Harvard Business Review’s Harvard Business Impact study surveyed 1,139 senior leaders to identify the top business challenges and leadership strategies for 2026. The consensus? There is no stable ground.
As AI transitions from isolated experimentation to full-scale enterprise deployment, leaders face two major, competing tensions:
- Delivering current performance while aggressively reinventing for tomorrow.
- Scaling technology without eroding trust or brand distinctiveness. (In fact, 66% of CEOs report growing stakeholder trust concerns regarding AI).
According to the study, navigating this requires shifting how we lead across four core capabilities:
- Unlearn outdated habits: Release personal legacy assumptions to build resilience in continuous uncertainty. Two out of five leaders cite slow-to-change behaviours among leaders as the biggest barrier to organisational transformation.
- Shift from expertise to inquiry: Stop trying to have all the answers; focus on asking better questions. Get curious. Open dialogue with the experts you hired.
- Practice complexity thinking: Learn to sense, experiment, adapt, and learn—rather than relying solely on traditional "analyse and execute" models.
- Lead at the intersection of tech and culture: Drive AI adoption while fiercely protecting trust, ethics, and human connection. Be clear on what your organisation's code of ethics is and how it applies in an AI world.
The Leadership Self-Audit: How Ready Are You?
Change doesn't happen at the organisational level until it happens at the individual level. Apply a change lens to your own leadership style by asking yourself these six questions:
1. Your Real Stance on AI: Do you truly understand it, use it daily, and see its strategic value—or are you secretly hoping it's a passing trend?
2. The Impact of Your Mindset: Is your attitude holding your team back? What would your team say your position on AI actually is?
3. Outdated Habits: Are you actively demonstrating curiosity, or are you falling into the habit of avoiding new technology?
4. Inquiry vs. Expertise: Do you use your experience to ask sharp, thought-provoking questions, or do you feel compelled to always be the smartest person in the room?
5. Continuous Learning: When was the last time you formally invested in learning something completely new? Are you setting the pace, or coasting on past accomplishments?
6. Experimentation Culture: Do you create a safe space for your team to test, fail, learn, and adapt, or do you default strictly to rigid execution?
Moving From Current State to Future State
Real change begins with an honest assessment of where you are today versus where you need to be to lead effectively in times of high uncertainty and change.
- Define the Gap: Once you unpack your habits, visualise your future leadership state. Who do you need to become to lead effectively in this environment?
- Build a 1% Daily Transition Plan: Sustainable change is built incrementally. Commit to small, deliberate actions every day that bridge the gap between your current state and your target future state.
- Use Your Plan as a Communication Tool: A personal leadership change plan isn't just for you—it’s a roadmap you can share with your executive team and direct reports to model transparency and adaptability.
Where to Next?
The leaders who succeed over the next three years won't be those with the rigid answers, but those with the adaptive capacity to learn out loud. Those with high levels of curiosity and capacity to lead change in themselves, their teams, and the wider organisation.
How did you score on the self-audit? Which of the 6 areas feels like your biggest hurdle right now?
Here is the link to the Harvard Business Impact study - 2026 Global Leadership Study
If you want to unpack your self-audit answers and map out your personal leadership transition plan, feel free to reach out for a 30-minute introductory conversation.