2025 was a year of leadership exposé. A year of revelations. A testing year. A year of stress. A year of burnout.
An overwhelming year. It has been quite a year. In any testing time, as they say, the mettle of leadership is exposed.
Unfortunately, in many cases leaders all across the world were found wanting. Some glossy names were tarnished.
Some established names were toppled. Corporate corridors witnessed scams and stealth stories. Those who seemed steady were also struggling with the pressures of an economy far from vibrant and boardrooms that were relentless. This led to low morale, low productivity and results that were either made up or lackluster.
In my leadership coaching interactions many leaders complained about “unrealistic expectation”, “unconducive conditions” and “unending struggles” to motivate employees.
Numbers tell the story. The Leadership Development statistics published in Exec magazine on 18th December 2025 highlight the growing gap. 77 percent of organizations lack sufficient leadership dept. This leadership deficit is across all levels, ranging from frontline managers to executives. This deficit is influencing business agility and succession planning in various sectors.
Without capable senior leaders in place, organisations struggle to adapt and stay competitive. Trust in managers dropped from 46 percent to 29 percent in just two years (2022-2024). 71 percent of Millennials are warning that they will leave within 3 years if leadership development is lacking. 53 percent of Gen Z are unhappy with their leaders. These are staggering numbers. These are wakeup calls. These underline the leadership fault lines. These highlight the disconnect between what needs to be done and what was done in 2025. Those who are led are unhappy with the way they are led and those who are leading are also feeling the heat. 71 percent of leaders have experienced significantly higher stress levels since stepping into leadership, and 63 percent report suffering from burnout.
If we keep on going at this rate 2026 may see more organizational disasters. Time to learn from 2025 and rethink leadership as we enter 2026.
Based on my experience of working with the top leaders, organizations and leaders need to work on 4 leadership imperatives:
Leadership I mperative#1-Reset your mind’s eye-“The eyes are useless when the mind is blind”. 2025 Leadership mind was set to see the obvious. Economies crunching, industries squeezing and companies retrenching.
Could these realities be ignored. Absolutely not. These realities are facts that need to be taken into account. Could the strategies to cope with these realities have been different”?
Absolutely yes. But for that, the mindset had to be different. As we go in 2026 the leader’s mind needs to see the gaps as opportunities. When the mind is set to see numbers dropping, the logical solution is to fix the numbers. That means cutting costs, layoffs, shutdowns, etc.
While these are all strategies that yield immediate improvement in the financial health of the company, they may not help in real growth. The leader has to say, “Fine if these products or markets are not doing well, yes we may do product pruning, but what else can we do that will spur growth?” Get your teams together. Ask them the simple question, if we want to grow when others are reducing, what do you think will work? As the pharmaceutical industry saw many drugs being ousted from the market, one pharmaceutical firm saw blockbuster results. They got the team to spell out the gaps. They focused on the obesity and diabetes awareness on social media.
Revenues rose sharply driven by high demand for its new diabetes and obesity drugs, making it the world’s most valuable healthcare company.
Leadership Imperative#2-Re-align with the purpose- “When you align with your purpose the whole universe aligns with you.” A Gen Z working for a top company recently remarked to me “purpose, what purpose? The only purpose we know is that the organizations will skin us to death for every penny that they can make additionally.” If there is one aspect where most leaders default is to first of all connect themselves to the purpose of the organization and then align others to it. Purpose or mission is just a statement made for websites.
Nobody remembers it, leave aside use it to motivate and create alignment. In the DDI Leadership Study of 2025, frontline leaders experienced a 20 percent decline in their sense of purpose compared to 2020.
Leaders underestimate the power of a higher purpose to keep people going. If you tell people to achieve a 25 percent higher target, they feel stressed and demotivated. If you tell people, let us ensure that 25 percent more people’s lives can be saved by the new cardio devise, they actually may feel good about contributing to a higher cause. 2026 should be a leadership purpose disseminator year. DDI study says that workers are 17X more likely to feel energized by their work if they feel that they are working for a higher purpose.
Leadership imperative#3-Reconnect to the human domain-Yes it is AI. Yes it is technology. But in pursuit of artificial intelligence, do not forget human intelligence. 2025 was marked by one of the most disengaged workforces ever. Employee disengagement reached crisis levels.
According to a Gallup international study, engagement has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, with only 24 percent- 31 percent of employees feeling various digress of engagement at work. The leaders are too busy, too preoccupied and too distracted to give quality time to their people.
Almost 70 percent employees feel disenchanted with work. That means that the output per employee will be less than half of their potential. With AI looming large, inflation rising, the employee of today feels abandoned by leaders who are busy pushing for more numbers to notice the rise of quiet quitting.
People are there but not really there. Even for the sake of getting more numbers leaders need to change, redesign, and re-engage with employees. Start listening rather than speaking. Start asking rather than telling.
Start consulting rather than pushing. At the end leaders need to reach out, find out, feel out what is happening to those who are the main architects of executing the strategy. The further they go away from their people the further they will go away from their targets.
Leadership imperative#4-Re-energize commitment- Leaders make great strategy. 80 percent strategies made get lost in execution. Execution is done by teams all the way down. With low morale commitment is a rarity.
Leaders need to create new energy in teams. There are three major elements that leaders must focus on. Communicate a compelling purpose. Develop a culture of empowerment and accountability. Recognize, reward and reinforce the behaviours that display commitment.
All these imperatives have to be modeled by leaders. That builds credibility. That brings buy-in. That then creates a cadence of engagement and commitment. As John Wooden said, “The most powerful tool you have is your own example.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is a columnist, consultant, coach, and an analyst and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com