Human resource management professionals, after years of seeking a seat at the table, are now being thrust into the business spotlight to develop strategically valuable initiatives. How will HR respond? As courageous disruptors? Or reluctant champions?

Those are some of the questions being asked by HR leaders and experts, including Robert Ployhart, a Bank of America Professor of Business Administration at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business. Ployhart believes HR leaders must begin to think of themselves as conductors, orchestrating people, data and strategy within an organization.

"What makes this new HR identity so scary is that the HR leader moves away from what has historically made him/her unique ― HR practices ― and adopts a role that relies more on coordinating three key elements: talent, data and strategy," Ployhart writes in The Rise of HR, a compilation of HR thought leadership sponsored by the HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®). (The e-book is available for free download.)

"In this new world, HR professionals are no longer compliance officers or strategic advisors," he says. "Instead, they coordinate and align talent, data and strategy in a profitable manner while balancing the interests of relevant stakeholders."

Cultural Implications of HR Leadership

Hugo Bague, also featured in The Rise of HR, believes that too often HR has focused on "low-value reactive work at the individual level." Instead, Bague, the Group Executive for Organizational Resources at Rio Tinto, believes today’s HR leader must focus on helping the organization develop clear alignment of key structural elements: vision and value; mission and strategy; organizational philosophy; operating model; and business performance metrics.

"Exponential value can only be unlocked if these elements are underpinned by behaviors and values that build a culture aligned with the organization’s operating model, operating philosophy and strategy," Bague writes. "Unless the HR function ensures that its resources focus on these aspects at an organizational level as well as at the individual process level, further examples of organizations failing to deliver on their promises through lack of cultural alignment will continue to persist."

HR Leadership Requires More Than Influence

Influence alone is not enough, remarks Padma Thiruvengadam, CHRO for Integra Lifesciences. Today’s CHRO must be actively engaged, she says, and have a deep understanding of business issues such as the company’s multiyear strategic plan, its annual operating plan, portfolio strategy, market position and the competitive environment.

"Knowing the HR playbook is the baseline ― but knowing the business, knowing the markets the company serves, and knowing its customers and products are also essential," Thiruvengadam adds. "Customizing the company HR playbook in the context of these factors to realize the long-term strategy creates a world-class people platform that is essential to every company. And it’s what every CEO looks for from his or her CEO."

HR Leaders: Sleeping Giants

Automation and outsourcing are already taking over many of HR’s traditional roles. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) recently projected that half the people working in HR in 2015 will not be working in the profession by 2020.

Whether that prediction becomes true or not depends on whether HR can overcome some self-imposed hurdles, says Loren Murfield, Ph.D., a leadership consultant and CEO of PWR University. "Very few HR professionals are willing or ready to create. They’ve played it safe for so long that many are not even willing to ask for permission to create. But the good news is that HR professionals now have a unique opportunity to take a step forward and initiate change without ever asking for permission."

For those that do, Murfield believes they are perfectly positioned to become the disruptive leaders that businesses want and need. Yes, a restructuring of HR departments is likely by 2020. In fact, every company department is going through disruptive change as we complete the second decade of the new millennium. But HR can also be a “sleeping giant,” Murfield says, if its practitioners can embrace a new leadership identity as creators.

Businesses need HR’s help. One in four organizations experience a major change initiative, at least once every eight weeks, according to a recent study conducted by the Association for Talent Development and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp). At HR Certification Institute® (HRCI®), we believe that HR can play a major role ― by looking outward, rather than just inward, and by anticipating change rather than just reacting to it. For most businesses, how HR leadership transforms will be a key difference between success and failure.