I have been thinking quite a lot recently about succession planning, and particularly about whether we sometimes ask the wrong question.
When boards talk about succession, the conversation quite naturally turns to people. Who could step up? Who is nearly ready? Who might replace the CEO, CFO or another member of the executive team if they left tomorrow?
These are all perfectly sensible questions, of course, but I wonder whether there is a more important one that should come first:
What will this job actually require in three or five years' time?
Because I am not convinced it will require quite the same things it requires today.
Look at what has happened to senior leadership in just the past few years. A CEO does not need to be a technologist, but increasingly they do need to understand enough about AI to decide where to invest, where the risks lie and how it might change their business. They are dealing with geopolitical uncertainty, volatile supply chains, skills shortages, changing expectations from employees and investors, and transformation programmes which seem to arrive before the previous transformation has finished.
The ONS recently found that 35% of UK businesses were already using at least one AI technology, while 55% of employees said they were using AI for work or education, but among businesses struggling to adopt AI, lack of expertise remains a significant barrier.
There was another ONS finding that interested me even more - among businesses in the highest decile for management practices, 88% had adopted at least one of the major technologies examined and among those in the lowest decile, it was only 51%.
That feels important because technology itself is only part of the story because you can buy technology, you can bring in advisers and you can recruit technical specialists. What is much harder to acquire overnight is the leadership judgement required to decide what matters, what does not, what should change and, crucially, how you take people with you.
And that rather neatly brings me back to succession.
I have seen succession plans which are extremely detailed with names, boxes, readiness assessments, development plans and careful distinctions between "ready now", "ready in two years" and "ready in five", but there is a danger in all of this apparent certainty.
If we identify someone as a potential CEO in 2026 and spend the next five years preparing that person for the role as it exists today, what happens if the organisation needs a very different kind of CEO by 2031?
That is not an argument against internal succession, in fact it is quite the opposite. Developing your own people properly is one of the best things an organisation can do, because somebody who understands the business, its people, customers and culture can have an enormous advantage - but there is a difference between developing people and anointing them.
Once somebody becomes "the successor", it is remarkably easy for an organisation to start arranging the evidence around the conclusion. They are given the right exposure, moved into the right roles and increasingly regarded as the natural choice, but by the time the appointment arrives, asking whether somebody else might now be better suited can feel almost like undoing years of work.
Perhaps we need to be a little less certain.
There is an interesting parallel in the progress British companies have made on board diversity. Women now hold around 43% of FTSE 350 board positions, compared with fewer than 10% when the succession of government-backed reviews began in 2011. The Parker Review has also recorded substantial progress in ethnic diversity on FTSE boards. Those changes matter because they show what businesses can achieve when something is measured and kept firmly on the agenda, but if we look slightly further down the leadership pipeline the picture becomes more complicated.
Despite women holding roughly 43% of FTSE 350 board positions, they hold only around 8% of FTSE 350 CEO positions. Women account for 35.9% of leadership roles below board level, while more than six out of ten appointments into those leadership populations during the latest reporting year still went to men. So perhaps the problem is not simply who gets a seat around the board table, it's who gets the experiences, opportunities, responsibility and trust that eventually make somebody a credible candidate to lead the organisation.
That is why I think succession planning needs to start much earlier than the succession plan.
Rather than beginning with "Who could replace our CEO?", I would begin with "Where is this business going?"
What will threaten it? What will create growth? Which capabilities will matter more than they do today? What will technology change? Which markets will become more important? What kind of organisation are we actually going to be?
Only then would I ask who could lead it.
Sometimes the answer will be sitting inside the organisation already, which is exactly what good talent development should make possible, but sometimes the answer will be outside it because the business needs experience or perspective it simply does not yet possess.
What worries me more is the apparently safe appointment, because "safe" usually means familiar - someone from the same sector, with the expected career history, who has already done something very similar somewhere else and whose CV allows everyone around the table to feel reassured.
There are circumstances where that is precisely the right appointment, but there are others where appointing somebody whose experience perfectly matches your past is a rather strange way of preparing for your future.
