Human centered leadership strengthening employee adaptability through emotional intelligence and digital workplace collaboration during transformation

Abstract

Organizational transformation requires organizations to strengthen employee adaptability amid rapid technological change and evolving workplace dynamics. This study examined how human-centered leadership enhances employee adaptability through emotional intelligence and digital workplace collaboration. A qualitative library research approach was employed by systematically reviewing and synthesizing contemporary scholarly literature on leadership, emotional intelligence, digital collaboration, employee adaptability, and organizational transformation using thematic synthesis. The findings showed that human-centered leadership fosters trust, empowerment, participation, and continuous learning, thereby creating conditions that support employee adaptability. Emotional intelligence strengthens employees’ psychological readiness to manage change, while digital workplace collaboration facilitates knowledge sharing, collective learning, and collaborative problem-solving. The study proposes an integrated conceptual framework in which emotional intelligence and digital workplace collaboration serve as complementary mechanisms linking human-centered leadership to employee adaptability and successful organizational transformation. These findings provide a holistic conceptual foundation for understanding adaptive organizational capability and future empirical research.