In an era of constant change, adaptability is more crucial than ever for leaders determined to thrive. The leadership landscape of 2026 is shifting in ways that extend far beyond AI and machine learning. This episode uncovers five key leadership trends that are quietly reshaping how teams operate, grow, and endure. From micro movements that accelerate culture change to boundary leadership replacing burnout, today’s most successful leaders will need to master new skills and mindsets. Understanding these trends isn’t optional—the future of leadership will be determined by those who are willing to bold adapt and lead intentionally in the face of emerging challenges.
Timestamped Overview
- [00:01:05] Upcoming Book Announcement: “You don’t know shit about leadership and neither do I” – scheduled for release February 2026.
- [00:02:06] Five Emerging Leadership Trends of 2026: Why leaders must look beyond AI and focus on real issues.
- [00:02:32] Micro Movements Over Grand Strategies: The importance of visible, weekly wins and short-term momentum to accelerate culture change.
- [00:04:04] Breaking Down Big Goals: How leaders can keep teams engaged with small, continuous victories.
- [00:04:25] Conflict Fluency: Moving past avoidance to handle tension with clarity, emotion decoding, and curiosity.
- [00:05:52] High Trust Teams Need High Conflict Resolution: Setting new standards for courageous conversations.
- [00:06:12] Silent Sabotage—The New Disengagement: Recognizing emotional withdrawal and passive resistance as warning signs.
- [00:07:52] AI Will Expose Poor Leadership: Why automation will highlight broken systems and unclear goals, rather than replace leaders.
- [00:09:10] Boundary Leadership Outperforms Burnout Culture: The value of intentionality, modeling resilience, and prioritizing downtime to sustain performance.
- [00:10:15] Pacing for Long-Term Success: Leaders must pace their teams for sustained energy throughout the year, avoiding burnout.
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Scott McCarthy
Transcript
The following is an AI generated transcript which should be used for reference purposes only. It has not been verified or edited to reflect what was actually said in the podcast episode.
Scott McCarthy:
Hey ladies and gentlemen, it is your Chief Leadership Officer, Scott McCarthy and it’s great to be back behind the microphone after a bit of a break. Won’t lie, it’s definitely been a bit of a break, but it’s all for good reasons. One, taking care of myself, taking care of my family, taking some time off, rest, recuperation, all those good things. And the other reason? I’ve been hard at work with my latest, well, really upcoming book. You don’t know shit about leadership and neither do I. Coming soon end of February 2026 this thing will get launched. So stay tuned and if you want to be on top of the news regarding the book, then just go to lead don’tboss.com forward/waiting to join our waiting list and get all the update news. I’ll be the first one to learn about its release as well as the being able to get autographed copies by myself.
Scott McCarthy:
Again, lead dunkboss.com forward/wayt Anyway, let’s dive into today’s episodes because it is the first episode 2026. I wanted to keep it 2026 themish and I wanted to go bold. I wanted to talk about five emerging leadership trends that you need to be aware of in 2026, but no one else is talking about them. So everyone out there right now will be talking about AI and machine learning and all this stuff. But let’s talk about real leadership issues that are going on right now. Here are five of them which need to be aware of and how to adapt to the changing landscape. And the first one is Micro movements over grand strategies help. Okay, we love our long term planning a long term strategy.
Scott McCarthy:
I’ve had plenty of guests on the show. I’ve even written about a strategy in my book and it’s super important, don’t get me wrong. And we love it. But the thing is is that us as leaders need to realize that today’s population, our people, our employees, they want to see visible momentum. In fact, they don’t want to just see it. They crash brave it. So we need to need to highlight and demonstrate to them those weekly wins that stack. All right, Your people want to feel progress.
Scott McCarthy:
They don’t want to hear about it. They don’t want to hear about five year plans. They want to know how things are going to be beneficial to them today. All right, so these micro movements are true culture accelerators because people build belief and they buy into it fast. So when you’re thinking about this, ask yourself what can your team feel about the impact of this week. All right, so in going back to stacking wins of the week, let’s just keep my. Let’s, let’s go long term and also look at the short term is all we need to do is just make sure they’re aligned. We’re moving in the right direction.