The Financial Reporting Council already expects UK listed companies to maintain effective succession plans for boards and senior management, and its guidance talks about identifying future capability gaps as well as developing internal talent. I think the words future capability deserve far more attention than they sometimes receive because ultimately succession is not about having a name in a box, it is about having enough strong people, with sufficiently different experiences and perspectives, so that when the organisation reaches its next inflection point there is a genuine choice.
Perhaps the question every board should occasionally ask is not:
"Do we have a successor?"
but:
"If the person on our succession plan was not already on it, knowing what we know about where this business is heading, would we choose them today?"
I suspect the answer to that question might occasionally make for a rather interesting board meeting...
The United States remains the world's largest executive talent market and one of its most influential centres of innovation, investment and business leadership. From the technology giants of the Pacific Northwest to the international commercial hubs of New York and Miami, organisations face increasing competition for leaders capable of navigating growth, transformation and international complexity.
For clients operating across these markets, success depends upon more than executive search expertise alone. It requires advisers who understand regional business cultures, industry dynamics and the realities of leadership at the highest level.
That is the strength of Friisberg's capability across the United States and the Americas.
Through our Managing Partners, Dave Hill and Luisa Guzmán, clients gain access to exceptional executive search expertise and teams spanning technology, industrial markets, manufacturing, consumer businesses, professional services and international leadership, all supported by one fully integrated global partnership.
Based in Miami and New York, Luisa Guzmán leads executive search assignments across the United States and Latin America, bringing more than twenty-eight years of executive search and leadership advisory experience across the Americas and Europe.
Her career has been built on advising multinational corporations, privately owned businesses, family enterprises and international investors on the appointment of senior executives who can succeed across diverse markets, cultures and jurisdictions. With extensive experience throughout North America and Latin America, Luisa brings an understanding of executive leadership that combines commercial insight with genuine cultural fluency.
Miami has become one of the world's most important international business gateways, connecting North America with the rapidly evolving economies of Latin America. Combined with Friisberg's presence in New York, Luisa supports organisations whose leadership challenges increasingly extend beyond national borders, helping clients identify executives capable of operating successfully across complex international markets.
Her work reflects a simple principle that has always underpinned successful executive search: understanding people is every bit as important as understanding businesses.
On the West Coast, Dave Hill leads Friisberg's Seattle and Tucson offices, bringing one of the most distinguished careers in global technology executive search.
Over more than twenty-five years, Dave has held senior executive recruiting and executive search leadership positions with Google, YouTube, Amazon, Microsoft and Expedia, advising some of the world's most influential organisations through periods of extraordinary innovation and growth.
His experience is exceptional both in breadth and depth.
At Google, Dave helped establish the Vice President Executive Recruiting practice while leading executive hiring across Google Devices & Services, Platforms & Ecosystems, YouTube and Core Engineering. Prior to this, he built YouTube's executive search capability from the ground up during one of the platform's most significant periods of expansion.
During almost a decade at Amazon, he led executive recruiting across Amazon Web Services, Prime Video, Amazon Studios, Amazon Music, Kindle, Alexa, Advertising, Twitch, Ring, Whole Foods and many of the company's fastest-growing global businesses. Earlier leadership positions at Microsoft and Expedia further strengthened his expertise in identifying executives for organisations operating at the forefront of technological innovation.
Few executive search professionals have worked so closely with companies that have fundamentally changed the way the world communicates, consumes information, builds software and delivers digital services. That experience gives clients access to insight developed through decades of advising businesses where leadership decisions have global impact.
Seattle continues to rank among the world's foremost technology ecosystems, home to global innovators, cloud computing pioneers, artificial intelligence leaders and venture-backed growth companies. Together with Friisberg's presence in Tucson, Dave's practice provides clients with direct access to one of North America's most dynamic executive talent markets.
While Dave and Luisa each bring distinct market expertise, their greatest strength lies in the way they work together as part of Friisberg's international partnership.
Knowledge is shared across borders. Sector expertise is combined across international teams. Research, market intelligence and executive networks are brought together to support every assignment, regardless of geography.
