Tag: the CCO role

About the paper

The paper is a mixed-methods report on how C-suite leaders are approaching uncertainty, workforce change, AI, hybrid work, well-being, social impact, and DEI/ESG positioning in 2026.

Padilla says it combines an online survey of 100 C-suite executives and 1,000 employed adults, more than 60 interviews with C-suite leaders analysed using both AI and human interpretation, and desk research conducted in the latter half of 2025; the geographic scope appears U.S.-focused, but the respondent geography is not clearly specified in the report.

Length: 10 pages

More information / download:
https://padillaco.com/c-suite-perspectives-2026

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about the 2026 C-suite mindset?

The core argument is that senior leaders are no longer waiting for uncertainty to pass. Instead, they are treating instability as a permanent condition and responding by trying to move faster while keeping room to pivot. The report frames this as a shift from earlier stages of disruption management toward a new posture it calls “fast + flexible.” It explicitly contrasts previous years’ mindsets — “conflicted” in 2023, “fatigue + focus” in 2024, and “moving ahead” in 2025 — with a 2026 mood defined by urgency, adaptability and momentum.

That shift is not presented as optimism in the simple sense. The report says leaders want more stability, but do not expect to get it. In other words, their confidence is pragmatic rather than serene. They are trying to make decisions under pressure, operate through volatility, and show progress despite persistent ambiguity. This is especially visible in the report’s emphasis on inflation, policy change, regulation, AI and innovation as rising leadership challenges.

For communicators, the deeper meaning is that organisations are entering a period where flexibility itself becomes a strategic capability. The report suggests that leadership credibility now depends less on promising certainty and more on showing agility, direction and steadiness amid ongoing turbulence.

2. Where does the report find the biggest gaps between leaders and employees?

The report’s most important pattern is a recurring perception gap between the C-suite and employees. It argues that leaders and employees do not experience organisational reality in the same way, and that this divergence is now showing up across several high-stakes issues. The report even describes this as a kind of “K-shape” divide in viewpoints between leadership and employees.

The clearest gap concerns change readiness. According to the report, 67% of leaders believe employees are “fully” or “very” well equipped to embrace and support change initiatives, while only 43% of employees agree. That is a substantial disconnect, especially given that the changes in question include AI, mergers and acquisitions, and leadership transitions. The report interprets this as evidence that some leaders may be overestimating workforce readiness.

A second gap concerns well-being. Leaders say their own well-being has improved and are also relatively upbeat about employee well-being, with 48% believing employee well-being has improved. Only 25% of employees say the same. Importantly, when people do report improvements, the report says these are tied more to personal boundaries, health and self-care than to better workplace conditions or stronger business performance. That weakens any claim that organisations themselves have solved the well-being issue.

A third gap appears around AI. The report says 88% of leaders describe their organisations as adopting AI aggressively or selectively, yet only 43% of employees view AI as a net benefit to their job. The report is careful here: it does not present employees as outright rejecting AI, but rather as uncertain about its value and impact. That distinction matters, because uncertainty can still become resistance if not addressed.

Taken together, these gaps support one of the report’s strongest underlying messages: organisational change is not just about strategic decisions at the top, but about whether employees understand, trust and can absorb those decisions.

3. What does the study say about the leadership qualities now seen as most necessary?

The report argues that leadership today requires an unusual combination of traditional authority and human openness. It says the three most important “classic” leadership qualities are credibility, vision and authenticity, which together create what the report calls a paradoxical need to show both certainty and vulnerability.

What has risen most sharply, however, are qualities associated with toughness and steadiness under pressure. On page 4, the visual “Qualities on the Rise” shows the biggest year-over-year increases for fearlessness (+18), stoicism (+14), vision (+13), certainty (+13), authenticity (+7) and inclusivity (+7). That pattern is revealing. It suggests leaders feel pressure to be decisive, resilient and unflinching, but also to remain credible through honesty and attentive listening.

The report does not celebrate hard-edged leadership on its own. It explicitly warns that while leaders may be leaning into traditional executive traits to power through uncertainty, employees may need more empathy, transparency and humanity in order to come along with them. So the model of leadership implied here is not pure command-and-control. It is stronger than that in one sense, but softer than that in another: leaders must project direction without pretending to know everything.

