Innovative Leadership in Human Resource Management: Adaptive Models for the Digital Economy

The growing turbulence of digital environments highlights the need for business leadership capable of sustaining organizational resilience and mobilizing human capital under conditions of technological pressure and uncertainty. The purpose of this study is to identify how digital maturity, cybersecurity pressure, and labor-market dynamics jointly shape Human Resources readiness as a critical dimension of modern business leadership. The formulated hypothesis that (H1) higher digital maturity strengthens Human Resources readiness; (H2) increased cybersecurity pressure amplifies the importance of adaptive leadership responses; and (H3) combined shocks in cyber-risk and labor markets generate nonlinear effects on leadership-driven Human Resources capacity. The analysis uses weekly data from Ukraine for 2020–2024, incorporating indicators from Work.ua (labor market demand), DOU (IT-sector dynamics), and CERT-UA (cyber incidents), complemented by the regional Regional Digital Trade Integration index of digital maturity. Methodologically, the study applies regression modeling, 3D-surface modeling, and a configuration-based approach to estimate the joint influence of digital maturity and cyber pressure on Human Resources readiness and to map leadership response regimes. The results demonstrate several new empirical patterns: a one-point increase in digital maturity raises Human Resources readiness by 0.42 (p < 0.01), while high cyber pressure intensifies this effect by an additional 18–23%. Under extreme cyber-risk, Human Resources readiness becomes almost entirely dependent on leadership adaptability, with nonlinear growth zones visible in the upper 20% of digital maturity values. The model also shows a “saturation plateau”, where leadership effects stabilize after reaching high levels of both digital maturity and cyber pressure. These findings reveal previously undocumented interaction effects between cyber-risk environments and leadership-driven Human Resources capability formation. The study opens new avenues for developing leadership strategies that integrate cyber-resilience, digital maturity investment, and agile workforce policies as core elements of business sustainability in high-risk digital economies.