About the paper
The paper is a mixed-methods executive insight report on how C-suite leaders’ priorities and communication challenges have shifted, especially under economic pressure, hybrid work, declining worker well-being and leadership fatigue.
The report combines an online survey of more than 100 senior leaders and company owners, in-depth interviews with more than 30 C-suite leaders, an online survey of more than 1,000 employed adults, and desk research; the fieldwork was conducted in summer/fall 2023, but the geographic scope is not clearly specified in the report.
Length: 12 pages
More information / download:
https://padillaco.com/post/fighting-fatigue-with-focus
Core Insights
1) What is the report’s central argument about the current mindset of C-suite leaders?
The report’s core argument is that senior leaders have not fundamentally changed their top priorities, but those priorities have become sharper and more intense because the past 18 months have produced a sense of leadership fatigue. Padilla argues that the C-suite has moved from a more “conflicted” mindset, shaped by COVID, social issues and geopolitical uncertainty, towards a more “focused” mindset shaped by economic pressure, hybrid work, worsening well-being concerns and late-career reassessment. The recommended response is not grander rhetoric, but tighter focus: business outcomes, simpler storytelling and stronger preparation of the next generation of leaders.
This is important because the report does not frame fatigue as mere burnout language. It presents fatigue as a strategic condition that affects decision-making, communication style and succession planning. On page 11, the recap diagram makes the shift explicit: yesterday’s response required resilience, humanity and “translucency”, whereas today’s response requires simplification, story-based communication, leadership development and, in some cases, leaders stepping down or back.
So the report’s overall meaning is that leadership today is becoming narrower, more pragmatic and more outcome-driven. The implied message is that communicators and advisers must adapt to that reality rather than assume executives still have the appetite for broad agendas or abstract positioning.
2) How have leaders’ priorities changed since Padilla’s earlier report, and what remains consistent?
What remains consistent is the underlying business agenda. The report says C-suite priorities “haven’t changed”, but the most important challenges are now more pronounced. Compared with the earlier report, rising inflation is up by 15 percentage points, adapting to change or innovating the business is up by 11 points, adapting to market shifts is up by 9 points, and differentiating from competitors is up by 8 points. Achieving business performance goals is also up, though more modestly.
What has changed is the context around those priorities. In the earlier phase, leaders were navigating COVID effects, racial reckoning, emerging social issues, unsettled employees, geopolitical uncertainty and fears of economic slowdown. That produced a “conflicted” mindset. In the current phase, the environment is described as a retracting economy, declining worker well-being, the impacts of hybrid work and leaders “entering the last lap” of their careers. This creates a more focused, but also more compressed, leadership posture.
The report also suggests that this shift changes how leaders want communication delivered. Under today’s pressure, leaders want a clearer line from communication to business outcomes. Page 7 states that communicators should articulate the “why”, use business storytelling, begin with the story, then follow with key messages and proof points. That reveals an assumption running through the report: clarity is no longer just a stylistic virtue; it is a management necessity in an environment of fatigue and constrained attention.
3) What does the report say about DEI, ESG and corporate responses to external social issues?
The report presents all three areas as still relevant, but more conditional and more tightly tied to business relevance than before.
On DEI, Padilla says more than half of both leaders and employees feel brands have made progress, yet very few see DEI as a top business priority. The report notes that only a small share of C-suite leaders list achieving DEI commitments as a top business challenge, even as employee belief that their employer prioritises DEI has risen. The interpretation is that DEI has not disappeared, but it is no longer the dominant leadership conversation. The quote on page 4 captures this: DEI is “still relevant”, but “not the main topic of conversation.” The report also flags ageism as an underappreciated issue, noting that 27% of leaders and employees over 52 say they have experienced age-related discrimination in their career.
On ESG, the report is even more explicit about pragmatism. It says ESG as a whole remains relatively low on leaders’ priority lists, but business-critical elements still receive attention. Forty-three per cent of leaders say they do not have formal ESG initiatives, while 33% focus on ESG aspects tied to business metrics or stakeholder needs. The implication is not that ESG is over, but that it survives where it can be linked to differentiation, customer relevance and measurable organisational value.