Whether advising a technology business scaling internationally, an industrial organisation strengthening its leadership team, a private equity investor building portfolio leadership or a multinational appointing senior executives across multiple jurisdictions, clients benefit from our experienced teams working collaboratively across one integrated global organisation.
Increasingly, leadership challenges do not recognise national boundaries.
Organisations require executives who can lead across cultures, manage international operations, accelerate growth, drive transformation and build high-performing teams in rapidly changing markets. Identifying those individuals requires advisers with deep sector expertise, extensive executive networks and first-hand understanding of the environments in which those leaders operate.
Friisberg's capability across the United States reflects exactly that philosophy.
Our offices in Miami, New York, Seattle and Tucson work closely with colleagues across Europe and the wider international firm to deliver executive search and consuktancy serviecs that are vinformed by local knowledge, strengthened by international collaboration and focused on one objective: identifying exceptional leaders who create lasting organisational success.
For almost five decades, Friisberg has built its reputation on trusted relationships, partner-led delivery and cross-border collaboration. Our presence across the United States and the Americas continues that tradition, providing clients with the insight, experience and international perspective required to secure leadership for the challenges of today and the opportunities of tomorrow.
Whether you are strengthening your executive leadership team in the United States, expanding across the Americas or appointing senior leaders with international responsibilities, Friisberg brings together local expertise, global perspective and partner-led delivery.
To discuss how our Managing Partners can support your leadership ambitions, please contact Dave Hill, Luisa Guzmán or your local Friisberg office. We would be delighted to start a conversation.
For much of the past eighteen months, organisations have adopted a cautious approach to senior hiring. Economic uncertainty, persistent inflation, rising employment costs and a slower rate of growth encouraged many boards to delay leadership appointments, restructure existing teams or extend the tenure of incumbent executives rather than embark on significant new searches.
That caution has not disappeared, but there is growing evidence that confidence is beginning to return.
The picture is far from uniform and few would describe the market as buoyant. However, across a number of sectors, organisations are once again making carefully considered investments in leadership where the appointment is expected to drive transformation, growth or long-term resilience.
Recent market indicators suggest that hiring activity has begun to improve after an extended period of restraint. The latest KPMG and Recruitment and Employment Confederation Report on Jobs indicates that the decline in permanent appointments has eased significantly, while temporary hiring has strengthened at its fastest pace for more than three years.
At the same time, several sectors have experienced notable increases in demand for experienced professionals. Technology, manufacturing, utilities and logistics have all reported stronger vacancy growth during recent months, reflecting continued investment in digital capability, infrastructure, supply chain resilience and industrial modernisation.
These are precisely the sectors where leadership decisions have become increasingly strategic rather than operational.
Despite these encouraging signs, the overall labour market remains more subdued than many commentators suggest.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that UK vacancies remain below the levels seen during the post-pandemic peak, while there are now significantly more jobseekers competing for each advertised position than there were only a few years ago.
At first glance this appears to favour employers, but in reality, executive search continues to operate in a very different market.
Exceptional chief executives, finance directors, HR leaders, commercial executives and operational specialists rarely become available simply because vacancy numbers increase. The individuals capable of leading complex organisations are almost always already succeeding elsewhere, and attracting them requires a compelling opportunity rather than simply an attractive remuneration package.
The executive search market has proved more resilient than many areas of the wider employment market because organisations do not appoint senior leaders simply to replace headcount. Boards invest when leadership capability becomes critical to delivering strategy.
Across the UK we are seeing mandates driven by business transformation, digital investment, international expansion, operational improvement, succession planning, regulatory change and private equity activity rather than routine replacement hiring. These appointments are fewer in number, but considerably more significant in their impact.
A single executive appointment can alter the direction of an organisation for many years. That reality means businesses continue to invest in identifying outstanding leaders even during periods of economic uncertainty.
One misconception is that a softer employment market automatically makes senior hiring easier, but our experience suggests precisely the opposite. Although more candidates may technically be available, organisations continue to compete for a relatively small group of proven leaders who combine commercial judgement, strategic thinking, cultural intelligence and the ability to deliver change.