This has direct communication implications. The report says employees and leaders are broadly aligned on which traits matter, and that communicators can use this alignment to support strategy. That means internal communication should not just explain decisions; it should also help leaders perform the right balance of realism, openness and conviction.

4. How does the report interpret current organisational flashpoints such as hybrid work, AI, social issues, and DEI/ESG?

The report treats these issues not as isolated debates but as examples of a wider strategic tension: leaders want to keep adapting quickly, but employees do not always share their assumptions or pace. Hybrid work is a good example. The report says 79% of leaders expect their organisations to maintain or move toward hybrid models, but 21% are becoming stricter about in-office policies. Its interpretation is that organisations have settled into hybrid work operationally, but not psychologically or culturally. In other words, hybrid remains workable, but unresolved.

AI is presented as having crossed an inflection point. The report says it is no longer seen by the C-suite as experimental, but as core infrastructure. Yet employee uncertainty remains significant. The implication the report draws is not merely that firms need AI tools, but that they need a clear narrative about AI’s intent, value and expectations. It explicitly recommends combining change management with thought leadership around AI. That is a notable framing, because it positions communication not as a support function after adoption, but as part of adoption itself.

On social issues, the report suggests leaders are more willing to speak out than before, but selectively and mainly when issues are directly relevant to the business. It says 54% of leaders believe it is important to speak out on relevant external social issues, while 26% of employees think their companies are avoiding taking a stand at all costs. The report’s explanation is that companies may now be communicating their positions more internally or to directly affected groups, rather than through broad public declarations.

On DEI and ESG, the report argues that language is changing more than underlying intent. It says these commitments still rank low as formal C-suite priorities, but the benefits associated with them remain valued. On page 7, the report says organisations are using alternative terms such as belonging, inclusion, fairness, representation and culture instead of DEI, while ESG is increasingly treated as “good business hygiene” focused on practical actions such as emissions reductions, efficiency and sustainable sourcing. The key idea is not abandonment, but repositioning in more business-linked language.

5. What are the main implications for communicators and organisations?

The report’s most consistent conclusion is that communication now has to do more than inform. It has to reduce gaps in perception, build trust in leadership intent, and help organisations carry people through instability. Nearly every section ends with an implication that points back to communication as a strategic enabler rather than a downstream messaging function.

First, communicators need to treat change readiness as a live organisational risk. Since leaders appear more confident than employees about workforce preparedness, internal communication should not assume readiness; it has to build it. That means clearer explanations, more deliberate engagement, and more effort to create what the report calls change-resilient cultures.

Second, communicators have an especially important role in AI. The report makes clear that executive enthusiasm alone is not enough. Employees need a believable account of why AI is being used, where it adds value, what expectations apply, and how risks are being managed. In effect, AI adoption requires narrative leadership as much as technical implementation.

Third, the report suggests that hybrid work, well-being, and social-impact positions all require stronger internal sense-making. Tightening office expectations without buy-in may damage retention. Assuming employee well-being has improved may mask unresolved strain. Taking stands selectively without explaining the “why, when and how” may create internal scepticism. In all three cases, silence or vague messaging widens the gap between leadership intent and employee interpretation.

Finally, the broader strategic implication is that communicators should help leaders embody the report’s central formula: move fast, but not blindly; stay flexible, but not vague; build momentum, but through alignment, clarity and trust. That is the real communication agenda running through the entire study.

About the paper

The paper is a mixed-methods thought leadership report on how senior business leaders are approaching 2025, combining original survey research, executive interviews and desk research.

Padilla says it surveyed more than 100 C-suite executives and 1,000 employed adults, and interviewed nearly 50 C-suite leaders; the report does not clearly specify the countries covered, so the geographic scope is not clearly specified in the report.

Length: 12 pages

More information / download:
https://padillaco.com/c-suite-perspectives

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about the 2025 mindset of C-suite leaders?

