Jan 14, 2026
Five Priorities in 2026 for Human-Centric Leaders
In 2026, tapping into the power of your people has never mattered more.
The 2026 Priorities white paper is here, forecasting this year’s biggest challenges and opportunities!
Amid AI acceleration, geopolitical volatility and continuous organizational change that businesses face today, the most successful companies will be those that make culture their foundation. By inspiring collaboration, building trust, empowering leaders at every level and nurturing adaptability and open dialogue, these companies will set themselves apart. Above all, keeping people at the center—prioritizing the employee experience, trust and continuous learning—will be essential for thriving in the year ahead.
READ ABOUT:
- Maintaining Trust Through an Era of Ongoing Restructuring: As continuous restructuring becomes the new normal, organizations will need to deliver unprecedented levels of clarity and transparency to maintain trust, sustain productivity and earn authentic buy-in for transformation.
- Reckoning With Separate Realities to Drive AI Adoption: Executives are singing one tune about AI adoption. Employees are singing another. To go from usage to impact, companies need to bridge this gap, working with employees to clarify and specify exactly what AI outcomes they’re aiming for.
- Mastering Timing and Clarity: Driving Post-Merger Integration at a Sustainable Pace: Sometimes, the best way to speed up is to strategically slow down. Successful post-merger integrations in coming years will be deeply employee-centric, driven by clear communication and a deliberate, sustainable pace of change.
- Addressing the Roots of the Middle Manager Engagement Crash: Although the middle manager engagement crisis can seem overwhelmingly complex, organizations can make real progress by focusing on three pain points at the heart of the struggle.
- Building a Culture That (Truly) Experiments and Learns: It’s one thing for a culture to try new things; it’s another to systematically learn from those efforts. Wise companies move beyond the theater of experimentation and instead make it a robust, iterative approach woven into the fabric of culture.
