A new year, new expectations, is there a new you too?

Happy New year to all of you. Whether you managed to get away and/ or spend time with loved ones, I hope you’ve come back refreshed and ready for the rigours – and opportunities – that await us all in 2026.

People have a tendency of looking wherever they can for clues of what they can expect to be better prepared.

Some turn to horoscopes to see what the stars foretell, but for business leaders the omens are always there, we just have to look carefully for the traces of the phenomena that will evolve into trends later this year. What has changed is the quality of leadership that is required.

In the past, leadership was often defined by authority, decisiveness and control. Today, and increasingly in 2026, those attributes on their own are insufficient.

What I see consistently is this: the leaders who are succeeding are not necessarily the most dominant or charismatic. They are the most present — present in their thinking, present in their values, and present with their people.

High-performing individuals are no longer loyal to organisations by default. They are loyal to meaning, growth and leadership credibility. They choose environments where they feel seen, trusted and challenged — and they leave quickly when those conditions disappear. 

Retention is no longer driven by incentives alone. It is driven by leadership behaviour, organisational culture and psychological safety. Leaders are no longer just managing performance; they are curating environments in which people choose to stay

The importance of this for C-suite leaders is to understand that they will not get the best from their employees if the companies they lead fail in any of these regards. It’s not a new phenomenon; I’ve written about it several times over the last couple of years but it is something that is becoming more entrenched. 

It’s difficult sometimes for a certain generation of leaders who grew up in more authoritarian eras to understand and to acknowledge that their roles involve more than just running financially successful operations and paying their employees salaries on time and in full every month.

This new generation of employees come to panel interviews having done a lot more than just read the annual report, they’ve done their research on the leadership too, starting at LinkedIn and then trawling through social media profiles to be fully prepared to ask questions of their own.

They want to know that you have the agility to change the plans you’ve made and even adopt a new strategy if it’s not working for the company. They want their leaders to be agile and adaptable, not stuck on a plan that’s destined to fail because they are too arrogant. They want their executives to be present, not aloof.

It’s a long shopping list and it’s daunting for those on the other, unexpected, end of questions, but it isn’t one way traffic. The pressure is just as severe for the applicants themselves.

Access to AI isn’t the same as being able to master it and I have seen – and heard of – far too many cases of people abdicating all responsibility to Chat GPT when it comes to doing case studies as part of their panel preparation who all end up either sounding exactly the same – or are totally exposed the moment the panel ask follow up questions which require proper knowledge of the subject.

There is only one worse sin than not knowing the answer in a panel and that is being caught out in a lie – and just as the new generation cyber stalk their potential employers, companies do the same for prospective employees as part of the due diligence process. 

Ethics, authenticity and honesty work both ways. It’s hypocritical to hold others to standards that you aren’t living up to yourself, so make sure there aren’t any skeletons lurking in your virtual cupboards when you decide to try for that new job this year.

We are living in exciting times and 2026 will be as tumultuous as anything that’s gone before, but that’s also where the opportunities lie. So, if you managed to survive and thrive in 2025, don’t try any tricks in 2026. 

Have a fantastic year.

About the author:

Lucia Mabasa is Chief Executive Officer of Pinpoint One Human Resources, a proudly South African black women owned executive search firm. pinpoint one human resources provides executive search solutions in the demand for C suite, specialist and critical skills across industries and functional disciplines, in South Africa and across Africa.

Visit www.pinpointone.co.za to find out more or read her previous columns on leadership; avoiding the pitfalls of the boardroom and becoming the best C-suite executive you can be.