31 leaders on the trends reshaping leadership

Why adaptability, human judgment, and AI fluency now matter.

[Photo: Getty Images]

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of top leaders and experts who pay dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership, and more.

BY Fast Company Impact Council

Leadership qualities and responsibilities are never static. They can change naturally over time and as an organization develops. External pressures also influence leadership expectations. Right now, the business buzz is about artificial intelligence, but tomorrow it might be something else.

We asked members of the Fast Company Impact Council what trend they see reshaping leadership today. Below, 31 of them share the trends and pressures influencing how leaders must lead, in both style and substance.

1. THE PIE, NOT THE PYRAMID

Leadership is moving from hierarchy to distributed ownership. We view our organization as a pie, not a pyramid: Team members bring distinct expertise, but everyone links to a shared center with a real voice. My role isn’t command-and-control. It’s providing clarity around our values and direction, then trusting those closest to the work to challenge assumptions and execute. Great ideas should emerge from any slice. — Susan Watts, SPACECRAFT

Because the world is changing so quickly, leadership is increasingly about building trusted relationships that allow teams to navigate uncertainty together. You have to listen for signals, connect the dots, and create enough trust and energy for people to test, learn, and challenge assumptions. The leader’s job isn’t to have all the answers—it’s to bring people along as you find them. — Josh Rosenberg, Day One Agency

3. WILLINGNESS TO ADAPT TO AI TECHNOLOGY

Artificial intelligence is becoming part of how every business operates, even if the technology hasn’t been in your daily leadership until now. We’re long past debating whether AI is good or bad. It’s here, and leaders need to understand what it changes in their industry, their team, and workflows. You don’t need to be the person using every new tool, but you do need an in-depth point of view and a willingness to adapt as the technology evolves. — Erik Herrström, STUDIO HERRSTRÖM

4. THE NEED TO STAY CLOSER TO WORKFLOW

One of the biggest trends reshaping leadership is the need for executives to stay closer to how work gets done. Too many leaders are forming their artificial intelligence strategies based on what they see in the market without understanding how work happens today or where processes create friction that will be exposed as the pace accelerates. Leaders need to be tuned in to their teams and understand how work moves from one person to the next, including the informal steps that keep it moving. For an organization to commit to AI transformation, leaders need firsthand insight into where it can make a meaningful difference and where human judgment still matters. — Thomas Scott, Wrike

5. THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE

There is a growing awareness and need for leadership that delivers on the triple bottom line: people, planet, and prosperity. These leaders are building organizations where impact is baked into the core systems of the business, from strategy and operations to incentives and measures of success, rather than siloed in a sustainability or superficial marketing function. As we look to the future, these leaders and organizations are the ones we should be celebrating and amplifying: those proving that impact and prosperity can be mutually reinforcing, not competing priorities. — Bo Zhao, Baby Gear Group

6. THE NEED TO DEVELOP JUDGMENT AT SPEED

The next leadership frontier is all about creating conditions where teams absorb change and adapt faster than the environment shifts. AI has democratized intelligence, but many leaders treat this as a technology problem. The real challenge is organizational. We need to develop judgment at speed without eroding trust. The leaders who win are asking: How do we build teams where humans and AI collaborate? That requires redesigning the work first, then reimagining the workforce, and finally, making sure the workbench is ready: the right platform, data, and agents. — Jacqui Canney, ServiceNow

7. THE SIXTH JOB OF A MANAGER

For decades, a manager’s job came down to five things: setting goals, aligning work, coaching people, clearing obstacles, and judging results. I believe artificial intelligence adds a sixth—mapping and improving the workflows a team executes. I only understood this by living it, recently spending a month teaching myself to code again for the first time since I left computer science for a business degree in 1987, building an application by routing tasks across several AI models. AI doesn’t eliminate managers. It changes what we manage. The leaders who win in this........

© Fast Company