Agency is Your Defining Capability

If you're a midlevel HR/Talent leader and have your eye on a future Chief People Officer role, you must move from being developed to developing yourself, and from executing people strategy to owning enterprise impact.

This shift is a key factor that separates people who eventually make it into the C-suite from those who remain strong functional leaders. This shift requires agency.

Not ambition.

Not tenure.

Not technical HR expertise.

Not being the loudest voice in the room.

Not authority.

Agency.

What “Agency” Means at the Executive Level

In career development terms, agency is the ability and willingness to influence outcomes through intentional action rather than passive reliance on systems, roles, or hierarchy.

For aspiring Chief People Officers, agency shows up as:

• Taking responsibility for your enterprise value…not just your function
• Proactively demonstrating your team’s value…before you’re asked to defend it
• Acting like a business leader…before you are formally recognized as one
• Making strategic moves…without waiting for permission, certainty, or perfect clarity

At senior levels, agency is assumed. At midlevels, it’s often seen as more of a nice-to-have, and that’s where the gap widens.

The Mid-Level Trap: Competence Without Agency

Many high-potential HR/Talent leaders stall their development - not because they lack capability, but because they overvalue execution and undervalue ownership. Here’s how I’ve seen this show up:

• Leaders who wait to be “invited” into strategic conversations
• Relying on their ability to design and deliver excellent content or programs while someone else owns the decision
• Focusing efforts on developing others, not on contributing to buisness results
• Withholding insights when the discussion topic is beyond the HR/Talent scope
• Relying on a title rather than building influence at any level
• Expecting a leader, mentor, or sponsor to create the path instead of shaping it

Here’s the trap, and a hard truth for many: you can be highly competent and still appear unready for an executive opportunity.

Career success at a senior leadership level depends on proactive ownership more than following a path laid out by someone else. Chief People Officers are not promoted into agency. They are selected because they already demonstrate it and set an example for others. Executives are chosen for ownership, not for reliability alone.

Agency as a Signal for Executive Readiness

When CEOs, executive teams, and boards evaluate a potential Chief People Officer candidate, their first question is rarely, “Are they an HR expert?” Sure, familiarity and experience leading the HR function is important, but the questions that are really being asked are:

• Do they think strategically and systemically?
• Do they cast a vision for the organization and team?
• Do they anticipate issues before they escalate?
• Do they take ownership beyond their defined role or subject matter expertise?
• Do they operate with incomplete information?

These behaviors demonstrate agency, and they will serve as competitive advantages over leaders who simply possess deep professional expertise.

Not only does agency increase your growth potential, but it also links to engagement and long-term satisfaction. Whether the potential opportunity is due to succession, regular attrition, company expansion, or other factors, agency sends a signal that you are ready to scale your career.

How to Increase Agency as an Aspiring Chief People Officer

If agency is a capability you are developing, here are 4 practical strategies to increase your effectiveness:

Reframe your function around organizational initiatives and outcomes

Rather than asking, “How should HR be involved?” or “What talent programs do we need?”, consider the big picture and ask, “What business outcomes are at stake, and how does HR/Talent affect them?”

This shift emphasizes strategic thinking and organizational alignment as performance drivers. CEOs expect their Chief People Officers to connect the dots between their function and business success and to lead with autonomy, rather than dependence.

💡Something to try: Redefine 3-5 responsibilities in your role or on your team - not in HR terms, but linking to business outcomes like growth, risk, execution, culture, and capability?

Stop waiting for permission or perfect clarity

At this level, agency looks like bringing insights to the conversation before being asked. It means identifying and naming people risks early, even when it’s uncomfortable. It involves proposing collaborative solutions that break down silos. I’ve said this for years (and my team is probably sick of hearing me say it, but #cantstopwontstop), we need to demonstrate our value before we’re asked to defend our value.

💡Something to try: In your next leadership/executive meeting, share one unsolicited insight that links to organizational performance - not an HR/Talent activity.

Expand your role before the promotion

A leadership coach I follow once had a program called “Executive Ahead of Time.” The concept is a strategic move that gets us thinking, anticipating, and acting in a way that prepares us for the future opportunity we’re seeking. High performers, especially those in senior leadership roles, proactively shape their responsibilities, priorities, and relationships - often without formal role changes. Aspiring Chief People Officers can do this by becoming an integrator between strategy, culture, and execution. Building trusted partnerships with other business leaders and taking ownership of ambiguous problems (particularly the ones others avoid!) are effective strategies to add value far beyond the bullet points on your job description.

💡Something to try: Identify one organizational issue that has a direct impact on business outcomes and claim it. Solicit stakeholder feedback, research issue history, and determine the root cause, then assess how your function (and others) contribute to the issue and to a recommended solution.

Treat your career development as a strategic system

One of the biggest missteps I see with experienced leaders is the notion that ongoing development is unnecessary, or just something for their “less experienced” team members to focus on. Big mistake - huge! (Name that movie!) Career growth and adaptability requires leaders at all levels to continously build skills to embrace ambiguity, lead through change, and navigate through transitions. Agency here means actively building skills and capabilities before they’re required, seeking feedback beyond your HR function, and designing experiences that stretch organizational thinking.

💡Something to try: Reflect quarterly, asking yourself, “What capability does the Chief People Officer role require that my current role does not naturally give me? How am I getting exposure to this for my development?”

You don’t need to overhaul everything. Pick one area. Take one visible step. Progress, not perfection!

Tough Love: You Aren’t Likely to be Tapped for a C-level Role Without Evidence of Agency

Organizations may develop HR/Talent leaders. They select Chief People Officers.

One of these days, I’ll share more about how I know this here on the blog. Today, I can tell you from personal experience that one distinct selection factor is demonstrated agency, particularly in times of ambiguity, pressure, or incomplete authority. Agency is what allows decision-makers to say, “They already operate like a Chief People Officer.” Because titles follow behaviors…not the other way around.

Here's the thing...

If you want to assess your agency skills, ask yourself:

• Where am I waiting instead of acting?
• Where am I executing instead of owning?
• Where am I focused on my role instead of on my impact?

Agency is not about doing more. It’s about taking responsibility for outcomes that matter. At the executive level, you are responsible for much more than HR, Talent Management, Culture, Communications, or L&D. You are an advocate for moving the business forward through your people, and accountable for business outcomes alongside your executive-level peers.

If an executive role is somewhere in your future, agency is a practice worth starting now.