By John English, Chief Executive Officer of Leadership Trust
The data is in, and it paints a tough picture.
According to the Global Leadership Forecast 2025, 71% of leaders say their stress has risen. Four in ten are considering stepping away from leadership altogether. And trust – the foundation of any high-performing team – has fallen to a record low.
Leadership isn’t just hard right now. It’s unsustainable for many.
So, we have to ask: why would anyone want to be a leader today?
A crisis of expectation, not capability
The Global Leadership Forecast is the world’s longest-running study of leadership, now in its 11th edition. It draws on insights from 10,796 leaders and 2,185 HR professionals across 2,014 organisations in more than 50 countries. Its findings give an unparalleled view of what’s really happening inside businesses globally – and where leadership needs to evolve next.
The report describes an “impossible role”. Leaders are expected to deliver results, drive innovation, navigate AI disruption, keep teams engaged, protect wellbeing, and do it all with empathy, clarity, and confidence.
It’s not that leaders are incapable. It’s that expectations are too high and misaligned.
Today’s leaders are asked to do it all: expectations are not meeting reality.
Leaders aren’t measuring up because they’re being stretched beyond the limits of what one person can reasonably carry. And when organisations fail to develop and support them, that pressure cascades straight down to the teams they lead.
At Leadership Trust, we’ve spent fifty years developing leaders who perform under pressure. But even we’ve never seen such a widespread erosion of confidence and purpose.
At Leadership Trust, we’ve always believed that leadership isn’t learned in a classroom, but discovered under pressure, in real human moments.
Trust in freefall
Perhaps the most alarming finding from this year’s forecast is that trust in immediate managers has dropped from 46% to 29% in just two years.
That’s more than a statistic – it’s a warning light.
Because when trust breaks, everything else follows. Engagement, collaboration, and performance all depend on it.
And rebuilding it doesn’t come from corporate messaging or another pulse survey. It comes from leaders who are equipped – and supported – to listen, communicate with transparency, and respond with empathy.
Leadership today isn’t about maintaining control. It’s about earning trust, continuously.
Trust in leadership has fallen sharply – and rebuilding it will take empathy and transparency, not control.
Purpose has become a luxury
The report also reveals that frontline leaders’ sense of purpose has fallen by 20%, even as the C-suite’s sense of purpose has grown.
That gap matters.
Purpose isn’t just a ‘nice-to-have’ – it’s what gives meaning to pressure, and turns effort into energy. When your frontline leaders feel disconnected from purpose, performance and retention both suffer.
We often talk about clarity of mission at the top. But if that mission doesn’t translate into meaning on the ground, organisations start to fracture.
AI won’t save us, but human leadership might
AI is transforming how we work, and yet the report shows frontline leaders are three times more anxious about AI than their senior counterparts. That divide is built on trust.
If senior teams treat AI purely as a technical issue, they miss the human challenge at its core: fear, uncertainty, and displacement. Real leadership here means empathy – clear communication, collaboration, and a united sense of direction.
Technology can automate process, but it takes leadership to build belief.
AI can automate work but only human leadership can build trust.
The paradox every CEO now faces
DDI’s research shows 54% of CEOs say their biggest challenge is attracting and retaining talent – yet many are still cutting development budgets to control costs.
It’s the classic paradox: in trying to save money, we lose the very people we need to survive uncertainty.
The organisations that thrive in this decade will be those that treat leadership development as a strategic investment, not a discretionary cost.
Signs of hope: progress is possible
Amidst the challenge, there are reasons to be optimistic.
After a decade of decline, confidence in leadership pipelines has almost doubled since 2020 – from 11% to 20%. Although it’s still low it proves that deliberate investment in people works. Organisations using five or more development approaches are 4.9 times more likely to report improved leadership capability.
Leaders themselves are changing too. The study shows they’re leaning into self-reflection and open discussion as top strategies for managing stress – a shift towards emotional intelligence that should give every business hope.
And where organisations prioritise wellbeing and trust, leaders are ten times more likely to excel and three times less likely to experience chronic stress. In other words, the solutions – clarity, connection and consistent support – are already within reach.
Progress happens when we stop asking leaders to be superhuman and start helping them to be more human.
Real progress starts when we support leaders to be human, not superhuman.
The way forward
What the Global Leadership Forecast makes clear is that leadership isn’t broken – it’s under-supported.
If we want leaders who can thrive under pressure rather than crumble under it, we must give them the space, tools, and development to grow. That means investment in self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and the courage to lead through uncertainty – not just manage it.
I’ve seen too many boardrooms where leadership has been mistaken for control. The truth is, leadership is the opposite – it’s the courage to let go.
At Leadership Trust, that’s been our work for five decades. Helping leaders reconnect with their purpose, their impact, and their power to build trust even in the toughest conditions.
Because the world doesn’t need superhuman leaders.
It needs real ones.
A call to redefine leadership
This report isn’t a warning – it’s a roadmap. It shows exactly where our energy needs to go next: into rebuilding trust, restoring purpose, and supporting the humans behind every leadership title.
This is our moment to redefine what effective leadership looks like – and to invest in the leaders who can meet it. Because the next chapter of business success won’t be written by those who push harder, but by those who lead better.
John English
Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Trust
This article draws on data and insights from DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2025 – the world’s largest ongoing study of leadership, based on responses from 10,796 leaders and 2,185 HR professionals across more than 50 countries.
