Here we are already in November, the start of a season that brings gratitude, celebration, and connection, and a time of year to more fully experience the joy of both giving and receiving. Yet it also brings the stress of balancing festivities with end-of-year business demands. I hope you will remember to prioritize your self-care (beginning now) to maintain the energy you’ll need to enjoy it all!
As you develop strategic plans and budgets for 2026, I’ve reviewed top business data and a variety of leadership sources (and with the help of my trusty AI-tools) identified some important workplace trends and leadership strategies ahead. I hope these insights help guide your focus and inform your business and resource decisions in the coming year.
4 Critical Workplace Trends and Leadership Strategies To Address In 2026
📉 Employee Dissatisfaction Continues To Impact the Bottom Line: Employee engagement has dropped to just 32% in 2025, with two-thirds of workers either disengaged or actively checked out. One in five say work hurts their mental health, and over 40% report significant stress. Disengaged employees can create a productivity drain. Leaders can take steps to address this by removing daily frustrations, providing clear priorities and development opportunities, and ensuring managers have the skills to engage their teams.
🧩 The “No-Hire, No-Fire” Labor Market Is Affecting Talent Acquisition and Retention: The labor market has entered an awkward stalemate with declining job openings, rising unemployment to 4.3%, and unhappy employees staying in roles longer than desired. While it may get easier to acquire talent, top performers are still harder to attract and retain. Leaders can address this by creating compelling development paths and engaging in creative retention strategies.
🔍 The AI “Trust Crisis” Is Undermining Its Productivity Gains: Employee trust in generative AI tools dropped 31% in just two months during 2025, with trust in autonomous AI systems falling even more dramatically at 89%. Employees fear AI will replace them rather than support them. To build more trust and encourage engagement, leaders can shift from mandating AI adoption to co-creating solutions with employees, provide meaningful training, and position AI as an assistant rather than a replacement.
💡 Five Critical Leadership Skills Are Needed for the AI Era: Surviving the quickly evolving age of generative AI and guiding organizations through the changes required to realize its full potential will require leaders to do 5 important things: 1) Seek out, engage with and learn from diverse networks through cross-industry conversations; 2) Redesign their organizational structures to unlock AI’s value; 3) Ochestrate collaboration and decision making between humans and machines; 4) Upscale and empower teams through coaching and 5) Experiment and personally model the use of AI to inspire others to engage and adopt it.
Here are some resources for learning more about 2026 workplace and leadership trends
📖 Read: Korn Ferry shares that even through Corporate Profits Are Growing hiring isn’t growing to match.
📖 Read: The 5 Critical Skills Leaders Need in the Age of AI from HBR explains why leaders need to build more trust for AI and its adoption, and how they can do that.
📃 Research: Read part one of a series on future economic research findings from Marc Emmer at Vistage, including Social and Workforce Trends for 2026 and Beyond.
🔽 Download: The Roadmap To Self-Care from the Mental Health Coalition and the Mindful Moments Checklist from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing to help you design steps for taking better care of yourself, now and all year round.
With gratitude,
Loretta