We need to materially change course right now, because nonlinear realities will not be solved with an old leadership model: hierarchy, slow consensus, and the protection of outdated systems and processes.
By Caroline Stokes, Author of AfterShock to 2030: A CEO’s Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate, and Societal Collapse
I’ve got serious beef with everything right now. You probably do too.
I watched the morning news last week. Big mistake. Here in British Columbia, and wherever you’re reading this, the news is written for an era when institutional solutions, deliverables and accountability felt possible—back in the 1990s.
Events are reported as if dysfunction and inaction are normal. And the news cycle we’re exposed to mirrors a growing collective moral injury which breeds hopelessness.
I’m repelled by the polished statements, procedural language, and “aligned governance responses”. It’s all performative theatre, without real—human and technological—systemic solutions fit for purpose.
My frustration isn’t anecdotal.
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer confirms it: people no longer believe that governments, media, or large institutions are capable of acting in their best interest at the speed or scale required. What’s rising instead is an expectation placed directly on organizations and leaders—to deliver real-world outcomes.
Edelman’s bottom line: people are demanding proof and action that systems can actually work under pressure.
What I hear: infrastructure promised decades ago, or even after the last climate disaster, still isn’t built years later. Sustainable solutions are announced but not implemented. In the same news cycle, reporters describe human-led climate disasters without providing answers on how humans can change it. Failed social policy experiments and archaic leadership decisions with no systemic action outlined. All problems, no solutions—only helplessness and a resigned sense that they’re just reporting dysfunction and a lack of accountability. Then we hear the usual PR language protecting process rather than extreme accountability and common sense while the world is quite literally on fire.
This is why Davos’ 2026 theme, “Spirit of Dialogue”, is timely—if we actually take it seriously. Dialogue is not polite conversation or PR-washing a news story, or bulldozing new world order dictates. It’s not performative listening. And it’s not faux “alignment”.
Real dialogue is the discipline of telling the truth about the system we are in, naming what is no longer working, and having the courage to act on what that reality demands. Without that, all we are doing is narrating societal and organizational decline. Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, demonstrated what this kind of dialogue actually looks like in practice. His honesty was refreshing and, for some, probably shocking.
Changing Course
What is it going to take for leaders to wake up and change their leadership operating system?
As Gil Forer, former senior partner at EY, put it in our podcast interview, we are now operating in a NAVI world—Nonlinear, Accelerated, Volatile, and Interconnected. (Find the special Davos week AfterShock episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.)
We need to materially change course yesterday, because nonlinear realities will not be solved with 1989’s leadership model: hierarchy, slow consensus, and the protection of outdated systems and processes.
A Natural Selection Inflection Point
I am currently working as a fractional leadership strategist with an organization I cannot name. They have less than three months to upskill their old management operating system to a new one.
Each week for a 100-day sprint, I work directly with the CEO and senior leadership team to implement contagious creativity and accountability for the new operating system. The pressure and timeline are unforgiving.
Considering employment forecasts until 2028 are dire, leadership needs to be superfluid with hair-on-fire energy, or else the scythe of natural selection is destined to make an appearance.
Most Organizations Are Structurally Too Slow
The majority of leaders don’t realize how close their organizations and their leadership styles are to becoming obsolete. It’s why I wrote a stark warning for CEOs in my latest book on the evolution they need to make not only for themselves, but with their team and throughout the organization.
In a world shaped by AI, geopolitical fragmentation, climate volatility, capital pressure, and rising unemployment, organizations that cannot move quickly, decide locally, and deliver outcomes without out-of-date legacy systems will not survive.
This is not about improving “play-nice” leadership behaviour inside the usual operating system. I’m working with bold, ambitious leaders who want to turn their entire operating system upside down. This work is not for the faint of heart. We might call 2026 the year of the courageous leader.
Of course, revenue matters more than ever, but extreme accountability, radical listening and the execution of outcomes that are aligned with the big goal for the organization matter even more in our NAVI world in order to achieve said revenue goals.
I know this will irritate people who have spent years building processes. But if most of your effort goes into maintaining structure rather than iterating, listening, experimenting, launching, and learning, you are not adapting—you’re mostly protecting the status quo. And CEOs do not want to hear excuses.
What works now is a model I write about in my book: polymathic “Catalysts” and “Citizens”, powered by AI—small, cross-functional, outcome-owned units with real decision rights and direct accountability.
Why This Is a Fifth Industrial Revolution Issue
Nonlinear. Accelerated. Volatile. Interconnected. “NAVI”. That’s how Gil Forer described today’s environment in our podcast conversation.
The implication is not “leaders should think differently”—the information has been around since Alvin Toffler wrote FutureShock in 1970 and MIT scientists with the Club of Rome wrote The Limits to Growth in 1972. The lesson is that legacy organizational architecture is no longer fit for purpose, but only if you look at your organization closely.
Some symptoms: your team feel disengaged or you might find yourselves gaslighting reality, knowing the world has changed while your actions haven’t.
What do we need? A reality check. And, easier said than done: get over the grief and reality gap and embark on a rapid deployment of a new way of operating within the ecosystem.
We need evolving human + synthetic capability stacking, regardless of the discomfort around cost shifts. The mindset: superfluid and continuously adaptive under systemic pressure.
This is the Fifth Industrial Revolution: not just new technology, but a fundamental redesign of how we run business within planetary constraints.
The Five-Step Reinvention Shift
1. Replace Hierarchy with “Catalysts” and “Citizens”
Organize around outcomes. Create small, cross-functional units that own a measurable result, have authority close to the work and operate with minimal dependency on central approval.
If decisions “must” travel up three layers, you are already too slow. A useful reference: NVIDIA’s “Mission as Boss” model, which prioritizes the right talent and speed to outcomes over organizational form.
2. Kill Process That Doesn’t Produce Results
If a process exists to protect the “old way of doing things” rather than deliver outcomes, that is a strong sign that you need to adapt.
Audit where time is lost to busy work. You’ll see this most when reporting replaces strategic action, governance delays execution and “alignment” compromises doing what’s necessary for business optimization.
If the work doesn’t move the outcome, park it.
3. Make Accountability Ruthlessly Clear
In a world of volatility, ambiguity is fatal. Every team must have one accountable owner that can carry it over the finish line with defined success metrics and real consequences for non-delivery.
At the end of every meeting and every week, it should be clear who owns what, how it will move forward, how it needs to be adapted and when it will be delivered.
4. Speed is a Strategic Asset
Perfection is a luxury of stable environments. Fifteen minutes of watching the news will tell you that environment is gone. So, build structures that test quickly, learn publicly, reallocate resources without politics and shut down what isn’t working fast.
5. Reframe Talent as Human + Machine Capability
Stop thinking in job descriptions. Start thinking in brain capacity and capability portfolios. Teams are now humans + synthetic AI agents, automation and external ecosystems.
Design desired outcomes and teams, not who historically did it.
The Real Questions for CEOs
Can your organization spin up empowered teams in weeks, not years? Can your organization move resources without gridlock? Can your organization hold people accountable for outcomes, not busy work or performative activity? Can your organization adapt its structure faster than the world changes? What I heard from Gil Forer at EY was the need to be superfluid. It’s a great term for leaders to work towards.
If not, your risk is extinction. I hope you can find your way on the path to think modular, become outcome obsessed and structurally adaptable.
Yesterday.
If you need support navigating this shift, I’m here.
Wishing you courage in the AfterShock to 2030 era.