Those individuals are rarely active applicants, they are carefully approached, thoroughly assessed and highly selective about the organisations they choose to join and increasingly, they are evaluating far more than salary. They want clarity of purpose, confidence in the board, a credible growth strategy, an inclusive culture and genuine autonomy to make a difference.
As confidence gradually returns, the organisations achieving the greatest success will not necessarily be those recruiting most aggressively, they will be those asking better questions before beginning a search.
The answers to those questions determine whether a search attracts merely competent candidates or truly exceptional ones.
The UK leadership market is undoubtedly becoming more active, but this should not be mistaken for a return to the broad-based hiring conditions experienced several years ago. Organisations remain disciplined in their investment decisions and are placing greater emphasis on leadership quality than leadership quantity.
From Friisberg UK's perspective, this represents a healthy evolution rather than a temporary recovery.
Businesses are becoming more deliberate about the appointments they make, more rigorous in defining the capabilities they require and more focused on securing leaders who can create lasting value.
For executive search, that is exactly the kind of market in which experience, judgement and a deep understanding of leadership make the greatest difference.
At the executive level, hiring decisions are rarely just about filling a vacancy. They are strategic bets-on leadership, direction, and ultimately, business outcomes. And yet, even in well-run organizations, these bets do not always pay off.
Most companies are aware that a wrong executive hire is expensive. What is less visible-and far more consequential-is how those costs are evolving in today’s environment.
In 2026, the true price of a mis-hire at the top is not only higher. It is also more complex, more immediate, and more difficult to reverse.
Let’s start with what is easy to quantify. Research has long suggested that replacing a senior executive can cost anywhere between 2x to 5x their annual compensation when factoring in recruitment, onboarding, severance, and lost productivity. For C-level roles, that figure can quickly escalate into seven-digit territory.
But these are the accounting costs-the ones that appear on balance sheets and reports.
They are only part of the story.
The real impact of a wrong executive hire often unfolds quietly, across the organization:
These costs rarely show up as line items. But they are often the ones that hurt the most.
If executive hiring has always been high-stakes, why is the risk rising now?
There are several structural shifts at play:
1. Leadership Roles Are More Complex Than Ever Executives today are expected to navigate digital transformation, geopolitical uncertainty, talent shortages, and rapid market shifts-often simultaneously. The margin for error is shrinking.
2. Speed Is Taking Priority Over Precision Many organizations feel pressure to move quickly, especially in competitive markets. But accelerated hiring processes can lead to incomplete evaluation-particularly at the executive level, where nuance matters most.
3. The Talent Pool Is More Global-and Less Visible The best candidates are often not actively looking. They are selective, discreet, and difficult to access through traditional channels. This makes identifying the right fit-not just an available one-more challenging.
4. Cultural Fit Has Become a Strategic Variable It is no longer enough for an executive to deliver results. How they lead, communicate, and align with organizational values has become equally critical-and harder to assess on paper.
One of the most common patterns seen in executive hiring is the decision to move forward with a candidate who feels “good enough.”
On paper, the profile works. The experience is relevant. The interviews are positive.
But something is slightly off-whether in leadership style, adaptability, or long-term fit.
In a tight timeline, these concerns are often rationalized away. This is where the hidden cost begins. Because at the executive level, “almost right” is often completely wrong.
Organizations that consistently make strong executive hires tend to approach the process differently-not necessarily by spending more, but by thinking more rigorously about risk.
A few patterns stand out:
In many cases, this also means involving partners who specialize in navigating complexity, confidentiality, and high-stakes decision-making - not because the process cannot be done internally, but because the cost of getting it wrong is simply too high.
When we are aware of our behaviours, values, beliefs, and the ways they either serve or hinder us, we can make a choice. We can embrace new ways of thinking and acting - or we can resist, remain attached to old patterns, and allow that resistance to gradually become toxic for ourselves and those around us.
The choice to grow is deeply connected to our human drive to evolve and become better versions of ourselves. Transformation occurs only when awareness is followed by intentional action.
Meaningful transformation is often triggered by significant life experiences: a health challenge, a career transition, the loss of an important relationship, or stepping into a completely new environment or role. These moments touch us at a deeper level. They invite us to pause, reflect, and reconsider how we live, lead, and show up in the world.
