What We Learned in the Field

In a recent closed door session with top L&D leaders, our CEO, Michael Hudson shared research insights, partner examples, and field observations from 2025 — and what they signal for 2026. In turn, participants shared their own insights and experiences. Below is a synthesis of the key themes.

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1. Change Is Outpacing Development

+	Leaders are developing more slowly than their context is changing and need tools change management doesn’t provide.
+	Having answers matters less than cultivating judgment, negative capability, and shared sensemaking.
+	During major reorgs and cost reductions, organizations need to attend to the social layer of change alongside the technical plans — creating shared meaning about why it’s happening.

Insights from the field

In several orgs, leaders realized resistance wasn’t about disagreement with strategy; it was about unprocessed loss and uncertainty. They found success in convening small peer groups and/or offering group coaching.

Healthcare leaders are navigating complex and compounding pressures. One large system is experiencing measurable relief due to org-wide coaching, embedded both as a resource and as essential leadership behavior.

2. Shifting from Skills to Capacity

+	Skills are a moving target. A global tech leader told us: “We don’t know what to teach leaders anymore.”
+	Capacity (judgment, sensemaking, containment) helps leaders adapt and access the skills they already have.
+	Coaching develops the capacity and behavior that converts skills into sustained impact.

Insights from the field

In some organizations with strong internal academies, coaching is treated as connective tissue — helping leaders integrate development into how they operate, not just into isolated programs.

Inside orgs with advanced executive development, senior leaders are engaging in transformational development that brings sharp focus to where their leadership efforts will have the greatest business impact and personal meaning.

3. Shifting from Directive to Developmental Leadership Requires Top-Down Commitment

+	Top-down leadership is too brittle for high-ambiguity environments.
+	Leaders cannot carry complexity alone; they must unlock capability beneath them.
+	Developmental culture shifts only when senior leaders model it — and when systems reinforce it.

Insights from the field

One national retailer confronted the limits of its top-down culture within middle management by developing senior leaders first — recognizing that change would not take hold unless it was modeled at the top.

Structural reinforcements — performance conversations, feedback norms, and evaluation criteria — were aligned to prevent regression to directive habits.

4. Managers Are the Pressure Point

+	Managers are asked to hold team anxiety and translate enterprise decisions into action — without the opportunity to develop the leadership capacity or skills the role requires.
+	They are expected to navigate loss, ambiguity, and performance pressure simultaneously.
+	Organizations are searching for scalable ways to both strengthen and support managers.

Insights from the field

We’re seeing success with partners shifting from content-heavy manager development programs to structured experimentation — giving managers space to test and refine new behaviors in context. Hybrid AI + human coaching is proving viable for expanding access to support while preserving developmental depth.

5. AI Elevates the Importance of Human Judgment

+	AI raises the stakes on human judgment and accountability.
+	The differentiator is how well leaders interpret, challenge, and take responsibility for AI-informed decisions.
+	As AI enters workflows, it surfaces unclear ownership and weak decision norms previously masked by hierarchy.

Insights from the field

Instead of “How do we deploy AI?” our partners are asking “Is our human system ready for AI?”

In AI-augmented environments, accountability becomes harder to name — forcing greater clarity about who decides, who owns outcomes, and how judgment is distributed.

What We Learned in the Room

Participants from healthcare, pharma, professional services, financial services, retail, and tech shared candid perspectives. Despite the diversity of sectors, the themes were strikingly consistent. Here’s what stood out.

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1. The Room Needed an “Island of Sanity“

+	Leaders named shared tensions openly, and appreciated hearing them echoed and reframed by peers across sectors.
+	The check-in ran long from the density of what was shared.

What it suggests

Isolation is amplifying strain as much as volatility. Leaders crave psychologically mature dialogue — not just frameworks.

2. Burnout Hasn’t Faded — Even If People Are Tired of Hearing About It

+	Burnout surfaced repeatedly, despite general fatigue around the topic.
+	There was visible resonance when the conversation moved toward development rather than coping strategies.

What it suggests

The issue isn’t awareness. It’s depth. Leaders may be tired of surface-level burnout conversations, but they are not tired of exploring how to grow through sustained strain.

3. A Subtle Shift Away from Skills Language

+	The challenges named were overwhelmingly developmental rather than skill-based.
+	The language centered around capacities like judgment, pause, presence, and containment.

What it suggests

The field may be gradually shifting from a skills paradigm toward a developmental one — not as a rejection of skills, but as recognition that capacity shapes how skills are used.