At Russell Reynolds, we believe meeting the challenges ahead requires a different approach: a fundamental rethink of the assumptions that have shaped leadership for decades.
Across five interconnected areas of leadership—roles, capabilities, teams, pipelines, and enterprise capacity—we examine the approaches that no longer hold, the resets required, and what becomes possible as a result.
At pivotal moments in the evolution of business, fundamental changes in how organizations compete, operate, and create value have also changed what they need from their leaders.
• Early–Mid 20th Century: The rise of the modern corporation
Businesses scale nationally → Professional management
• Late 20th Century: The performance era
Global competition, deregulation, and shareholder value → Performance-focused leadership
• Early 21st Century: The global enterprise
Globalization, the internet, and interconnected supply chains → Global enterprise leadership
Today, leadership is facing another inflection point—and perhaps the most consequential one yet.
Multiple forces are converging at once—and changing faster than ever before. AI and technological disruption. Geopolitical instability. Shifting business models. Continuous transformation. Changing expectations of work and leadership. Together, they are changing what organizations need from leadership at unprecedented speed. And, with it, there is an urgent need to rethink assumptions about leadership that have previously delivered.
The Great Leadership Reset creates the conditions for stronger leadership—and more adaptable organizations.
Leaders have the space to lead. Decisions can be made across boundaries. Leadership options evolve as needs change. And the capacity to transform extends throughout the enterprise.
The result: organizations that can adapt faster, make better decisions and continually reinvent themselves—while still delivering today.
Pressure |
ResetFrom → To |
Possibility |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Business demands are multiplying |
Asking leaders to do more |
Intentional role design |
More sustainable leadership roles |
|
Leaders face new and complex challenges |
Prioritizing past experience |
Understanding how leaders think |
Leaders who can navigate the unfamiliar |
|
Business outcomes now cross functions |
Functional accountability |
Enterprise leadership |
Better progress on enterprise outcomes |
|
The future is becoming harder to predict |
Narrow succession pipelines |
Broader, deeper, earlier pipelines |
Enterprise readiness for what’s next |
|
Transformation pressure is perpetual |
Change led only from the top |
Collective transformation |
An organization that keeps adapting |
For decades, organizations have trusted Russell Reynolds with their most consequential leadership decisions. That experience has taught us a great deal about what makes leaders—and leadership—successful.
But experience should never stop you asking better questions.
We combine what we have learned from advising leaders and organizations around the world with original research, and the perspectives of experts across industries, functions, and geographies to help clients think differently about their leadership decisions—and what else might be possible.
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