What I am sharing today is inspired by something I recently witnessed.
A senior leader faced a serious heart condition. Rather than allowing the experience to define him, he chose to embrace the lesson it offered. He decided to operate from a new set of beliefs: to speak from the heart, lead with authenticity, and trust the process of change.
The impact was remarkable: his team noticed the difference in meetings, his peers observed a shift in his leadership style and began following his example and together, they went on to win the top prize in an internal company competition. Yet perhaps the most remarkable outcome was something less tangible - the genuine joy and sense of fulfilment he found within himself. It became contagious.
Transformation begins from within. Different triggers move us, but how is it that we need to wait for the “big trigger” to happen? How can an inspiration be a trigger? Something we spot, watch or read and with courage instead of fear we take step by step forward, seeking support from those who can guide us can be so natural.
That is how growth journey can start, following our natural instinct to evolve, to discover a deeper sense of meaning, to keep learning, growing, and becoming.
Because awareness may open the door but transformation happens when we choose to walk through it.
A chair once remarked to me, after a difficult CEO transition, that the organisation had become, “informationally rich but emotionally illiterate.”
The dashboards were excellent, reporting was immaculate, productivity targets were being met, yet leadership had completely missed the fact that trust inside the organisation had quietly collapsed because nobody had properly interpreted the silence.
That observation has stayed with me because it captures something increasingly visible across modern organisations: HR functions are quietly shrinking.
Not everywhere, and not always dramatically, but enough to become a genuine boardroom conversation. AI-driven start-ups have popularised the idea of ultra-lean operating models with minimal support functions, while larger corporates are increasingly centralising HR, automating recruitment and reducing management layers in pursuit of efficiency. In recent weeks alone, headlines around AI-related workforce reductions at major global firms, including banks and technology companies, have intensified debate around how lean organisations can realistically become.
The pressure is understandable. UK businesses are operating in a difficult environment of rising employment costs, weak productivity growth and economic uncertainty. The CIPD reports that one in six employers now expects AI to reduce headcount over the coming year, rising to one in four large private-sector firms. Clerical, administrative and junior management roles are viewed as particularly exposed.
As a result, many organisations are asking themselves the same question: should we follow?
Some of this change is entirely rational because many businesses genuinely became too bureaucratic and process-heavy, but there is a profound difference between removing administration and removing interpretation because strong HR professionals were never simply policy managers. At their best, they acted as organisational interpreters, they sensed when leadership messaging was no longer landing, when a culture had become politically cautious, or when a restructuring looked convincing in a board presentation but damaging in practice.
That matters because businesses are operating in an unusually fragile environment. Hybrid working has weakened informal communication channels and AI itself is creating uncertainty around future roles and skills. Many organisations are simultaneously managing transformation fatigue, economic pressure and shifting workforce expectations.
The irony is that, at precisely the moment when human interpretation may matter most, many firms are reducing the capability that historically provided it, and some are already discovering the limits of overcorrection. Gartner recently warned that companies cutting staff aggressively in anticipation of AI efficiencies are often failing to achieve the returns they expected, with many later needing to rebuild capability.
Leaders can become increasingly insulated by dashboards, formal reporting structures and systems while losing visibility of what employees are actually thinking and feeling. Problems then emerge later and more publicly: cultural fragmentation, failed transformation programmes, retention issues or leadership distrust.
At Friisberg, we increasingly see boards placing greater value on qualities that are difficult to automate: judgement, communication, emotional intelligence and the ability to navigate complexity calmly. Technical expertise still matters enormously, but leadership today is becoming as much about interpretation as execution.
Organisations are not simply systems, they are human communities, and communities rarely function well when nobody is listening between the lines.
Somewhere along the way business became obsessed with the idea that leaner automatically meant better.
For years, businesses have pursued flatter organisational structures in the belief that fewer layers meant faster decisions, greater agility and lower costs. In many cases, that thinking was entirely understandable because some organisations had become unnecessarily bureaucratic, slow-moving and overly managerial.
