Gartner series #3- Empowering People as Agents of Change: The Human Side of Intelligent Leadership

This article is part of Origina’s thought-leadership series anchored in the conversations at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo™ 2025, where the theme “Agents of Change: Leading Through Intelligence” highlighted the role of culture and people as the true drivers of enterprise transformation. 

Technology Doesn’t Transform Organizations—People Do

Artificial intelligence, automation, and digital platforms dominate boardroom conversations. Every enterprise wants to harness these technologies to move faster, serve customers better, and reduce costs. Yet for all the focus on systems and tools, the truth remains simple: technology does not transform organizations—people do.

The most successful enterprises in the AI era will not just be the ones with the most advanced algorithms. They will be the ones where leaders empower employees to embrace change, where culture supports curiosity and risk-taking, and where people are freed from repetitive, low-value work to focus on innovation.

This human dimension of transformation is often overlooked, but it is central to Gartner’s 2025 Symposium theme of “Agents of Change: Leading Through Intelligence.” True agents of change are not only executives making strategic decisions; they are also the teams and individuals across the enterprise who carry transformation forward in practice.

Culture as the Bedrock of Transformation

When digital transformations stall, the culprit is rarely the technology itself. More often, it is culture. Employees resist when changes feel imposed rather than explained. Leaders struggle when communication is fragmented or inconsistent. Teams disengage when they spend their time maintaining systems instead of creating value.

Intelligent leadership recognizes culture as the foundation of transformation. Leaders who communicate the why behind change, involve people in shaping solutions, and create opportunities for meaningful contribution unlock commitment instead of compliance. In these organizations, transformation isn’t a project imposed from above—it is a shared mission that energizes teams.

Freeing Talent from the Upgrade Treadmill

Origina CEO Tomás O’Leary, writing for Forbes Technology Council in  “How Organizations Are Creating Space for True Transformation by Shrinking Their Change Budget,” explained how vendor-driven upgrade cycles consume not only budgets but also people. When highly skilled engineers spend months migrating systems simply because of arbitrary deadlines, they are prevented from working on projects that deliver genuine business value.

By shrinking the change bucket and resisting unnecessary upgrades, leaders don’t just save money—they release human potential. Engineers who would otherwise be tied up in migrations can focus on piloting AI tools, reimagining processes, and developing new solutions. The result is not only faster innovation but also a more motivated workforce. Teams feel their work matters because it is visibly connected to outcomes that advance the business.

This shift turns IT from a perceived cost center into a source of strategic advantage. It also strengthens culture, signaling that leadership values creativity, problem-solving, and impact over compliance for its own sake.

Encouraging Intelligent Risk

For decades, many organizations have defaulted to vendor timelines because it felt safer. Yet compliance for its own sake often creates more disruption than stability. Every upgrade introduces new risks: outages, security gaps in untested features, integration failures. The “safe” choice can easily undermine resilience.
Intelligent leaders foster cultures where it is acceptable—even expected—to challenge these assumptions. They encourage employees to ask: Do we really need this upgrade? Could a targeted fix deliver the same outcome? Are we prioritizing value for the business, or simply following a vendor’s agenda?

When leaders support this kind of intelligent risk-taking, they shift culture from passive acceptance to active problem-solving. Employees no longer see themselves as order-takers; they see themselves as contributors to strategy. That cultural shift is what makes organizations more adaptable and resilient in the face of disruption.

Intelligence as a Shared Responsibility

The phrase “leading through intelligence” often conjures images of executives making data-driven decisions. But intelligence should not be centralized—it should be shared. From engineers who evaluate technical alternatives, to compliance teams that weigh regulatory requirements, to customer-facing staff who provide feedback on outcomes, intelligence emerges from every corner of the enterprise.

Organizations that democratize decision-making build a deeper, more resilient form of intelligence. They trust their people to bring forward new ideas, to test approaches, and to raise risks early. CIOs and CEOs who invite this collective intelligence into strategy gain an advantage that no tool can replicate: the wisdom of the people who live with systems and processes every day.

Preparing People for the AI Era

AI will transform industries, but only if employees are equipped and confident to use it. Intelligent leaders know that investing in technology without investing in people is a recipe for failure. Training, reskilling, and change management are essential. So too is cultivating a growth mindset, where employees are encouraged to experiment, learn from mistakes, and adapt quickly.

This is not only about technical upskilling. It is about making adaptability part of the culture. When employees feel secure enough to try new approaches and trusted enough to challenge old ones, they engage with AI as an opportunity rather than a threat. This cultural readiness is as important to transformation as the AI platforms themselves.

In the Forbes Technology Council article “Surviving the GenAI Infrastructure Crunch Requires Technological Independence,” O’Leary observed that enterprises already face capacity constraints as AI workloads consume unprecedented resources. Every unnecessary upgrade worsens the strain, wasting scarce compute that could be directed toward innovation. Preparing people for the AI era therefore requires not just training, but leadership choices that protect resources for strategic initiatives. By resisting wasteful cycles, leaders ensure their teams can focus on the work that matters most.

The Human Advantage

The Gartner Symposium theme reminds us that the most powerful agents of change are not technologies—they are people. Intelligent leadership is about creating the conditions where those people can succeed: clarity of purpose, freedom from low-value tasks, encouragement to question assumptions, and support for continuous learning.

Enterprises that understand this will move faster and more effectively than those that treat transformation as a purely technical exercise. Their cultures will attract and retain talent, their teams will deliver more innovative solutions, and their customers will see the results.

Final Thoughts

Technology may set the stage, but people perform the transformation. Leaders who empower their teams, free them from maintenance, and encourage intelligent risk-taking will build organizations capable of thriving in the AI era.

At Gartner IT Symposium 2025, as leaders gather to discuss the future of AI and digital transformation, one truth will be clear: technology doesn’t transform organizations. People do.

Agents of change don’t just manage people—they empower them.

This concludes our series on agents of change. If you missed the earlier articles, start with Agents of Change Don’t Just Upgrade—They Transform, then explore Agents of Change and IT Resilience in the Age of AI.