Hi {{first_name}}

When I look at the business environment this year, I do not see it as simply complicated. I see it as complex, fast, and increasingly unforgiving on execution. Geopolitical disruption, technological change, and shifting market conditions are converging at a pace that makes the planning cycles of five years ago feel like they belong to a different era.

In this environment, I keep coming back to one uncomfortable leadership truth: competitive advantage is no longer created by the leaders with the most thorough analysis. It is created by those who can make sound decisions quickly, hold them under pressure, and correct course when the situation changes.

Most organisations know this. What I find more interesting, and more revealing, is the gap between knowing it and actually doing it.

What the data shows

Deloitte’s 2026 Global Human Capital Trends survey, drawing on responses from business leaders across industries worldwide, found that seven in ten leaders say their primary competitive strategy over the next three years is to be fast and nimble. Yet the same research notes that many leaders feel overwhelmed: aware of the challenges but struggling to act decisively, with the boundary between planning and execution collapsing under sustained pressure.

What stands out to me in that finding is the contradiction. The strategy is speed. The execution is hesitation. And in many cases, the distance between the two sits in how the leader at the top is operating under pressure.

This came to life for me in a recent discussion in The Forum, the confidential leadership support system I facilitate for entrepreneurs and senior leaders carrying significant responsibility. One member described spending weeks delaying an important strategic decision while waiting for certainty that was never going to arrive. As I listened, I was reminded that the work was not about telling them what to do. It was about helping them notice what they already knew and then explore why they could not yet trust themselves to act on it.

Why pressure amplifies the pattern

In my work with senior leaders, I have noticed one pattern more consistently than almost any other: the behaviours that limit decision-making do not disappear when the environment becomes more demanding. They amplify.

A leader who delays decisions under normal conditions delays them more when the stakes are higher. A leader who revisits decisions when things are calm revisits them more frequently when uncertainty increases. A leader who needs consensus before committing finds it harder to build that consensus when the environment is moving faster than the meeting schedule allows.

I do not think pressure reveals entirely new patterns. More often, it intensifies the ones already running quietly in the background.

That has a direct implication for 2026. If an organisation’s competitive strategy depends on speed and adaptability, and the leader at the top is running patterns that slow the pace of decision-making, the gap between strategic intent and operational reality will widen as conditions become more demanding, not less.

The reframe

For me, this is the reframe: agility is not just a structural capability. It is a leadership behaviour.

I do not believe organisations move slowly only because their governance model is wrong or their strategy is unclear. They often move slowly because the leaders making decisions are, for reasons rooted in pattern rather than judgement, taking longer than the situation requires.

Addressing that is rarely solved by another training intervention or process redesign. I think it begins with a more honest diagnostic question: what is actually causing the hesitation, and what would need to change for the leader to operate at the pace the business now requires?

That question is harder to ask than it looks. It requires a leader to examine their own behaviour with the same rigour they apply to the organisation around them. In my experience, it is also one of the most commercially valuable questions a senior leader can sit with right now.

One thing to try this week

This week, I would start with one decision currently moving more slowly than the business needs it to.

Then I would ask: what is making it feel unsafe to decide with the information already available? I find that a more useful question than asking what information is still missing.

The answer will usually tell you more about the real constraint than any process review will.

I have found that the most useful leadership work often starts at that point: not with more information, but with a clearer understanding of what makes action feel risky.

Gavin

 Source: Deloitte, 2026 Global Human Capital Trends.