However, many companies are now beginning to discover that management layers did not merely exist to control process - quite often, they existed to develop future leaders.
Across the UK, organisations are simultaneously restructuring, embedding hybrid working and implementing artificial intelligence tools, often without fully understanding the cumulative cultural impact of those changes. Individually, each initiative may appear commercially rational. Together, however, they may be quietly weakening leadership pipelines at precisely the moment leadership complexity is increasing.
Leadership capability is rarely developed instantly.
Most senior executives learned gradually through exposure to operational pressure, stakeholder management, difficult decisions and observation of more experienced leaders over many years. Historically, middle management structures created the environment where much of that development occurred. They provided emerging leaders with the opportunity to gain judgement, resilience and commercial maturity before carrying full enterprise-level responsibility.
When organisations aggressively flatten structures, they often remove precisely those developmental stepping stones.
Initially, the model can appear highly successful: costs reduce, decision-making accelerates and reporting lines simplify. The difficulty often emerges several years later when businesses suddenly discover there are too few operationally mature leaders ready to step into senior roles.
Hybrid working has intensified this challenge further. Younger professionals no longer absorb organisational culture, political judgement and leadership behaviour through daily proximity in the same way previous generations did. Informal mentoring and observational learning have weakened significantly in many organisations.
Research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests concerns around career progression and developmental access remain particularly strong amongst younger employees operating in hybrid environments.[1]
Artificial intelligence may deepen the issue further if organisations focus exclusively on automation and productivity without considering the human infrastructure leadership depends upon. AI can streamline analysis and process, but it cannot easily replicate trust, contextual judgement, emotional intelligence or the credibility developed through lived organisational experience.
That matters because increasingly the differentiator in leadership is not technical competence alone, but judgement under pressure.
Boards are beginning to recognise this. The Financial Reporting Council continues to emphasise succession planning and workforce resilience as critical governance priorities,[2] while the Institute of Directors has highlighted growing board-level concern around leadership capability and organisational resilience.[3]
This is no longer simply an HR issue. It is becoming a strategic business issue.
Leadership shortages cannot be solved quickly because commercially credible leadership capability takes years to develop. Organisations that weaken their internal succession structures for too long may eventually discover that replacing experience externally becomes increasingly difficult and significantly more expensive.
For executive search firms, these shifts are changing both the nature of leadership assessment and the conversations taking place in boardrooms.
Increasingly, clients are not simply asking for executives with sector expertise or operational track records. They are looking for leaders capable of navigating ambiguity, complexity, workforce fragmentation and sustained organisational pressure without destabilising culture or losing strategic clarity.
At the same time, many organisations are beginning to recognise that external hiring alone cannot permanently compensate for weakened internal succession pipelines. Recruitment can solve immediate capability gaps, but it cannot entirely replace the long-term cultivation of leadership culture within an organisation itself.
This is why leadership assessment is becoming more nuanced and significantly more human. Emotional intelligence, adaptability, resilience, judgement and cultural credibility are no longer peripheral leadership characteristics discussed politely during interviews before everyone returns to EBITDA and delivery metrics. Increasingly, they are becoming central predictors of executive effectiveness.
The organisations that will outperform over the next decade are unlikely to be those that simply become the leanest or most technologically automated. More probably, they will be the businesses capable of balancing efficiency with humanity, transformation with continuity and innovation with long-term capability development. Ultimately, organisations do not thrive merely because they remove layers, they thrive because they continue producing leaders capable of carrying responsibility, building trust and making sound decisions in environments where certainty itself has become increasingly rare.
That may prove to be one of the defining executive search challenges of the next decade.
[1] Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Flexible and Hybrid Working Practices in the UK, 2025.
[2] Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Review of Corporate Governance Reporting, UK, 2025.
[3] Institute of Directors (IoD), Director Sentiment Monitor and Board Priorities Survey, UK, 2025.
[4] Deloitte, Global Human Capital Trends, 2025.
[5] World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report, 2025.
A growing number of senior leaders are experiencing a quiet but profound shift in their professional lives. Once energized by ambition, responsibility, and impact, many executives now report persistent exhaustion, declining motivation, and a subtle detachment from their work. This phenomenon-often referred to as corporate fatigue is emerging as a defining leadership challenge of the modern business environment.
