The wind down to Christmas offers an enriching opportunity to reflect on the year just past. Most executives would agree 2025 was characterised by intensifying change: economic, technological and geopolitical pressures transformed markets, while talent and technology reimagined how organisations assess risks, opportunities and expectations. At Rialto, we recognised early the systemic impact of AI, emphasising that its implications reach far beyond IT. We are proud to have supported thousands of leaders in preparing early for this shift.
This year, the world at large finally started to catch up. Many more organisations moved beyond experimenting with ChatGPT toward broader adoption of GenAI, Agentic systems and early Artificial General Intelligence pathways, while looking ahead to possibilities in Physical/Spatial Intelligence and even Self-Aware AI, developments we will no doubt be exploring in more depth in 2026.
AI was only one factor amid a constellation of forces reshaping the business landscape. The UK economy continued to be buffeted by the headwinds of Brexit and the pandemic; the costs of both are becoming clearer with supply chain, import-export and hiring issues persisting. Added to this were renewed geopolitical tensions, the Trump tariff fallout, elevated energy and inflation costs, stubborn interest rates and increased tax burdens on employers. Collectively, these forces produced a complex environment that suppressed growth and demanded heightened vigilance from boards navigating an increasingly volatile operating landscape.
For executives in transition, whether through redundancy or seeking a voluntary change, the result was a flat, cautious hiring market with greater competition for fewer roles, compounded by the march of automation and AI displacing humans at an unprecedented rate. While we expect these technologies to generate new forms of economic value and employment in time, we remain in a period of adjustment characterised by global uncertainty, contraction and spending restraint.
Still, as Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” So here, we look at six key themes and lessons we learned in 2025 and we explore what senior leaders should carry forward as they prepare for 2026.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan: “Our greatest risk is geopolitical risk”
Why geopolitics mattered in 2025: The year reinforced the notion that politics and geopolitics aren’t background events you can ignore. From renewed supply-chain shocks caused by export controls and export bans to the continuing war in Ukraine and frictions around China, governments and firms found shocks could arrive with little notice and enormous downstream cost.
The EU’s drive in December to secure raw materials and reduce dependence on China and repeated warnings from financial leaders that geopolitical risk is the dominant macro factor made clear that strategy today must be political as well as commercial.
The UK’s realisation that it must diversify its markets and not rely too heavily on the US for exports has driven a similar policy change here, with trade envoys seeking closer ties on the continent, in India, Australia and the Middle East.
What it means for 2026: Expect more deliberate “geo-stress testing” in boardrooms, with scenario planning that treats sovereign policy, trade controls and regional conflict as strategic variables rather than tail risks. Senior teams will need people who can read world politics, not just markets, to anticipate and prepare for global risks.
Action: Add a quarterly geopolitical heat-map to your strategy review; stress test the top three suppliers and the top two export markets under at least three political scenarios.
Read: Rialto’s Q4 executive outlooks for the US, Asia and the Middle East and for the UK and Europe.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: “I believe that business, at its best, serves the public good.”
Why purpose mattered in 2025: Stakeholders (employees, customers, investors) continue to emphasise that purpose matters. They can see through virtue signalling, it must be authentic. Guided by purpose, strategic decisions become crystal clear.
In a year defined, as stated above, by geopolitical tension, regulatory shifts, supply-chain fragility, AI disruption and shifting workforce expectations all accelerating at once, purpose emerged as one of the few reliable stabilisers in an otherwise volatile environment.
Organisations without a clear “why” are finding themselves pulled in multiple, conflicting directions. Purpose acts as a filter: it sharpens prioritisation, reduces noise, guides ethical decisions and helps leaders stay consistent when uncertainty is high.
Look at Microsoft’s renewed purpose-led strategy under CEO Satya Nadella, particularly relevant in 2025 as AI becomes embedded in every business model. Microsoft’s mission, “to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more,” isn’t simply a tagline, it has shaped the company’s entire approach to responsible AI, partnerships with governments and major investments in skills development.
As AI governance, trust and adoption became critical issues in 2024–2025, Microsoft’s purpose provided a north star that helped the company balance innovation with safety, growth with responsibility, and market leadership with societal expectations.
