Editorial
Hope, exhaustion, anticipation, deflation … these were the responses executives shared when we asked how they felt as 2025 ends and a new year beckons. The range of emotion makes sense, especially considering the carryover angst from every corner of the political realm and how it has ricocheted globally.
For many leaders and organizations, 2025 has been a difficult year. Some are just limping to the finish line. Others are excited about turning the corner and imbibing the sense of renewal that a new year delivers.
Over the past year, we have worked with leaders across the globe, and one message keeps ringing true: so much of the leadership chaos comes down to challenges with people working together for the benefit of the group.
In the spirit of what we have been counseling, here are three lessons that center on authentic leadership that can be used as a springboard for 2026.
1. Adoption Is the Whole Ballgame
This year drew a clear line between experimentation and real changes to how you work. Executives sponsored implementations, bought tools and staged demos in search of that magic bullet that AI-inspired tech seemed to deliver. However, for all that effort, fewer leaders focused on direct ways to improve the way their people work together, such as redesigned workflows, setting clear outcomes or teaching their teams how to use new capabilities in the flow of work.
These are adoption challenges: ensuring employees are aligned, unified and moving in the same direction to drive meaningful business outcomes. Authentic adoption requires a culture ready for it: a workplace where it’s safe to ask questions about risks before decisions are made. Real adoption necessitates leaders who are steady enough to separate what is real from noise.
At the heart of this principle, regardless of the individual’s place in the hierarchy, is building teams that keep learning. The goal: the best ideas win. Here’s a simple test: if a practice or tool doesn’t show up in weekly routines with clear ownership and basic rules, then it isn’t adopted.
“Clarity is not a luxury leadership skill. It is a performance multiplier,” explained author and content executive Jackie Ferguson. “When leaders define expectations and establish priorities, they enable better work, stronger trust and sustainable results." If this basic clarity is absent, she said, “Chaos follows. Teams chase shifting objectives, workloads become unmanageable and burnout rises.”
The market data matches what we see with clients. McKinsey’s 2025 survey shows broad AI usage, but limited enterprise-level impact — only 39% of respondents report any EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) effect from AI at the enterprise level. This does not necessarily suggest a technology gap, but a leadership and workflow breakdown. The highest performers redesign work processes and manage for real outcomes, not just engage in performative pilots.
What to do now:
- Pick three workflows where change will relieve real pain (intake, frontline knowledge search, routine analytics).
- Define success in a sentence with input from the team, then publish the results monthly.
- Make the learning visible: ask what worked, what didn’t, what the team should try next.
2. The Productivity Mirage Dissolved
AI didn’t break operating models, but did expose where they were already weak. There is a long list, but here are some basics:
- Too many approvals for low-risk decisions.
- Long discussion and analysis with no testing.
- Recurring meetings with no decisions.
- Status updates that eat hours and move nothing forward.
Microsoft’s Work Trend Index calls out the daily reality: employees are interrupted about every two minutes during core work hours by a flood of (often superfluous) meetings, emails and internal chats. These constant intrusions ramp up the need for constant context-switching and stall productivity.
The fix is basic and boring, in a good way:
- Decisions with dates — Every standing meeting identifies an owner, the decision(s) that need to be made and builds in a timestamp for that decision.
- Two-level approval process — If a choice crosses more than two levels, assume it’s a red flag.
- One owner per outcome — When everything is shared, decisions stall. Use this process to help employees develop responsibility and leadership skills.
- Short written updates — Cut back dramatically on meetings by moving status updates to writing. Save meetings for necessary collaboration, debate or decision-making.
3. Double-Down on Human Connection
Executives are inundated with internal and external surveys, polls and opinion pieces telling them how unhappy their employees are. But, they don’t get nearly as much information to help them figure out what to do to fix the problem.
People want to do meaningful work and know where they stand. They’re also tired — especially middle managers asked to translate new mandates from above, while serving their teams. Add uncertainty about AI and a charged national climate and the result is a recipe for dissatisfaction and anxiety.
As a leader, your response starts with clarity and fairness. Explain why you’re changing a process or tool, how you’ll judge it and what won’t change. Invite pushback before you decide and show your reasoning after. Recognize people who raise risks early, not just those who meet deadlines. This effort builds trust. Emphasize steady leadership and fair process, not performative slogans.
A few data points can help frame this idea. Pew, for example, reports about one in five U.S. workers now use AI on the job. Anxiety is on the rise though, with just over half worrying about how AI will be used at work in the future. Clearly, workers are paying attention and they are nervous. In this environment, candor is paramount.
We advise leaders to build connection with their employees via simple habits:
- One-on-ones with renewed purpose – Ask three questions: What must be true for your goals? What’s in your way? What decision do you need from me?
- Show the work – Share what you know, what you don’t and how you’ll make decisions.
- Coach conversation quality – Teach managers to ask better questions and close loops when there is a challenge, especially if it is a communication gap.
The Path Forward to 2026
Taken together, we view 2026 as a year that will attempt to strike a balance between two seemingly opposed forces: continued AI development and the resultant desire for more human-to-human interaction. Below are several ideas we suggest leaders carry into 2026:
- Treat adoption as a leadership habit — Choose a few high-value workflows, define what success looks like in plain language, assess results with the team on a set cadence and teach the practice across teams.
- Simplify the operating rhythm – Emphasize where blockers can be eliminated by creating workflows with fewer handoffs, an easier decision cycle and projects with one owner. Replace most status meetings with five-sentence updates and spread them deeper into the team.
- Invest in managers – This is your key demographic and where most companies are weakest. Give managers the authority to prioritize. Provide tools that help them collaborate and have better conversations with their people, and help them understand that they can raise risks without penalty.
- Keep learning in public – One of the most straightforward ways to improve culture is to make learning public. Here are some opportunities: share wins and misses and be a role model for curiosity by demonstrating how you make decisions, change your mind and think about wins.
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The Bottom line: The path forward doesn’t have to feel like a mystery. The human path toward success revolves around some direct effort:
- Make the workplace a safe environment to think.
- Keep rules and roles simple.
- Practice learning that shows up in the work.
Set the tone for 2026 by ramping up authenticity. Tamp down busy work and performative leadership. Think contextually to provide employees with clear direction and potentially relieve some of their political and socio-economic angst. Connection is key.
Editor's Note: Want more advice for leaders?
- Why the Best Leaders Never Stop Learning — The willingness to continuously acquire new capabilities isn't universal, but it's what separates leaders who adapt and thrive from those who plateau.
- Delegation: The Secret Weapon Most Leaders Aren't Taught — Delegation isn’t just a to-do list strategy, it’s a leadership skill that determines whether you scale or stall.
- The Real Workplace Crisis Isn't Loyalty - It's Lack of Psychological Safety — AT&T CEO John Stankey's memo suggests loyalty is dead. Loyalty isn't dead, it’s earned by leaders who foster trust, fairness and psychological safety.
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