On external social issues, the report shows a divided and cautious stance. According to the chart on page 6, 36% of C-suite leaders avoid taking a stand because of cost, while 33% do not hesitate to take a stand on relevant issues. At the same time, 46% of employees expect brands to respond to major social issues through action. Padilla’s implication is that organisations need an internal decision framework for when to speak, rooted in company purpose, stakeholder groups and likely ripple effects.
Taken together, these sections reveal the report’s broader perspective: values-led issues have not vanished, but the licence to act on them now depends far more on strategic fit, stakeholder logic and business pragmatism than on broad principle alone.
4) Where does the report identify the biggest disconnects between leaders and employees?
The clearest disconnect is around employee well-being. Leaders generally believe well-being has stayed the same or improved over the previous 18 months: 65% say it has stayed the same and 26% say it has improved. But the employee-side benchmark cited on page 8 points in the opposite direction: about two-thirds of employees say well-being has worsened or stayed the same, while leaders are much more likely to think it has improved.
This matters because the report suggests leaders may believe that post-COVID investments in benefits, flexibility or work environment have solved more than they actually have. The phrase “My Employees Are Doing Great—Aren’t They?” is deliberately ironic. It signals that executive perception may be lagging behind lived employee experience. The implication is that organisations need more frequent pulse checks, closer examination of whether well-being programmes are actually valued, and a clearer definition of the employee experience they are trying to create.
A second disconnect emerges around hybrid work. Leaders recognise that employees value flexibility, and many leaders value it themselves, but they also believe hybrid work carries long-term costs for culture, work quality and leadership development. The visual on page 9 is especially revealing: hybrid work creates a generational “hourglass” in leadership development, with early-career and late-career staff more likely to be present in the office, while mid-career staff are less present because of longer commutes and more home commitments. That suggests the middle layer, often crucial for mentoring and managerial continuity, may be the least physically connected.
A third disconnect is more implicit: older leaders and employees appear to be moderating their ambitions at the same time as organisations urgently need stronger succession pipelines. Among employees over 52, 62% want their career or responsibilities to stay the same or be simplified, while only 30% want growth. Meanwhile, 30% of C-suite leaders are seeing peers step away earlier or extend their stay, and nearly 1 in 10 are considering leaving earlier themselves.
The cumulative effect is a leadership system under strain: employees may be less well than leaders think, hybrid work may be weakening developmental bonds, and succession assumptions are becoming less reliable.
5) What are the practical implications for leadership and communication going forward?
The report’s practical recommendations are quite direct. First, communicators and leadership teams should anchor initiatives in business outcomes, not just activity. Page 7 explicitly urges leaders to focus on outcomes, articulate the “why” and use business storytelling. That means communication should not begin with channels, campaigns or messaging architecture. It should begin with the business story that leaders need people to understand and act on.
Second, companies need more disciplined internal listening and more realistic culture management. The well-being disconnect suggests leaders cannot rely on assumptions or legacy investments. The report recommends pulse checks, clearer articulation of the desired culture and a more deliberate mapping of the ideal employee experience. In other words, culture should be treated less as a slogan and more as an operating system that requires measurement and adjustment.
Third, hybrid work needs to be managed as a developmental issue, not only a flexibility issue. The page 9 diagram shows that hybrid arrangements affect collaboration, culture and especially leadership development. The recommendations therefore include improving collaboration tools, prioritising management feedback, strengthening the office’s “sense of place”, and balancing clarity with flexibility in policies and communications.
Fourth, succession planning and leadership development need more urgency. The report argues that organisations must prepare a larger pool of future leaders and develop both classic leadership traits, such as credibility, confidence, authenticity and ethics, and newer traits such as empathy, flexibility, vulnerability and humanity. This is one of the report’s strongest conclusions: fatigue at the top is not only a personal issue, but a structural issue that can disrupt leadership continuity if firms are not preparing successors far enough down the organisation.
My reading of the overall implication is that the report is less about trend-spotting than about managerial narrowing. Its advice is to reduce noise, tie communication to what matters commercially and organisationally, and recognise that fatigue changes what leadership can realistically absorb and deliver. That makes the report particularly useful for communicators who need to frame their work in ways that feel indispensable rather than merely desirable.