Scott McCarthy:
So it’s taking these big, audacious goals that we have, breaking them down into smaller chunks, continuous down, so that people can feel the impact each and every week, if not each and every day. All right, so micro movements, Focus on micro movements. That’s what’s going to get you moving the needle forward. The second trend in 2026 which people aren’t talking about is conflict fluency. And that is a leadership credibility. So many people out there talk about conflict management, conflict avoidance, conflict resolution. Let’s talk about conflict fluency because conflict isn’t the enemy. It’s actually the pressure that forges clarity.
Scott McCarthy:
So many people out there want to avoid conflict, but the reality is when conflict is actually handled properly, professionally, it is the part that actually makes you move in the right direction, further, faster. So on you today as a leader, you’re being watched to being watched how you handle tension, not just how you celebrate the wins. In order to be conflict fluent, you need to be able to decode emotion tone. Stay curious to all the people in the situations around you. The worst thing that you can do as a leader, especially in 2026, is avoid those tough conversations. You need to be there, you need to show up, you need to be seen by your people during those hard times. So set a new standard here for 2026. High trust teams require high conflict resolution.
Scott McCarthy:
Get your people talking about it, get your people moving in that direction. Go towards high conflict fluency so that you can move forward in the right direction. Trend number three that we’re seeing, sabotage, is the new disengagement. Let me tell you. Quiet quitting, old news should be gone. 2026 brings a whole new level of disengaged people, and that is silent sabotage. Not only are they just sticking to their jobs, sticking to their hours of work, which they’ve been set and you’ve signed them up for, they’re now withholding ideas. There’s going to be passive resistance, especially if it requires more effort, more work, and definitely will be delayed.
Scott McCarthy:
Collaboration. It’s not laziness, it’s actually resentment. Dressed up in a business suit and tie or a skirt or okay, need as leaders to be able to read emotional temperature, not just dashboards. You have to see what’s going on with your team. If you see people who are normally pushing forward ideas but slowly withdrawing, that is a crucial, crucial indicator for you to be a flashing red light on your KPI dashboard that says there is a problem here. The person who’s normally good for bringing forward solutions no longer does. So that again, same thing. Red light flashing indicator on your KPI dashboard.
Scott McCarthy:
You need to look beyond performance metrics and you have to look for that emotional withdrawal. Talking about AI earlier AIs are number four emerging trends, but not how people are talking about AI. AI is actually going to be exposing, not replacing leaders. It’s not here to steal your leadership job. It’s actually going to help make bad leadership more obvious. It’s going to track your follow through to highlight broken systems. It’s going to expose unclear goals. It’s going to bring forth so much information that now it’s going to be impossible for leaders, poor leaders, to simply hide and take the credit for their team when they’re actually not even doing anything themselves.
Scott McCarthy:
You as a leader, you need in 2026 to now learn how to communicate at a higher level of clarity. Why? Because if you don’t, AI will immediately expose you for it. So with that, take AI, use it as a co leader, not a crutch. Use it as a coach and lead with attention or you’re going to get exposed by the automation and the final emerging trend of 2026. That boundary leadership will outperform burnout culture, hustle cultures that balances the budget. 2026 is going to reward intentionality you as a leader if you protect your team’s time. Model resilience if your teams basically follow your lead and mirror what you tolerate and not practice what you preach. Boundaries become cultural cues.
Scott McCarthy:
Learn to say no more often and teach your team to do the same. Practice. Practice establishing those boundaries and holding them to the utmost primacy. They have to be a priority. Protect your team. Think of the off hours not as downtime but recuperation time, rest time, filling the gas tanks back up for not just yourself but your team as well. Whole work 20 hours a day sleep 4 mentality is just going to crush you by the end of 2026. The goal shouldn’t be to sprint as hard and fast through the year, but rather pace yourself so that when you get to the finish line of 2026, you and your team have enough gas left in your tank to head into 2027 ready to roll.
Scott McCarthy:
Paired as well as running on adrenaline highs device running on fumes. So remember 2026 is going to reward those leaders out there who are aware, who are adaptive, who boundary. These trends aren’t optional. They’re going to be the new landscape of leadership moving forward. And again, those are micro movements over grand strategies being conflict, fluent silent sabotage becoming the new disengagement. AI will expose poor leadership and boundary leadership will outperform burnout culture. So thanks again for tuning in, ladies and gentlemen. It’s great to be back behind the mic.
Scott McCarthy:
As always, lead don’t. Boss, take care of it.