Developing Leaders

As Darwin's ‘On the Origin of Species’ overturned conventional wisdom, profoundly changing humanity's understanding of itself, 166 years later, AI has disturbed how humans view their place in the world, especially in the workplace. The world of work, having undergone a transformational period of digitization, has now entered an era of ‘datafication’—the turning of human actions and exchanges into data.

Sustained organizational resilience is about more than short term crisis reaction. Benjamin Franklin’s famous advice, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,” is its foundation, and true preparedness is rooted in leadership mindset and organizational culture. According to a 2025 World Economic Forum paper, “resilience has emerged as the key capability essential for both survival and success in a world shaped by accelerating change.

Sustained organizational resilience is about more than short term crisis reaction. Benjamin Franklin’s famous advice, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,” is its foundation, and true preparedness is rooted in leadership mindset and organizational culture. According to a 2025 World Economic Forum paper, “resilience has emerged as the key capability essential for both survival and success in a world shaped by accelerating change.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to remote work. For some this was this a temporary adjustment leading to return-to-the office initiatives. For others it has been the start of a fundamental rethinking of how and where work happens. Property price hikes and Zoom‑town booms as experienced in areas like the Hudson Valley (NY) or the UK’s West Country exemplified the post COVID working-from-home effect. Recent cooling suggests this might be a short-term phenomenon.

There is a general acceptance among management thinkers that traditional hierarchical team leadership is no longer fit for purpose and that shared leadership is the way to go. But shared, distributed, collective—what do we mean by shared leadership? The growing shift away from top-down leadership models over past decades has been driven by the demands of modern organizations—especially in complex, knowledge-intensive, dynamic environments.

With global economies crying out for growth, the world urgently needs innovative leaders with breakthrough ideas. Nowhere has pioneering technology been more prevalent than in space exploration—a resurging sector that once again has many opportunities and lessons for the business community.

Performance measurement and management (PMM) is a management paradox. Once thought key to the efficiency of any business, there is evidence that it can adversely affect performance, and several prominent companies have moved away. Accenture, Deloitte, Microsoft, and others have rejected traditional performance management systems, opting for approaches they believe better foster employee development and organizational success.

The newfound focus on employee wellbeing and happiness, by HR professionals and business leaders, is very welcome. Yet despite the enthusiasm it is not clear how much progress is being made or if managers fully understand the true sources of wellbeing. A recent Harvard Business Review survey found 87% of business executives believed workplace wellbeing could give their companies a competitive advantage, and yet less than 15% had any sort of strategy in place to deliver it.

The sudden arrival of ChatGTP has caused the corporate world to wake up to the pressing importance of innovation—the global opportunities and the significant challenges ahead. There is more, however, to innovation than technology.

A myth widely promoted by today’s management thinkers is that a sense of noble purpose alone can build employee engagement and drive performance and change. “Everybody Wants to [Change] the World” (to misquote Tears for Fears) is a misconception that has spread the idea that ‘purpose’ can be the driving force of organizational performance.