The Preston Associate’s executive coaches have privileged access to the insights and trends that are really on the minds of the top 10% of leaders worldwide – often before they become mainstream. To give you a head start this year, we tapped into the collective expertise of our coaches to crowdsource leadership insights and trends for 2025. Here’s what we believe will be seven key themes to help you stay ahead of the game.
1. UNDERSTANDING CHANGE BEFORE TAKING ACTION
For Tom Preston and his C-Suite clients, change is table stakes, but in 2025 they anticipate both the pace and the range of change to go to the next-level. Everything will move faster, and the range of change gears will expand from incremental to disruptive. This will be more pronounced than usual, more profound than ever before, and will occur at dizzying speed.
Leaders will need to focus their energy on interpreting the kind of change they will navigate and adapt their response accordingly. Given the speed of change we will experience, it can be tempting to react fast, and now more than ever what we need is to stop, think, and decide whether to react and how to react at speed. It will be critical not to cause confusion to our people, our business models and our customers being blown off course by change rather than responding to it with a considered and strategic approach.
Differentiating between what really makes a difference and what is a “not for now” issue will define great leadership in 2025.
2. GALVANIZE YOUR TEAM
Rainer Schmitz heads our business in Asia, and this year he observed a pronounced pivot toward investing and expanding into Team Coaching across industries. This trend reflects a growing recognition of the critical role that high-performing teams play in driving innovation, agility, and sustainable growth in a competitive global market where Asia will play an even more central role in 2025. Asia’s diverse and dynamic work environments, coupled with cross-cultural collaboration challenges, have made team coaching especially valuable. Additionally, the shift toward more inclusive leadership models has fueled demand for coaching tailored to teams rather than just individuals. With many companies in Asia navigating digital transformation, complex stakeholder ecosystems, and hybrid work environments, team coaching is viewed to improve productivity and strengthen organizational resilience and engagement.
Acting as a united front, optimizing team dynamics, aligning priorities, and overcoming silo thinking to act as ONE TEAM will be a driving force for teams in Asia and around the world in 2025.
3. PURPOSE STILL MOVES THE NEEDLE
For decades, Janet Miller Evans has worked with leaders who put purpose at the center of their strategy. Despite recent trends that can act as headwinds for purpose-driven leaders, Janet believes that companies will continue to focus on aligning team members’ sense of purpose with the business strategy. 86% of GenZ and 89% of millennial workers surveyed by Deloitte say that having a sense of purpose is essential to overall job satisfaction and performance. Leading with purpose is not a ‘feel good strategy’: it’s proven to move the needle of business, and it should not take a back seat. Coaches can help leaders articulate a clear purpose vision and the role of the team in reaching the organization’s mission. When these key elements are aligned with individual purpose, it can lead to transformational outcomes that inspire and motivate, impacting the organization’s success and ultimately the bottom line.
4. YOU CONTROL THE FOCUS
Nadine Slater works with executives in the UK, Europe, the US and Asia, and regardless of industry, one of their biggest challenges is to focus on what matters most. The overwhelm of operating in a ‘business as usual’ gear whilst transforming on many fronts at the same time can lead to either freeze and wait-and-see mode (especially during organizational changes), or overdrive and flustered busyness without focus on the key priorities.
For Nadine’s clients, it is not uncommon to use coaching time to distill a list of 15 ‘priorities’ into the 2 or 3 that really matter. To inspire this work, her favorite mantra is “The grass is greener where you water it!” – Where you spend your energy, things will flourish. In her experience, 20% of our ‘priorities’ make 80% of the desired impact. To focus on what matters most, we need to check in regularly with ourselves as leaders, with our teams, and what the business needs, so we can adapt as needed, going from a list of 10 to-dos to 2-3 real priorities. You and only you can control this disciplined approach.
5. USE AI TO AUGMENT YOUR HUMAN POWER
Barton Warner has always been one step ahead of trends, and he has been experimenting with AI well before it became mainstream. In working with his clients, he has observed that especially in environments like tech companies, where AI is becoming second nature to the daily work, there is an increased need for human-centric support, including Executive Coaching and even a return to longer, face-to-face coaching sessions. At the same time, executives are leaning into the power of AI as they have now realized that it isn’t replacing leaders—it’s amplifying their capacity to lead with clarity, agility, and impact by boosting their capability to take faster data-driven decisions, freeing up time by automating basic tasks like emailing and scheduling, and even leveraging AI for leadership development by analyzing trends in 360 feedback reviews.
6. AUTHENTICITY WINS THE RACE
As an experienced psychologist, Julie Stokes brings a uniquely insightful perspective to her decades of Executive Coaching practice, seeing deeper human truths that often go unnoticed to the untrained eye. She has seen an uptick in leaders everywhere being encouraged and expected to be more authentic. Her take, “It may be a reaction to the idea that AI will quickly have the capacity to misrepresent what we think, feel and do, and therefore the more human we are, the more credible we will be as leaders. To be truly authentic means you need to have done serious self-reflection work to be clear on your values and stand up for what you stand for.”
Authenticity is not only about self-awareness: it also requires that the context in which we operate feels safe, secure and robust enough to take our authentic selves to work. As leaders, we bear a unique responsibility in creating that safe space for others as well, to show up as their best authentic selves.
7. DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL: EMBRACE IT
In my own coaching conversations with Executives, there is a prevailing feeling that they are ‘bracing for impact’ in the face of unexpected yet inevitable disruption. For leaders in that space, it’s key to catch it before that becomes the default mindset and convert the feeling of inevitable change into an opportunity to dial up a growth mindset. The key to make it second nature is to regularly practice finding opportunity in setbacks on a small scale, even in our daily routines. For example, instead of responding defensively to negative feedback; ask ”What can I do to improve in this area?” When experiencing disagreement in a team setting, instead of ignoring the conflict, dig deeper into everyone’s perspective by asking open-ended questions, listening actively, and seeking common ground to foster stronger collaboration. Consistently reframing even small challenges as opportunities strengthens our ability to adapt, learn, and grow—key components of a true growth mindset that can empowers executives to embrace disruption with open arms.
Luciana Núñez, Partner and Executive Coach, Head of the Americas
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