The Shifting Landscape: What Has Changed in Leadership
The definition and execution of leadership is being continuously shaped – here are the changes we noticed in 2025, driven by macro-economic, technological, and cultural forces.
Redefining Leadership and Impact
- Beyond the Title: Leadership is increasingly seen as an activity, rather than a role strictly reserved for team leads. It’s being redefined as the capacity to influence and create shared purpose under conditions of uncertainty, with a growing need to cultivate this capability across all levels of the organization.
- The Cultural Imperative: Leadership and organizational culture are more and more viewed as inextricably linked. Clients are increasingly recognizing that leadership development must be partnered with a readiness to review and potentially shift the organization’s core identity and culture.
- Leadership lives in Teams: Well-functioning teams are key, they are where leadership shows up and where results are created. Yet we hear that in many organisations, people seem to be running their own race – lacking collaboration within and between teams. The higher up, the worse the impact of a malfunctioning team. Board trouble means organizational trouble, infecting the rest of the organization…
The Human and Relational Shift
- The Paradox of Pressure: A subtle but powerful shift towards more human leadership is underway. There is greater openness among leaders to acknowledge doubt and pressure. However, this softer approach exists paradoxically alongside increased pressure for faster change, tighter margins, and greater emotional load on teams. Leaders must be simultaneously strong and soft, decisive and deeply relational, to face this BANI world.
- Expertise as the New Currency: While emotional intelligence and people skills remain essential, deep expertise is appreciating again in value. The traditional glamour of management titles is diminishing, and knowing “who knows” within quality internal and external networks is becoming a critical leadership asset.
Market and Client Dynamics
- Beyond HR: Conversations about leadership are no longer confined to Human Resources. Executives (including Chief Transformation Officers, Heads of M&A, and Strategists) are realizing that effective leadership is key to successful transactions and navigating active M&A environments. And we have been increasingly invited to these strategic tables with them.
- AI is omnipresent yet strategically absent: Clients are generally deploying AI for productivity hacks (summaries, proposals), however we rarely see it integrated into strategies, team charters or codes of conduct. This over-reliance on bottom-up experimentation has only yielded marginal productivity gains thus far. Worryingly, few are asking key questions about what’s “under the hood”: Is the AI correct, ethical, or legal? How secure is the data fed into the ‘black hole’? And how are people incentivized or held accountable – is ‘computer said so‘ the new ‘computer says no‘?
- The ‘False Positive’ of Engagement: While survey results are surprisingly high, a suspicion that safety in uncertain times can be mistaken for true engagement. This creates a potential ‘gouden kooi’/cage dorée’ (golden cage), where people stay out of fear rather than genuine commitment.
- Risk Aversion and the Demand for Proof: Investment decisions are increasingly risk-averse, focusing on solutions that promise immediate, visible impact. This has two major consequences: 1) Impact measurement has moved from a desirable add-on to a hygiene factor, with clients demanding clear evidence and concrete metrics to validate investment. 2) While vertical development (which has deeper and longer-term impact) is extremely relevant in complex times, clients favour horizontal, skill-based trainings because they are lower risk – but also lower impact.
These shifts naturally have a future impact, with 2025’s shifts translating into 2026 trends. Stay tuned for our predictions.