The core argument is that C-suite leaders have moved from recent years of conflict and fatigue into a more determined, forward-looking posture. They are described as “cautiously optimistic” and eager to make progress after years of reacting to disruption, but they are doing so in an environment still marked by uncertainty, mistrust, fragility and political tension. The report frames this as a balancing act: leaders want momentum, but they know the conditions for driving change remain unstable.

The report also presents this as an evolution over time. In 2022, leaders were “conflicted”; in 2023–24, the mood shifted to “fatigue and focus”; and in 2024–25, the mindset is “moving ahead.” The recap diagram on page 11 makes this progression explicit and shows that the new phase is not about optimism alone, but about trying to capitalise on change resilience, rethink the employee-employer relationship, prepare next leaders and communicate in an era of reduced trust.

So the report’s main meaning is not merely that leaders feel better. It is that they want to stop managing one crisis after another and start advancing strategy again. But the report is equally clear that progress depends on whether leaders can set direction clearly, manage expectations and prevent what it calls “trust erosion.” If they cannot, forward motion may stall and turnover may continue.

2. Which pressures and leadership priorities are shaping executive decision-making most strongly in 2025?

The report says inflation and economic uncertainty remain the top priorities, but the fastest-rising challenges now cluster around technology, security and talent. The page 3 chart shows the biggest year-over-year increases in leadership challenges as determining whether and how to leverage AI (+13), protecting data privacy and security (+11), attracting and retaining talent (+11), adapting to market shifts in consumer behaviour (+8), achieving business performance goals (+7), and modernising technology infrastructure (+7).

This matters because it shows that the executive agenda is broadening. Leaders are not only worrying about macroeconomic turbulence anymore. They are also dealing with the practical implications of technological change, workforce expectations and business adaptation. The report interprets this as a sign that leaders are ready to “get on with it,” but need to revisit purpose, vision and direction so stakeholders understand what the organisation is trying to do.

The report also highlights a cluster of leadership qualities rising in importance: confidence, flexibility, humility, stoicism and growth mindset. On page 4, these are presented almost as a new leadership toolkit for the moment. The message is that leaders expect criticism, know they will have to make difficult decisions, and must communicate those decisions in ways that maintain trust among employees, investors, customers and others. In other words, the report assumes that communication ability is no longer a soft extra, but central to leadership effectiveness.

3. Where does the report identify the biggest perception gaps between leaders and employees?

The report repeatedly highlights perception gaps between leaders and employees, especially around readiness for change, well-being and political culture at work. These gaps are among the most important findings because they suggest that executive confidence may not be matched by employee experience.

On change readiness, page 5 shows that 67% of the C-suite believe employees are fully or very ready to embrace and assist with change initiatives, while only 41% of employees say the same about themselves. That is a substantial disconnect. The report’s conclusion is that leaders cannot assume prior change efforts have fully brought employees along; change management and change communication remain essential.

On well-being, page 6 shows another sharp gap: 50% of the C-suite think employee well-being has improved over the past year, while only 29% of employees agree. The report adds that leaders are puzzled because they believe they have already offered support through mental-health resources and flexibility, whereas employees’ concerns are often tied to broader pressures such as health, living costs and inflation. This implies that organisational interventions alone may not feel sufficient from the employee point of view.

A third gap concerns politics and dialogue. On page 7, 44% of C-suite leaders think politics are openly discussed among people with opposing views in a constructive way, compared with only 24% of employees. This suggests leaders may overestimate the health of internal discourse. The report then connects this to a broader movement from trust and ambivalence toward scepticism, polarization and even grievance. That is one of the report’s strongest warnings: fragile culture is not just about morale, but about the risk of deeper social fracture inside organisations.

4. How does the report interpret current shifts in ESG, DEI and AI through a business-strategy lens?

The report argues that ESG and DEI are being reframed less in moral or idealistic language and more in pragmatic business terms. It says these issues have consistently ranked low as explicit C-suite priorities, yet the outcomes associated with them, such as talent attraction, retention, culture and adaptation to market change, remain important. In other words, the substance still matters even if the framing changes.