Unlike traditional burnout, corporate fatigue is not always visible. It develops gradually, often masked by continued performance and outward success. Yet beneath the surface, it erodes clarity, purpose, and ultimately effectiveness.
Today’s executives operate in an environment of constant pressure. Digital acceleration has created an “always-on” culture, while global uncertainty, economic volatility, and rapid organizational change demand continuous adaptation. Leaders are expected to deliver results quickly, inspire teams, manage crises, and remain emotionally intelligent-all at once.
Over time, this sustained intensity leads to cumulative strain. Many executives begin to experience:
What makes corporate fatigue particularly challenging is that high-performing individuals often push through these symptoms, delaying recognition and intervention.
At the core of corporate fatigue lies a deeper issue: the erosion of meaning.
Many executives enter leadership roles driven by vision, creativity, and the desire to make an impact. However, as responsibilities grow, their work often becomes dominated by operational demands, administrative tasks, and short-term performance pressures. The connection between effort and purpose weakens.
This disconnect is reinforced by several factors:
When leaders can no longer see the significance of their work, motivation declines-even if external success remains.
Corporate fatigue manifests across cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical dimensions. Its subtlety often makes it difficult to identify early.
If left unaddressed, these symptoms can escalate into full burnout, affecting both individual well-being and organizational performance.
Corporate fatigue is not just a personal issue-it is a strategic risk.
Leaders experiencing fatigue are more likely to default to short-term thinking, avoid necessary risks, and struggle to inspire others. This can lead to:
In essence, when leadership energy declines, organizational performance follows.
Managing corporate fatigue requires more than temporary relief. It calls for a shift in how leadership is structured, supported, and sustained.
1. Reconnect with Purpose
Executives need to revisit what drives them. Clarifying personal values and aligning them with organizational goals can restore a sense of meaning. Organizations should reinforce how leadership roles contribute to broader impact-not just financial outcomes.
2. Redesign Work and Expectations
Sustainable leadership depends on realistic workloads. This includes prioritizing strategic responsibilities, delegating effectively, and reducing unnecessary complexity. Continuous high-intensity performance is not sustainable.
3. Create Space for Reflection
Constant activity leaves little room for clear thinking. Leaders benefit from protected time for reflection, reduced digital interruptions, and the ability to step back without stigma. Insight often emerges in moments of pause.
4. Strengthen Support Systems
Executives frequently operate in isolation. Coaching, peer networks, and mentorship can provide perspective, reduce pressure, and normalize the challenges of leadership.
5. Build a Culture of Sustainability
Organizations must move beyond glorifying overwork. Recognizing balance, rewarding long-term thinking, and embedding well-being into leadership development are critical for sustained success.
Corporate fatigue reflects a broader shift in the nature of leadership. The traditional model-based on endurance, constant availability, and relentless output-is increasingly incompatible with today’s complexity.
Future-ready leaders will not be defined by how much they can endure, but by how effectively they manage their energy, maintain clarity of purpose, and create sustainable performance-for themselves and their teams.
Addressing corporate fatigue is not about reducing ambition. It is about ensuring that leaders have the capacity to lead with focus, resilience, and meaning over the long term.
The job market is competitive, and good talent is often in short supply, that is why organisations are increasingly turning to ‘hidden search’ (discreet recruitment) to fill senior vacancies. Instead of publicly posting their management vacancies on job boards, a headhunter actively seeks out suitable candidates through private channels, such as personal networks. This discreet approach helps avoid internal turbulence and strengthens your strategic position, without attracting the attention of competitors.
Hidden search is a strategic recruitment method whereby companies attract talent without publicly advertising vacancies. This approach is increasingly being used for specialist roles, interim management or senior positions. It is all about precision and discretion, enabling companies to identify and approach the best professionals in a targeted manner. By utilising market knowledge, networks and specialist headhunters, companies can work in a targeted way. Candidates are approached confidentially, without the market being aware of it.
