Everywhere I look right now, leadership is being tested in ways most playbooks did not anticipate.
War and conflict are reshaping alliances. Democracies are under strain. Technology continues to transform how work gets done. And at the same time, people across industries and geographies are dealing with uncertainty about stability, relevance, and what the future will require of them. In this environment, leadership is no longer defined by certainty or control. It is defined by presence.
This is not a challenge reserved just for CEOs in boardrooms. Blue collar workers, knowledge workers, founders, heads of state, community organizers, all of us are being pushed to rethink what it means to lead. The traditional formulas for authority are proving insufficient in the face of real-world complexity. That reality has changed how I show up as a leader.
Last year, I decided, mostly on a whim, to train for my first 5K. I am not a runner. In fact, I used to joke that I had never seen a runner who looked happy enough for me to join them. But I wanted to invest in my health as I got older, so I committed to the discipline of training several days a week. It was hard on a good day. It became even harder when my father passed away that October. Yet, amid grief and responsibility, I kept training. And even though I wanted to quit at times, I finished the race.
Reflecting on that experience, I realized how closely it mirrors what leadership requires in times of sustained change.
A 5K is not about speed; it is about consistency. There are moments when you feel strong, and stretches where stopping feels completely reasonable. Improvement often feels invisible until one day you realize you can go farther than you thought. Leadership today works the same way. It requires staying present and committed even when outcomes are not immediately clear.
The reality is that people are experiencing grief, setbacks, and burnout at different times and in different ways. Effective leadership today means you understand that performance and people are inseparable. You cannot treat them as two different conversations. Sustainable results depend on trust, clarity, and leaders who can navigate uncertainty without retreating into control.
The conversation around work itself is a good example. For years, many organizations equated presence with performance. Visibility became a proxy for trust. Remote and hybrid work forced a more fundamental question: do we trust outcomes, or do we simply trust proximity?
True accountability does not come from counting hours or monitoring behavior. It comes from clarity. Clear expectations. Clear outcomes. Clear measures of success. When those elements are in place, leaders can move from managing activity to leading results. That shift is not cultural window dressing. It is an operating discipline.
At the same time, generational dynamics are reshaping leadership expectations. For the first time, four generations are working together at scale. Younger professionals are not rejecting leadership. They are rejecting performative leadership. Titles alone no longer confer credibility. Authority is earned through consistency, competence, honesty, and values that are visibly lived.
That can be uncomfortable if you came up in an era where the title alone commanded automatic deference. I have led teams for decades, and I have felt that tension myself. As a parent and grandparent, I see it inside my own family, amongst my children and grandchildren. I have learned that being questioned does not weaken leadership. It strengthens it. It forces clarity of purpose and integrity of action.
For organizations, this is not optional. Leaders who cannot articulate the “why,” define outcomes, and model values will struggle to attract, retain, and mobilize talent at all levels. This brings us to culture.
Culture is not a set of policies or perks. It is the lived experience of people inside an organization every day. It shapes decision-making, risk tolerances, and ultimately, performance. When culture rewards optics over outcomes or silence over truth, the consequences eventually surface in results. Leadership in this moment requires a different mix of capabilities and adaptability to respond to constant change; clarity to focus attention amid noise; and humanity to build trust when fear is high and certainty is low.
These are both soft skills and essential leadership disciplines. The leaders who will succeed are those who choose trust over control, outcomes over theatrics, and empowerment over command-and-control. This does not mean lowering standards, but it does mean anchoring decisions in values when information is incomplete. It also means developing people alongside performance and creating conditions where others can grow in confidence even as leaders themselves navigate uncertainty.
As The Executive Leadership Council marks its 40th anniversary, we are being intentional about what leadership must look like in the decade ahead. Our members operate on a global stage, within more complex systems, and under greater scrutiny. Honoring our legacy means modernizing it. Evolving means letting go of old forms and protecting our history.
The same lesson applies to leaders everywhere. There is no perfect playbook. There is no perfect playbook coming. Lead out loud. Let people see you learning in real time. Tell the truth about what you know and what you are still figuring out. The work ahead requires leading with presence, clarity, honesty, and conviction while the answers are still forming.
The culture we build together will be the future we share. In these times, that culture, rooted in values and lived through people, may be the most durable asset any organization can create.
