we’re becoming hold both discipline and grace, both action and reflection, both courage and compassion.

When I train leaders I’m not teaching techniques. I’m inviting them into a different way of being. One where humanity is not a weakness to overcome but the very source of strength.

Every coaching conversation is an act of resistance against the idea that work must harden us. Every moment of genuine connection is a small revolution. Every leader who chooses empathy over ego reshapes the future of work.

The Skills That Can’t Be Automated

As AI transforms our workplaces, what becomes irreplaceable is our capacity to hold space for another human being’s growth, to sense what’s unspoken, to create safety, to lead from love.

These aren’t soft skills; they’re the hardest skills of all. They ask us to face our own shadows, to show up with authenticity even when it’s uncomfortable. The Future of Jobs Report only affirms what we already know: the future belongs to those who can navigate uncertainty with grace, who can connect deeply, who can lead from love rather than fear.

Your Invitation to Transformation

If you feel called to lead with love, courage, and presence, to bring the human skills the future of work depends on, I’d love to welcome you.

Our coach certification training isn’t about adding another credential to your profile. It’s about shifting how you show up in the world. The leaders who complete our programs don’t just leave with new skills; they leave with new ways of being. They create cultures where people thrive, have hard conversations with grace, and hold complexity without rushing to simplify.

This is the future of work, not humans competing with machines, but humans reclaiming what makes us irreplaceably human: our capacity to love, to grow, and to transform.

Healing, for me, has never been about returning to who we were before. It’s about becoming who we were always meant to be. The same is true for our leadership and our world of work.

The future isn’t just human. It’s deeply, courageously, transformationally human. And it begins with you.

Join our next live Q&A to discover how coaching can become your way of leading.

About the Author

Christi Byerly, MCC, is the founder and CEO of Awaken Coach Institute. Her coaching process motivates you to build a community of empathy and grace around you, and to live your mission as part of something bigger than you are. With over 15 years of coaching experience, Christi has trained hundreds of new coaches and maintains a thriving practice focused on depth, presence, and authentic transformation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you say the future of work is “deeply human”?
Because what’s being asked of us now isn’t more efficiency, it’s more empathy. The pace of the world keeps accelerating, but what truly transforms workplaces are leaders who can listen, connect, and stay grounded in love and courage when everything feels uncertain.

Brené Brown describes this as “leading from a place of connection, discipline, and accountability.” I’ve seen it in every environment I’ve coached in, from corporate boardrooms to small community teams. The leaders who make the biggest difference aren’t the loudest or the most confident. They’re the ones who stay present, curious, and kind.

What human skills matter most for the future?
Skills like empathy, resilience, adaptability, and social influence are rising to the top. For coaches, these aren’t new ideas, they’ve always been at the heart of our work.

What’s changing is that the world is catching up. Emotional intelligence and presence can’t be automated. They come from lived experience, reflection, and the courage to keep growing.

How does coach training help people become better leaders?
Coach training redefines how we lead. You stop trying to have all the answers and start asking the right questions. You learn to listen beneath the surface, to hold space for others’ insight, and to create trust that allows people to thrive.

I’ve watched hundreds of leaders step into this work and discover a quieter, steadier confidence, one rooted in empathy rather than authority. It’s the kind of leadership that creates real change, both in workplaces and in lives.

Why is empathy becoming so central to leadership?
Because people no longer want to work for someone who manages them. They want to work with someone who understands them.

Empathy doesn’t mean avoiding hard conversations, it means having them with clarity and care. It’s what allows teams to move through challenge without losing connection. As Brené Brown says, “Clear is kind.” And kindness, in leadership, is far from soft. It’s the foundation for resilience and trust.

Can leadership really be learned?
Absolutely. Leadership is a practice, not a personality type.

The qualities that matter most, presence, courage, adaptability, are learned through awareness and repetition. Every coaching session, every moment of feedback, every pause to reflect helps you build that inner muscle.

This is what I think of as inner leadership: the daily practice of leading yourself first, of staying present, curious, and compassionate even when circumstances are messy or uncertain.

What I’ve learned over the years is that leadership begins the moment you decide to take responsibility for the energy you bring into the room. Anyone can start there.

How can I start leading with more love, courage, and presence?
Begin where you are. Pay attention to the moments that move you, frustrate you, or stir something deep inside. That’s where your leadership edge lives.

If you feel drawn to explore further, our coach certification course is a beautiful place to begin. It’s not just professional training, it’s a space of becoming. A place to practice leading the way the future needs: with open eyes, open hearts, and open hands