When was the last time you thought seriously about pivoting your career or changing a strategy at work? More importantly, did you make that move because you saw an opportunity ahead, or because something had already gone wrong? That choice says a lot about your leadership style, whether you are leading a company, a team or your own career.

That difference is what separates a proactive pivot from a reactive one. A proactive pivot starts earlier, when you still have the time and leverage to decide what you want the next move to look like. The challenge is that proactive pivots rarely feel urgent when you should be preparing for them. That is exactly when the work should begin.

Yet reacting still seems more natural in many organizations. KPMG research published in 2026 suggests waiting has a real cost. In a survey of 1,120 U.S. executives, proactive responses to disruption succeeded 92% of the time, compared with 62% for reactive moves. Yet organizations earned an average net proactivity score of just 12.5 out of 100, suggesting that despite all the talk about staying ahead of change, many businesses are still responding after the pressure arrives.

Thinking two steps ahead does not mean predicting every disruption or constantly plotting your exit. It means creating options before you need them. You notice subtle changes and begin building the skills or opportunities that could give you somewhere to move next.

The real test is whether you can start preparing for change before anything forces you to.

Stage 1: Notice Change Before It Becomes Urgent

Take a proactive approach by watching for subtle signs. Tony Ponturo, executive chairman of Echelon and former vice president of global media, sports and entertainment marketing at Anheuser-Busch, built a career around recognizing where sports, media and consumer behavior were heading. In December 2025, Sports Business Journal named him to its Influence 125. In an industry where opportunities move quickly, waiting for an idea to prove itself can mean acting after everyone else recognizes its value.

“Marketers need to use their power of observation,” Ponturo says in an email interview, and “understand trends before they become identified as such.”

Observation does not mean chasing every new idea that shows up in your feed. Ponturo paired observation with consumer research to determine which changes were worth acting on. Then came the harder part. “Most importantly, be willing to jump ‘in the water’ first,” he says, describing those moves as “calculated risks.”

At Anheuser-Busch, that meant committing to opportunities before their eventual value was obvious. The company secured beer advertising exclusivity through consecutive five-year agreements with ESPN. Bud Light sponsored Survivor on CBS before anyone knew how significant the show would become. None of those decisions required knowing exactly how the future would unfold. They required recognizing movement early enough to make an informed bet.

Being proactive also means recognizing that caution carries its own risk. Waiting for complete certainty can feel responsible, but it can also leave an opening for competitors or market shifts. The goal isn’t to take unnecessary risks; it is to avoid getting so focused on protecting what you have that you miss the chance to shape what comes next.

You don’t have to change course every time something changes. Ponturo is clear about protecting what already works. “You must understand your core consumer base,” he says. “They are loyal for a reason.”

Being proactive requires distinguishing between what is merely new and what is meaningfully changing . Before you ask, “What should I do next?” start with a different question: What am I noticing now that could matter later?

Stage 2: Prepare Before The Pressure Arrives

Noticing change gives you a head start. Preparation determines whether you can actually do anything with it. This is where proactive and reactive pivots begin to look very different.

Proactive preparation happens when nothing is urgent yet. Bill Squires has spent 39 years in sports and entertainment facilities and events management and is founder and president of The Right Stuff Consulting, Inc. His career has included managing Yankee Stadium and two tours at Giants Stadium. Before entering the sports business, Squires was a U.S. naval aviator who served 12 years on active duty and another 12 years in the Naval Reserve, retiring as a commander.

That combination of careers taught him to operate in environments where waiting for a crisis before preparing for it was not an option. “All members of the armed services are trained for their respective specialty and mission,” Squires says. “They train daily on the expected and develop contingency plans for potential environments that could occur and how to handle them.”

He summarizes the approach with a phrase he has carried into his civilian career: “Proper prior planning prevents poor performance.”

During a Mediterranean deployment aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy , Squires saw the value of that preparation during nighttime flight operations. An aircraft crashed on the flight deck and damaged another aircraft while six planes remained in the air waiting to land. The officers and enlisted crew reacted instantly. Squires says, “There was no hesitation since the crew trained for various emergencies.”

They had not predicted that exact event. They had prepared themselves to function when something unexpected happened. The same applies to a career or business pivot. You may not know what will force a change, but you can avoid starting from zero. Preparation gives you room to respond instead of scrambling.

“I am willing to make a difficult decision after digesting the information I have at hand and asking staff for their input,” he says. “I have made some wrong decisions, of course, but I was able to make and defend my decision.”

Preparation will not guarantee that you make the right pivot, but it can make the uncertainty more manageable .

Stage 3: Build Options Before You Need An Exit

Former NFL player and analyst Andrew Hawkins began preparing for life beyond football while he was still playing. Since then, he has built a career spanning media, entertainment and sports technology.

He cofounded StatusPRO, the company behind NFL PRO ERA . He also founded Parks Tower Studios and served as an executive producer of Hair Love , which won the 2020 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

From the outside, those moves may look like a series of pivots. However, Hawkins sees them as the result of staying prepared for what could come next. “As an athlete, I was just taught always to stay in preparation mode,” he says. You do not have to be in exit mode to prepare for change.

Hawkins uses an approach he calls “shared preparation,” focusing on capabilities that are valuable both now and later. “I try to find shared preparation, which is basically like what skills am I building now that help me in what I’m doing now to be better, and also help me in the future,” he says.

It changes the question from “What should my next career be?” to “What can I become better at now that would also give me more choices later?”

You do not need to know exactly where the skill will lead before developing it. That approach is especially relevant as skill requirements keep changing. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 research found that companies in North America expect 67% of their workforces to require training by 2030.

Hawkins starts preparing for a possibility before acting. “I start to put the pieces in place to make sure I’m in position to take full advantage.”

Hawkins’ description of staying on offense captures the difference between that approach and a reactive pivot. “You don’t operate in a position of fear of getting caught,” he says. “You operate in a position of chasing what’s in front of you.”

Reactive pivots tend to begin with, “How do I get out of this?” Proactive pivots let you ask, “What do I want to move toward?”