Similarly, Apple reinforces consumer confidence by anchoring its products and operations in verified principles such as privacy protection, accessibility and responsible sourcing, which has been a critical factor in its sustained customer loyalty, premium market positioning and long-term commercial performance.
What it means for 2026: Purpose will be a pragmatic operating lens and a decision filter. Ethical boards will demand metrics that tie social and environmental outcomes to commercial results. The companies that win are the ones that make trade-offs through that lens, consistently.
Action: Before any major initiative in 2026, ask: How does this align to our stated purpose? And What is the one measurable commercial outcome that validates it?
Read: Why Ethics Matter More Than Ever in the Boardroom
Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture: “Every leader needs to think of themselves as a reinventor.”
Why innovation mattered in 2025: Uncertainty was the backdrop for breakthroughs: organisations that tested, learned and iterated moved faster. Whether it was new product routes, alternative sourcing or changed operating models, winners were those whose leaders explicitly created space to try, fail cheaply and scale what worked.
The Bank of America has introduced a “Speak Up!” tool, encouraging employees at every level to submit ideas, rewarding and celebrating those whose ideas are implemented.
Great Place To Work research found that this culture of psychological safety to experiment is the biggest driver of agility, making employees 253% more likely to approach change without fear.
Under Sweet’s leadership in 2025, Accenture consolidated its consulting, strategy, technology and operations functions into a unified “Reinvention Services” business unit, signalling a fundamental shift in how the firm delivers transformation for its clients.
Sweet told Fortune in November 2025: “We have a culture of progress over perfection. When you have that culture, you provide the safety to move quickly, to be able to make mistakes, and that is a deep part of our DNA.” She argued that leaders must go beyond simply adopting new tools or technologies and rethink how they operate, how they grow talent, and how they lead, effectively committing to continuous reinvention
What it means for 2026: Expect more formal “fast experiment” systems with short cycles, measurable learnings and explicit guardrails for what counts as an acceptable failure: curiosity and rapid learning beat cautious stagnation.
Action: Create a three-month “safe experiment” fund with simple KPIs and a pre-agreed exit rule; celebrate the learning publicly, not just the wins.
Read: The interview with Sweet.
Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of IMF: “We live in a world of sudden and sweeping shifts… this is a call to respond wisely.” (In her April 2025 speech, Toward a Better Balanced and More Resilient World Economy.)
Why resilience mattered in 2025: Georgieva was addressing governments but the lessons apply equally to organisations and their leaders.
Business conditions shifted fast and constantly this year with regulatory moves, tariff threats and market re-ratings forcing mid-course corrections alongside the steep learning curve of AI integration. BCG, OECD and other analysts argued the balance had moved from pure cost optimisation to the “cost of resilience” mindset: companies that invested for optionality could pivot without collapsing margins. That difference between economic agility and brittle inflexibility showed up in supply chains, hiring and capital allocation.
Traditional planning cycles are now too slow. Leaders have to absorb disruption while still maintaining momentum. Resilience was not just about endurance in 2025, it was about adaptability under pressure. Organisations that built resilient cultures, where teams could recover quickly, learn fast and reorient without losing cohesion, were better equipped to manage supply-chain disruption, shifting customer behaviour and heightened scrutiny from regulators and investors.
For leaders, resilience also became a reputational marker. Stakeholders watched closely to see who could stay calm, communicate clearly and make principled decisions during uncertainty. The companies that did so strengthened trust, protected talent and preserved optionality in turbulent markets.
What it means for 2026: Leaders should reframe planning cycles: fewer immovable five-year plans, more rolling 12-month roadmaps with pre-agreed pivot points. Governance must allow quick reallocation of resources when the data says “now.” Expect new roles (resilience officers or heads of organisational readiness) and more capital allocated to “insurance by design”, including flexible contracts, dual suppliers, and talent pools.
Action: Instead of responding in an emergency, plan an annual resilience-building rehearsal that tests people, systems and suppliers, and budget and prepare for the changes revealed.
Read: Leading Through Transformation Without Burning Out Your Teams
Gabe Newell, President of Valve Corporation: “The focus should always be on your customers, on your partners, and on your employees – then everything else will fall into place over time.”
