In my years leading at AT&T, I witnessed a curious phenomenon. When a crisis hit our communications networks, our teams, regardless of function and hierarchy, would leap into action to restore the critical and essential services we provided to our customers. Whether a hurricane, a trans-Pacific cable cut, or cyberattack, purpose crystalized. Silos disappeared. People dropped politics, their own agendas, and rallied toward a common mission. The result? Execution and performance soared.
These powerful moments of clarity amid chaos have always stayed with me. I often found myself wondering: Why can’t we bottle this? Why does it take a disaster for our clearest alignment and best execution to surface?
And here’s the trap: In this endless storm of instability, I see the opposite of my AT&T experience: Many leaders lose focus, fixating on issues and events within their circle of concern but beyond their real purview. At the same time, they may neglect matters that are squarely within their control and influence.
A prime example is how much time you spend with your emerging workforce. I’m talking about your front line, their managers, and your newest hires. Collectively I’ll call them your “freshman line.” These employees aren’t just your future; they are your present. In a world where everything feels fragile, shoring up this group is a point of leverage for greater resilience across your organization.
Yet, as a cohort, this group gets much less attention and training than senior staff.
It’s easy to recognize disruption when it comes from the outside: supply chain breakdowns, regulatory whiplash, or technological upheaval. But increasingly, the storm is also coming from within. Generational shifts, flatter hierarchies, and declining corporate loyalty have made it harder to develop and retain talent. Younger employees are hired and let go more quickly, and they’re more likely to change jobs on their own. Even senior team members are staying for shorter stints. As a result, institutional knowledge is disappearing. Technology is replacing the need for many middle management functions and threatens to replace whole categories of jobs.
In this shift, the front line—the people who are face-to-face every day with your customers, your suppliers, your code base—bears the weight. In the past, layers of management above the front line absorbed all this complexity and translated it for those serving customers, directly interacting with the market every single day. Now? That complexity lands directly in the laps of your newest hires and their managers, who are also largely unsupported. Traditionally, leadership development has been lavished on senior executives and those deemed “high-potential talent.”
We’re asking these early-career professionals to step into roles that require decision-making, critical thinking, and rapid analysis at speeds previously reserved for more experienced players. Are we preparing them for this? Are we even present enough to notice what they need?
I use the term freshman line purposefully. These aren’t just your young employees, they are your newest team members across all demographics. The skills and mindsets they bring, as well as the kind of leadership they respond to, are dramatically different from a generation ago.
They are native to the newest technologies our organizations require. Many lack traditional business etiquette but show up with a more subtle social intelligence that can be winning and persuasive. They are purpose-driven and skeptical of the blind, loyalty-based tradeoffs that my generation accepted as a matter of course.
Some managers may not like their tendency to push back on “the way leadership has always been done.” But in a business environment that demands innovation, that’s an asset, not a liability.
Here’s the critical thing to know about your freshman line: They’re soaking up the impact of our collective uncertainty just like everyone else, but with less context, less patience, and less experience. If you want to build resilience in your company, this is the cohort to invest in. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s your best chance at agility, especially in times of transformation.
Today’s leaders are exhausting themselves worrying about global economic policy, AI existential risk, and tariff policy that shifts week to week. But while those dynamics surely matter, and contribute to your situational awareness, they are not where your highest-leverage leadership lies in 2025.
Ask yourself: When was the last time you sat down with a group of frontline managers, not to assess them or for a quick introduction, but to listen? When did you last walk the floor, not to check that they were present and working, but to ask them what’s working and what’s not? To hear their worries and their ideas while also showing them that you care?
These are the conversations that convey your culture. This is how you identify the blockers to execution, innovation, and morale. This is where your next generation of leadership is incubated, not in corporate strategy off-sites, but in the field, on the ground, and on the factory floor.
The flattening of hierarchies means your frontline team has moved from the periphery to the center of your organization. The front line is absorbing complexity, interfacing with AI, representing your brand, and, increasingly, influencing and driving internal change. For instance, their prioritization of authenticity and well-being is driving a workplace evolution that is here to stay and is changing the way we must lead.
In this environment, leaders need to show up differently. When we lean in, we must do so by coaching and advising more, rather than managing more. We need to actively help the freshman line cultivate business acumen, including decision confidence, stakeholder awareness, relationship building, and a mindset for calculated, smart risk. That growth doesn’t happen by accident but through intention and support. We can’t just assume they’ll “figure it out.”
These are your changemakers. But only if you invest in them as such.
Forgive me for stating the obvious: Today’s business world doesn’t reward analysis-paralysis. It rewards focus, courage, action, and results. And if there’s one place every business leader can focus amid the uncertainty—the permacrisis, the hurricane everywhere—it’s on attracting and developing the talent with the most potential to shape what comes next. Who, let’s not forget, are most often the face of your business to your customers and partners alike. Spend time with your new hires. Develop and flex your own communications style to better connect with them. Understand their perspectives. Build their confidence and support their ideas. In an era of constant change, these early-career employees will shape how your organization adapts across technology, culture, and growth. If you’re not standing alongside your freshman line and serving as an active coach, you’re already behind.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
