From control to co-creation: Reframing the psychology of organizational change
Organizations must shift from a ‘power-over’ model to a ‘power-with’ model to lead effectively though complexity. ...
Leadership
The rules of global business are being rewritten. Leadership must evolve to keep pace
The forces reshaping global business demand more than strategy. They require leaders who can interpret uncertainty, adapt at speed, and bring coherence to an increasingly unstable environment.
For the first time in decades, global business is operating under conditions it did not prepare for. Political forces now shape markets as much as economic ones, and the rules that once guided international business no longer hold.
To understand this moment, we need to remember how exceptional the previous era truly was. For roughly 25 to 30 years, globalization moved in one direction. Markets opened, supply chains stretched, capital flowed, inflation softened, and technology spread rapidly across borders.
Leaders came to assume that access to suppliers, customers, and talent was a certainty. They built organizations on the expectation that the world would continue integrating, and that the economic logic of efficiency would override political considerations.
This era has ended, replaced by a fundamentally different environment defined by relentless geopolitical instability and economic volatility.
A new world order
Trade barriers, tariffs, and industrial policy have become permanent features of the landscape. The US increasingly uses tariffs as instruments of foreign policy – tools for managing strategic competition, influencing migration, signaling security priorities, or shaping bilateral negotiations. Measures that once felt extraordinary have become routine.
At the same time, the great power rivalry between the US and China is redrawing the boundaries of economic and technological cooperation. Global supply chains remain deeply interconnected, but political alignment has fractured.
Technology is diverging into parallel ecosystems. Interdependence, once a source of stability, is now something states openly weaponize. And despite widespread talk of diversification, the world is not decoupling from China. Its share of global exports continues to rise.
For businesses, this is not a temporary phase but a permanent feature of the operating environment. Volatility is now embedded in the system.
Companies built for efficiency must now redesign themselves for resilience.
“In this world, waiting for clarity is not a strategy.”
The leadership imperative
For business leaders, the implications are profound. Economic decisions can no longer be separated from geopolitical intent. The mental model that shaped leadership thinking for the past 30 years – where “first we optimize, then we check the political risk” – has inverted. This shift is reflected ina recent global study of more than 1200 CEOs conducted by Egon Zehnder, which found that 97% of respondents see opportunities to contribute to global prosperity in the future – whether within their organizations or beyond.
The question leaders must now ask is simple: given today’s geopolitical realities, what remains possible?
Security, resilience, and control have overtaken efficiency as the organizing principles of global strategy. The model of predictable globalization, in which companies could operate across borders with minimal friction, has given way to competing power centers, tighter constraints, and a far more contested environment.
In this world, waiting for clarity is not a strategy. The organizations and leaders that will thrive are those that can adapt rapidly, interpret political signals as readily as economic ones, and build the resilience to navigate a system where the old assumptions no longer hold.
The executives who thrived in the last generation were those who could plan, execute, and optimize.
What effective leadership looks like now
If the operating environment has fundamentally changed, then leadership must change with it. The instincts that served executives well in an age of stability and efficiency are not the ones that will carry them through a world defined by fragmentation, political risk, and constant ambiguity.
So, what does effective leadership look like in this environment?
The executives who thrived in the last generation were those who could plan, execute, and optimize. They built their careers on pattern recognition: applying what worked before at scale. Experience was an asset. Certainty was the goal. Control was the method. That playbook no longer works. Today’s environment rewards a different set of capabilities:
- The ability to reframe continuously matters more than the ability to plan perfectly. When the ground moves constantly, leaders cannot rely on linear planning or familiar models. What matters is the capacity to take in new information, revisit assumptions, and pivot quickly without losing direction. This requires intellectual humility, the willingness to let go of models that no longer fit, and the courage to act despite incomplete information.
- Adaptability trumps experience. This is uncomfortable for many senior leaders. Experience used to be an anchor, something that grounded decisions and provided confidence. Today, it can become a liability if it tethers leaders to a world that no longer exists. The most effective leaders are those who have moved across functions, geographies, and crises, not because they’ve seen everything, but because they’ve learned how to learn. They are trained for ambiguity, not comfort. And 92% of CEOs from Egon Zehnder’s global study agree they must cultivate unprecedented levels of adaptability to lead in today’s complexity.
- Context matters more than global playbooks. The age of parachuting leaders into unfamiliar markets is ending. As supply chains regionalize and political constraints tighten, organizations need leaders who are rooted in local dynamics, who can interpret shifts on the ground and translate global strategy into local action with nuance and credibility. In this environment, empowerment is not a management philosophy; it is a strategic necessity.
- Knowing when to preserve and when to experiment is critical. Uncertainty often encourages organizations to pull back, but retreating in this environment can create new forms of exposure. Effective leaders must strike a balance: preserving the judgment that comes with experience while creating space for fresh thinking and renewal. This means rethinking succession not just as a continuity exercise but as an opportunity to build strategic resilience, ensuring organizations are designed for reinvention, not just stability.
- Trust is the currency that allows organizations to move. Geopolitical shocks, technological acceleration, and social pressure are creating workplaces where fear, fatigue, and fragmentation are part of daily reality. Leaders who ignore the human dimension will struggle to mobilize their organizations. Empathy, transparency, and emotional intelligence are not peripheral concerns, but enablers for teams to act decisively when everything else feels uncertain. In volatile environments, technical competence without trust produces paralysis.
These are not abstract qualities. They show up in how leaders make decisions, how they communicate under pressure, how they allocate resources, and how they respond when plans fall apart. The differentiator in this environment is no longer strategy alone. It is leadership capability.
Resilience is about learning from shocks, reorganizing around them, and emerging stronger.
Build organizations that can thrive in complexity
In this environment, leadership is not simply about navigating complexity. It is about creating coherence, helping people orient themselves when the external world refuses to stand still. But coherence alone is not enough. The world ahead will separate those who can make sense of volatility from those who are paralyzed by it.
The leaders who succeed will be those who understand that the assumptions shaping the last generation of business success – open markets, geopolitical stability, predictable rules – have been replaced by a far more contested environment. Strategy now requires reading political forces with the same fluency as market forces. Waiting for the fog to clear is not an option.
Resilience is about learning from shocks, reorganizing around them, and emerging stronger. Companies that cling to optimization will be exposed. Those who cultivate adaptive talent, flexible structures, and distributed leadership will turn volatility into advantage.
Resilient organizations rely on teams that can operate autonomously and collaborate across functions, not on a single center of authority. They will anchor their people in purpose. In periods of transition, meaning steadies organizations. The leaders who succeed are those who can articulate not just where the organization is going, but why it matters – and whose behavior reinforces that purpose.
The opportunity for those willing to lead differently is significant. This moment demands leaders who can pair strategic sharpness with emotional intelligence, see the system as it is, and mobilize their teams despite uncertainty.
The organizations that recognize this early will be the ones that shape the next era of global business. In a fractured world, leadership is the advantage.
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