Why putting people first mattered in 2025: In a year of restructuring, layoffs in most sectors and tight skills markets in others, organisations that invested in people with coaching cultures, continuous learning and psychological safety held onto performance.
High-profile leaders emphasised empathy and social intelligence as leadership differentiators critical to business capabilities, enabling a pivot from purely finance or efficiency-driven leadership towards people-centred strategies that stress trust, long-term capability and human capital.
People-first is foundational for resilience, adaptability and sustainable business performance, stabilising workforces facing seismic disruption and uncertainty, attracting and retaining talent and ensuring the human qualities missing from AI run through the DNA of companies to secure relationships and trust with staff, stakeholders and customers or clients.
Trust drives productivity, innovation, loyalty and growth. People-first demands personalising responses to individual need, showing empathy and compassion and reinforcing EDI and mental health commitments, to optimise workforce skills and fully engage your workforce.
Klarna replaced around 700 staff, many in customer-support roles, with AI-driven systems, hoping to streamline operations and reduce costs. This led to growing customer frustration, rising complaints and a noticeable drop in service quality. The automated systems struggled to handle nuanced or emotionally charged issues.
In 2025, the company publicly admitted it “went too far” and started rehiring or redeploying staff back into customer support to restore human interaction and service quality.
What it means for 2026: Expect investment in real development infrastructure: role-based learning pathways, coaching for leaders and clearer internal mobility plus increased staff surveys.
Action: Build a 3-month programme for leaders alongside HR, including shadowing, coaching and a psychological-safety checklist for their teams, to ensure the people-first culture drips down from the top.
Read: AI-Powered Workforces – Adding Value Through Strategic Upskilling and Leadership in transition – from Boomers to Gen Z
Culture Partners CEO Roger Connors: “When properly approached, accountability can really be the low-hanging fruit for optimising organisational performance and accelerating organisational change efforts.”
Why accountability mattered in 2025: With so many moving parts – regulatory change, budget pressures, shifting suppliers, fast-emerging technologies, strategic and ethical considerations around AI adoption – organisational friction rises and mistakes are made and repeated where ownership is unclear. The Bank of England’s 2025 stress tests and corporate governance debates underlined that institutions and companies that had clear lines of accountability were quicker to act and better at protecting stakeholders.
Ensuring clear and transparent responsibilities and parameters for each senior role avoids duplication and unproductive rivalry while empowering leaders to drive progress and manage risk more scrupulously. Encouraging leaders to visibly take responsibility – and share learning from any mistakes – fosters trust and creates a culture of psychological safety with clear structures to identify and assess any issues before they become systemic or blow up.
However, a major 2025 workplace study by Culture Partners, covering 40,000 respondents from across industries, found that many organisations remain unclear about who owns what, leading to a “crisis of accountability.”
What it means for 2026: Teams will be held to clearer end-to-end outcomes, not just activity metrics. Boards and leaders will increasingly insist on named owners for resilience plans, with escalation paths and transparent reporting.
Action: Replace ambiguous KPIs with clear outcome metrics and accountable owners; publish progress fortnightly to the senior team.
Read: This Forbes article on why employees are holding leadership to higher standards of accountability in 2025.
2025 reinforced that effective leadership is no longer defined by title or hierarchy. It is measured by clarity of purpose, adaptability, accountability and the ability to foster resilient, learning-focused cultures. Leaders who succeed in multi-layered environment prioritise people, embrace innovation with curiosity and rigour and make principled decisions even under pressures around uncertainty.
At Rialto, we help executives translate these insights into action. Through our executive coaching, outplacement and transition support, strategic advisory and leadership development programmes, we equip leaders to navigate career transitions, step confidently into new roles and strengthen their influence within organisations. Our approach ensures leaders can respond decisively to change, whether driven by AI, market volatility or geopolitical shocks, while maintaining focus on people, purpose, and sustainable outcomes.
Those who internalise these six leadership lessons of 2025 position themselves to lead with impact in 2026 and beyond. Rialto partners with leaders to turn insight into action, ensuring they are prepared to respond ethically, strategically and effectively in an unpredictable environment.
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