Page 8 is especially revealing. The report says pushback on ESG and DEI is causing some leaders to rethink strategy while others are continuing, sometimes more quietly, and grounding their case in business value. It explicitly calls this an “era of business pragmatism.” The table on that page contrasts “altruism” and “pragmatism,” for example framing sustainability not as leaving the Earth better for future generations, but as ensuring access to clean water needed for products; and framing DEI not simply as fairness, but as necessary for talent and innovation.

That framing reveals one of the report’s assumptions: in the current climate, strategic legitimacy increasingly depends on proving commercial relevance. The implication is not that values disappear, but that leaders are expected to justify values-led initiatives in operational and economic terms. The report advises companies to tie ESG and DEI clearly to organisational goals, talent strategy, mission and business success, while also considering the downstream effects of any changes in approach or language.

On AI, the report is similarly pragmatic but more overtly positive. Page 9 says 83% of C-suite respondents are selectively or aggressively adopting AI. Their main motivations are improving the quality of products and services (47%) and keeping pace competitively or gaining advantage (43%). At the same time, employees are more wary, with 24% seeing AI as a moderate or significant threat. So AI is presented as both a strategic imperative and a communication challenge. Leaders may move faster than employees, but if they do not explain the vision and bring people with them, adoption friction will increase.

5. What are the consequences of all this for leadership communication, succession and organisational momentum?

The report’s strongest practical conclusion is that communication sits at the centre of execution. Across change, culture, AI, politics and trust, leaders are told to communicate direction clearly, explain difficult choices, use multiple messengers, and help people understand not only what is changing but why. Page 4 even includes the blunt observation that communication is still the most important skillset a leader can have, and that too few leaders possess it.

This matters because the report links communication directly to trust and buy-in. If employees do not feel heard, if hybrid-work shifts are not explained well, if political tensions are ignored, or if AI strategy is imposed without context, the organisation risks losing momentum. The recurring implication sections throughout the report keep returning to this idea: communication is how leaders convert strategic intent into organisational movement.

The second major consequence concerns succession and executive stability. On page 10, the report describes an ongoing “Great Executive Resignation,” saying turnover remains at very high levels and that there has been a seven-point increase in leaders stepping back earlier than in the past, to about one in five leaders. It also notes that many next-level leaders do not necessarily want to step into top roles. Among employees aged 52+, 61% want their career or responsibilities to stay the same or be simplified, while only 31% want growth in career or responsibilities. The implication is that succession pipelines are under strain.

The deeper conclusion is that organisational momentum is now a retention issue as well as a performance issue. Leaders who see progress are more likely to stay; those who do not may step away faster. That means companies need to build leadership capability below the top tier, strengthen communication skills across multiple levels, and create visible forward movement. The report ends by saying leaders want more trust, civility and predictability in 2025, and suggests that those who can “plan and pivot” effectively will be better placed to drive meaningful change and growth.

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.

About the paper

The report examines how leadership communication is changing under sustained pressure from pandemic disruption, employee volatility, social issues and economic uncertainty.

It is a mixed-methods report drawing on an online survey of 100+ C-suite executives and company owners, an online survey of more than 1,000 employed adults, and nearly 20 one-to-one depth interviews with C-suite leaders; the geographic scope is not clearly specified in the report.

Length: 58 pages

More information / download:
https://padillaco.com/post/the-changing-face-of-leadership-communications

Core Insights

1. Why does the report argue that leadership communication has changed so sharply?

The report’s core argument is that the context around leadership has become far more unstable, emotionally charged and publicly scrutinised than the environment many senior leaders came up in. It describes the past “2½ years of chaos” as shaped by COVID-19, polarised politics, unsettled employees, gun violence and other social issues, geopolitical uncertainty, supply chain shortages, whiplash economics, racial reckoning and stagflation. That combination has made it “not an easy time to be in the C-suite”.

The report also shows that these pressures are not abstract. In the survey, the top reported leadership challenges were coping with economic uncertainty at 42%, rising inflation at 33%, public health incidents at 32%, supporting employee well-being at 29%, and attracting and retaining talent at 27%. That puts emotional, operational and reputational strain into the same leadership frame.

In other words, the change in communication is presented as a response to a changed operating environment. Leaders are no longer communicating in relatively stable conditions; they are communicating amid overlapping crises, faster feedback loops and heightened stakeholder expectations. That is why the report treats communication change as structural rather than cosmetic.