This approach provides access to so-called ‘passive’ candidates; professionals who are not actively looking for a job, but who are (latently) open to new opportunities. The focus here is on quality rather than quantity. And because the recruitment process takes place behind the scenes, competitors and/or employees are unaware of the recruitment activities. This prevents speculation in the market or unnecessary internal unrest.
There are several reasons why organisations are increasingly opting for this discreet approach:
This development is making the work of recruiters less visible. The focus of recruitment is shifting from advertising to proactive searching, from visibility to discretion, and from volume to quality. As a result, networking, search skills and confidentiality are becoming increasingly important.
Hidden search offers interesting advantages, including for SME entrepreneurs. You reach candidates who are not actively looking but are open to the next step. And these are often the strongest profiles. It also reduces the workload; instead of dozens of unsuitable applications, you receive a small, relevant selection. By operating under the radar, you also prevent competitors from identifying your plans or growth direction prematurely, or from causing internal unrest.
Although hidden search offers many advantages, there are also a few points to consider:
Hidden search is not a replacement for traditional recruitment, but a complement to it. In practice, both methods are used side by side: open recruitment (increasingly via social media channels, relying heavily on strong employer branding) for scale and visibility, and hidden search for key positions and senior management. This approach is a logical consequence of a changing labour market in which talent is scarce and strategic choices are becoming more sensitive. For Hiring Managers and for entrepreneurs, hidden search offers good opportunities to attract talent in a more targeted and effective manner, provided it is used correctly. A strong network, a clear strategy and the right balance between visibility and discretion are essential for success.
Would you like to know if and how hidden search can help your organisation? Then please contact the specialists at Friisberg.
It started as a medical story.
Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy were developed to treat diabetes and obesity, but now they are reshaping something much broader: how people eat, drink, socialise and spend.
This is where it becomes a business story - and more importantly, a leadership one.
The UK has one of the highest obesity rates in Europe. According to the NHS, over a quarter of adults are classified as obese, with a further large proportion overweight. That alone explains why demand for GLP-1 medications has accelerated so quickly, but the impact is no longer confined to healthcare.
Emerging data points are starting to connect:
Individually, these signals look incremental and taken together, they point to something more structural:
A cohort of consumers is changing its behaviour faster than the businesses serving it.
We have seen waves before: low fat, low carb, plant-based and most were gradual - in fact many were reversible. I don't think this is.
GLP-1 medications work by altering appetite regulation, so people eat less, and then they feel full sooner. In many cases, they lose interest in categories they previously consumed regularly.
That has second-order effects:
This is not preference, it is physiology and that makes it more durable.
The real issue for businesses is not whether this trend continues, it is whether leadership teams are equipped to respond to behavioural change at this pace.
Most organisations are structured to:
That model works when change is linear, but it fails when change is non-linear and human-led because by the time the data is conclusive, the behaviour is already embedded.
If even a modest percentage of the UK population adopts GLP-1 medications over the next five years, the implications are significant:
This is not about decline, it is about redistribution of demand.
Some businesses will adapt early and capture it whereas others will continue optimising for a consumer that is already changing.
Many leadership teams are still:
But this environment demands something different:
Because the uncomfortable truth is this:
Markets do not wait for leadership teams to feel ready. They move, and advantage shifts to those who act first.
This is not really about weight-loss drugs, it is about what happens when human behaviour shifts quickly and at scale, and whether leadership is capable of keeping pace.
Most organisations will not miss this because they failed to see it, they will miss it because they saw it too late to respond.
At Friisberg UK, we are increasingly asked the same question in different forms:
What kind of leadership do we need for a market that is changing faster than our organisation is built to handle?
The answer is rarely found in a job description. It comes from experience, from pattern recognition across markets, from having seen cycles of change before and knowing when this time is different.
Friisberg is a long-established firm with deep, cross-sector expertise and a genuinely international perspective. That matters at a point like this, because when behaviour shifts quickly, decisions cannot be made in isolation or based purely on precedent.
They require:
This is the shift that matters:
When behaviour changes faster than businesses, leadership becomes the only real lever of advantage.
And the organisations that recognise that early do not just keep up, they move first.
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