Global Leadership Monitor - Asia Pacific H1 2026

Explore the top external business threats leaders in Asia Pacific face today—and how prepared they feel they are to manage them in our bi-annual survey.

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Closing the leadership readiness gap: How Asia Pacific leaders are responding to disruption

As organizations across Asia Pacific navigate disruption, leaders are being tested by a more complex and volatile risk environment. What threats do APAC leaders believe pose the greatest risks to organizational health? And how prepared do they feel to respond?

Our bi-annual Global Leadership Monitor tracks how leaders across APAC perceive and prepare for key challenges impacting their businesses over the next 12 – 18 months.

Technology and geopolitics reshape APAC’s risk agenda

APAC leaders now identify technological change and geopolitical uncertainty as the region’s joint top threats to organizational health. In H1 2026, both rank #1, with 58% of leaders selecting each as a top five threat from a list of 20.

The ranking reflects both continuity and change. Technological change remains a persistent leadership concern, though it has eased slightly from 61% to 58% over a 6-month period. By contrast, geopolitical uncertainty has risen sharply, moving from #5 at 40% in H2 2025 to joint #1 at 58%. This shift reflects a more volatile external environment, spurred by the Iran–US conflict.

The rest of the top five threats point to continued pressure on growth and organizational capability:

Uncertain economic growth remains #3 at 49%;
Availability of talent / skills has moved down from #2 to #4, falling from 59% to 44%; and
Workforce transformation ranks #5 at 37%, down from 41%.

Preparedness levels show where the leadership challenge is most acute. APAC leaders feel more confident addressing technological change, with preparedness improving from 45% in H2 2025 to 53% in H1 2026. Preparedness for geopolitical uncertainty, however, remains low at 36%, down slightly from 37%, despite its sharp rise in perceived importance.

While preparedness for workforce transformation has increased from 30% to 37%, talent remains a weak spot with only 33% of leaders feel prepared to address talent and skills availability.

This preparedness gap highlights a critical leadership priority for APAC: building teams that can respond not only to technology-led transformation, but also to geopolitical volatility, economic uncertainty, and workforce change with stronger foresight, resilience, and execution discipline.

The top five threats in H1 2026 are:

Soft skills become the new leadership advantage

Across the region, leaders are redefining what skills matter most for navigating disruption. The focus has shifted decisively toward soft skills that enable agility, creativity and collaboration.

Top-ranked skills include:

Strategic thinking (57%)
Change management (29%)
Decision-making (29%)
Resilience (29%)
Innovation and creativity (26%)

These findings underscore that the next era of leadership in APAC will be defined less by technical expertise and more by the ability to inspire teams, drive transformation and lead through uncertainty.

GenAI enthusiasm outpaces execution

AI remains high on the regional leadership agenda. 94% of APAC leaders view GenAI as a critical skill for C-suite leaders in the future, yet readiness is uneven.

Fewer than 40% say their teams currently use AI in day-to-day work.
Only half believe they have the right skills to help implement AI in their organizations.
Roughly 50% feel their organization lacks the internal technical skills needed to implement Gen AI.

Together, these findings point to a clear execution gap: APAC leaders recognize GenAI’s strategic importance, but many organizations have yet to build the skills, confidence, and practical use cases needed to embed it at scale.

Leading through volatility

APAC leaders are clear-eyed about the forces reshaping their organizations, from technological disruption and geopolitical volatility to talent constraints and changing workforce expectations. The challenge now is to convert awareness into readiness. Organizations that invest in foresight, adaptability, digital fluency and resilient leadership teams will be better positioned not only to respond to disruption, but to shape opportunity through it.

How our leadership advisors can help

Our leadership advisors are experts in building teams of transformational leaders who can help you look toward the future with confidence.

We’re well-versed in guiding organizations through change. If your leaders are concerned about weathering economic uncertainty, navigating technological change, or looking for guidance on how to engage and retain your leadership team, our advisors are here to help.