2. How does the report characterise what leaders are feeling, and why does that matter?

The report’s clearest single-word diagnosis is that leaders feel “conflicted”. That matters because it frames leadership communication not as a polished top-down exercise, but as something shaped by genuine internal tension.

That tension shows up repeatedly in the interview material. Leaders describe feeling helpless during COVID, uncertain about what the next day would bring, and torn between different employee needs: flexibility versus certainty, empathy versus business discipline, transparency versus reassurance. The report also argues that many leaders were rewarded earlier in their careers for confidence, infallibility, competitiveness and prioritising work over personal life, but are now being asked to lead in a very different climate.

This matters because the report sees conflict not as weakness, but as the defining emotional condition of contemporary leadership. The better leaders recognise that conflict, rather than pretending it does not exist. That becomes the basis for a more adaptive communication style: less rigid certainty, more judgement, and more conscious balancing of competing demands.

3. Which leadership qualities does the report say have become more important, and what does that reveal about the new leadership model?

The report shows that credibility and authenticity top the list of qualities ranked “extremely important” for effective employee communication, at 74% and 73% respectively. Confidence follows at 66%, then ethics at 65% and transparency at 63%. Empathy sits at 52%, humility at 51%, while vulnerability and stoicism are both much lower at 26%.

But the more revealing finding is the change over time. The qualities seen as more important than two years ago are led by social issue advocacy at 80%, empathy at 76%, flexibility at 73%, vulnerability at 70% and a growth mindset at 68%. That suggests the leadership model is shifting away from simple command-and-control confidence towards a more complex mix of moral positioning, emotional intelligence and adaptability.

The report does not argue that traditional strengths disappear. Confidence, credibility and certainty still matter. Instead, it suggests leaders are having to combine older expectations of competence with newer demands for candour, empathy and social awareness. That is why the report repeatedly presents today’s leadership as a balancing act rather than a clean replacement of one model by another.

4. What communication dilemmas are leaders now trying to manage in practice?

The report identifies several recurring dilemmas. One is the challenge of creating a “change comfortable” culture. Leaders describe shorter planning cycles, the need to keep returning to the “why”, and a growing focus on resilience, interconnections and comfort with ambiguity. Long-term direction still matters, but detailed long-range plans are presented as far less reliable than before.

A second dilemma is transparency. The report explicitly labels this the “transparency dilemma”, framing competency and confidence against transparency and candour as potentially conflicting leadership attributes. Interviewees say they are getting more comfortable saying “I don’t know”, but not stopping there; they must acknowledge uncertainty without undermining reassurance.

A third dilemma concerns humanity. At company level, that means expanded benefits, flexible work, culture-building and taking stands on social issues. At leader level, it means more empathy, more visible personal openness, more kindness and more acknowledgement of blind spots. Yet even here the report stresses boundaries: leaders may need to show that they have feelings without fully exposing those feelings.

Finally, there is the dilemma of criticism. Because leaders are listening more, they are hearing more dissent from employees, customers, investors and communities. The report argues that criticism is now a given, not an exception. Negative feedback no longer automatically signals a bad decision; it is part of the new communications environment.

5. What are the report’s main implications for communication advisers and teams?

The report’s practical conclusion is that communicators need to evolve from message crafters into strategic advisers. It contrasts old requests such as “Go say this for me” or “How do I say this?” with broader questions such as “What are the consequences of what I say and do?” and “What should I do?” That signals a move from tactical execution to leadership counsel.

According to the report, today’s strategic communications adviser must be in tune with the complexities of the business, highly attentive to stakeholder groups and subgroups, able to think about the message, the messenger and the methods, and capable of listening to and interpreting feedback.

The broader implication is that communicators are no longer just helping leaders express decisions. They are helping leaders navigate ambiguity, stakeholder conflict, social expectations and organisational change. The report ends by saying that strategic communications professionals have “never been more essential as advisors and transformers”. That is the document’s clearest statement of purpose: it is making the case for a bigger, more embedded and more strategic role for communication counsel.