Lessons from Defence’s 48% capability boost
Modern leadership is shifting fast. Complexity, geopolitical uncertainty, technological acceleration and cross-functional interdependence mean that leaders can no longer rely solely on technical expertise or hierarchical authority. In this environment, negotiation and influence aren’t “soft skills”, they’re critical adaptive capabilities.
A recent Australian HR Institute case study highlights just how urgent this shift has become. The Australian Department of Defence’s JOURNEY program, designed to help leaders respond effectively to complexity, reported a 48% increase in adaptive leadership capability among participants. For ENS International, this aligns closely with what we see across industries: organisations that thrive in uncertainty are those that treat negotiation and influence as adaptive practices, not transactional events.
When expertise isn’t enough: the case for adaptive leadership
A central question facing senior leaders today is:
What does it take to lead when yesterday’s expertise no longer solves today’s challenges?
Adaptive leadership, shaped by Heifetz and Linsky, asks leaders to shift from being answer-providers to being facilitators of learning, sense-making and collaboration. Defence recognised this shift early, driven by its transformation strategies and the rising need for integrated decision-making.
Leaders now must:
- challenge entrenched assumptions
- influence without relying on hierarchy
- navigate competing stakeholder expectations
- make decisions with incomplete or conflicting information
- operate across organisational, functional and even national boundaries
In other words: leaders must negotiate adaptively.
How Defence built adaptive capability and why it matters for negotiation
- Anchoring learning in real-world complexity
The JOURNEY program exposed leaders to ambiguity that mirrored Defence’s operational reality, forcing them to diagnose context, explore underlying drivers and rethink mental models.
This mirrors ENS’s negotiation approach, which begins with understanding not just what is happening in a negotiation, but why. - Challenging assumptions and shifting mindsets
A key outcome of the program was a clear improvement in leaders’ ability to question long-held patterns of thinking, a cornerstone of adaptive negotiation.
Effective negotiation relies on testing assumptions, reframing issues and shifting from positions to interests. - Building capability at scale through systems thinking
Defence used a system-wide approach, reshaping leadership behaviours and organisational structures.
Negotiation operates the same way: influence is shaped by incentives, interdependencies and stakeholder ecosystems, not just individual skill.
Why adaptive leadership now drives negotiation performance
Across our global client base, we’re seeing three major shifts:
- Negotiation is increasingly cross-boundary
Just as Defence leaders must influence across agencies and partner nations, corporate leaders now negotiate across teams, geographies, hybrid workforces and cultures. - Authority can’t carry influence anymore
Modern negotiation depends on trust, relational authority and credibility, not job titles. - Influence requires experimentation
Adaptive negotiation involves testing, learning and adjusting in real time rather than sticking to rigid plans.
Three takeaways from Defence’s 48% capability boost
- Train mindsets, not just tools
Behavioural flexibility drove much of Defence’s uplift, not technical instruction. - Make learning experiential and context-rich
Adaptive capability grows fastest in real-world, high-pressure scenarios — the foundation of ENS’s simulation-based methodology. - Embed shared language and frameworks
Defence scaled impact by using a cohesive framework. ENS’s behavioural models and structured negotiation processes do the same for influence capability.
The adaptive negotiator: a leader built for the future
Defence’s success signals a broader truth:
Negotiation is now an adaptive leadership capability.
Organisations that outperform in complexity develop leaders who can:
- navigate competing agendas
- influence without authority
- adapt dynamically under pressure
- engage stakeholders with clarity and empathy
- help teams learn faster than conditions change
These are the leaders who will thrive in the uncertainty ahead.
At ENS International, we help organisations build these capabilities systematically, through negotiation, influence and adaptive communication programs grounded in behavioural science.
The future belongs to adaptive negotiators.
