Discover McKinsey's research-backed leadership skills for the future. Learn the six mindsets, adaptability strategies, and AI-ready capabilities transforming business leadership.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Fri 10th October 2025
The leadership landscape has fundamentally shifted. McKinsey's research reveals that organisations must evolve from individual leader-focused models to networked leadership teams, requiring leaders to reimagine themselves through inner work, rethink their interactions and roles, and transform how they lead in an increasingly complex world. This transformation demands a radically different skill set—one that balances technological fluency with deeply human capabilities.
The question facing business leaders today isn't whether change will come, but whether they possess the skills to navigate it. Drawing from McKinsey's extensive research, including interviews with 67 of the world's most successful CEOs and analysis of 7,800 chief executives across 70 countries, we now have a clearer picture of what separates exceptional leaders from the rest.
McKinsey's CEO Excellence research identifies six primary responsibilities that excellent CEOs manage simultaneously: setting organisational direction, aligning the organisation, mobilising the business through its leaders, engaging the board, connecting with stakeholders, and managing personal effectiveness. These responsibilities require specific mindsets that distinguish top performers from average leaders.
Rather than accepting existing market definitions, exceptional leaders reframe what winning means for their organisations. They evolve beyond being managers who seek incremental improvement to become visionaries with the courage to craft a resonant purpose and boldly imagine and pursue the future.
Consider Netflix's transformation. Fifteen years ago, the company centred on shipping DVDs to customers' homes. Yet five years earlier, cofounder Reed Hastings had articulated a vastly different future: becoming a global entertainment distribution company. This bold intention shaped Netflix's rise to dominance.
Key elements of directional thinking:
Alignment extends far beyond employee engagement surveys. Leaders must align people on a clear and shared purpose, define value creation for all stakeholders measured by key operating and financial metrics, and contribute positively to wider society and the natural environment.
Exceptional leaders understand that creating stakeholder value lies at the heart of every organisation. For decades, companies focused on gaining competitive advantage to capture an ever-increasing share of existing market value. Today's leaders must think beyond zero-sum games.
The skills required for future leadership fall into four interconnected categories that mirror the complexities of modern business:
McKinsey's research on future work skills identifies communication and mental flexibility as belonging to the cognitive category, which forms the foundation for effective decision-making in uncertain environments.
Strategic thinking involves six essential abilities:
The rise of artificial intelligence demands a new breed of leaders. Leaders must reimagine how humans and AI collaborate to harness the technology's potential and bridge the gap between technological capabilities and strategic goals.
The AI maturity progression for leaders:
| Stage | Focus | Key Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | Basic AI concepts | Understanding data analytics, machine learning, cybersecurity |
| Mindset Shift | AI-first thinking | Integrating AI into decision-making processes |
| Skill Development | Technical proficiency | Scaling AI projects, troubleshooting challenges |
| Strategic Integration | Business transformation | Using AI insights to pivot business models and anticipate disruptions |
Yet technology alone isn't the answer. While machines excel at tasks, they lack emotional intelligence. Cherishing and nurturing human relationships will remain at the core of effective leadership.
McKinsey divides social and emotional capabilities into two categories: interpersonal and self-leadership, with teamwork effectiveness belonging to the interpersonal category.
Research by EQ provider TalentSmart shows that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, with employees possessing high emotional intelligence being more likely to stay calm under pressure, resolve conflict effectively, and respond to colleagues with empathy.
The five pillars of emotional intelligence in leadership are:
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report predicted emotional intelligence would be among the top 10 in-demand workplace skills, with 71 per cent of employers valuing it more than technical skills when evaluating candidates.
London Business School research identifies five critical skills for future leaders: cross-cutting (building diverse networks), collaborative (harnessing divergent thinking), coaching (empowering autonomy), culture-shaping (defining behavioural norms), and connecting (building trust and engagement).
Creating psychological safety stands as the foundation of collaborative leadership. Google's research into 180 teams found that psychological safety—where everyone feels empowered to speak up without fear of scrutiny—was the primary characteristic enabling all other positive team behaviours.
Employment is most strongly associated with proficiency in self-leadership skills, particularly adaptability, coping with uncertainty, synthesising messages, and achievement orientation.
Resilience and adaptability have a codependent relationship. Whilst resilience often entails responding well to an external event, adaptability moves us from enduring a challenge to thriving beyond it—we don't just "bounce back" from difficult situations, we "bounce forward" into new realms.
Building adaptable leadership capabilities:
McKinsey's research shows that "challenging leadership"—where adaptable leaders call upon employees to step out of comfort zones and think differently—was one of the organisational health practices most correlated with resilience.
McKinsey's research into CEO versatility reveals that the best leaders are versatile in three ways: they have pursued diverse experiences in their careers, they constantly learn from these experiences, and they adapt their leadership approach based on context.
The challenges ahead will test every dimension of leadership capability. To deal with uncertainty, political polarisation, technological change, and generational differences, leaders will need humility, confidence, selflessness, vulnerability, and resilience. Yet these qualities, whilst crucial, aren't sufficient alone.
Proficiency in self-confidence and coping with uncertainty ranked among the top three most predictive skills for employment outcomes and job satisfaction.
Building self-confidence as a leader requires:
The convergence of technological disruption, evolving workforce expectations, and global interconnectedness creates unprecedented leadership challenges. McKinsey's research points to several critical preparation strategies:
The curiosity mindset fuels top leaders' ascent. They were willing to try new things and in doing that gained experience. With experience comes pattern recognition and resilience, the ability to separate yourself from individual setbacks enough to see that the far side of failure is success if you reflect on the lessons.
Organisations that prioritise continuous learning demonstrate better shareholder returns, integrate new technologies more effectively, support customers more comprehensively, build stronger partnerships, and attract and retain employees more successfully.
In the digital age, creating environments where people feel safe to experiment, fail, and learn has become paramount. This requires:
Strategic leaders cultivate a macro-level perspective beyond day-to-day operations. They analyse:
| Traditional Leadership | Future Leadership |
|---|---|
| Individual hero-leader model | Networked leadership teams |
| Focus on maximising profits | Creating value for all stakeholders |
| Command and control | Empowerment and collaboration |
| Technical expertise as primary credential | Emotional intelligence as differentiator |
| Rigid organisational hierarchies | Adaptive, agile structures |
| Annual strategic planning | Continuous sensing and responding |
| Leaders have all the answers | Leaders ask better questions |
Whilst the rise of AI transforms the leadership landscape, it does not herald the obsolescence of human leaders. Instead, the future lies in a symbiotic relationship where AI augments human capabilities, with leaders using their unique qualities of empathy, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking to ensure effective leadership.
The most effective leaders in the AI era will:
The power of McKinsey's approach lies in its empirical foundation. Rather than relying on anecdotal advice or generalised management theory, the research draws from:
This methodology reveals that strength in one skill cannot compensate for deficits in others. An adaptive strategic leader has learned to apply all six mindsets simultaneously—setting bold direction, aligning diverse stakeholders, mobilising through others, engaging boards effectively, connecting with external constituencies, and managing personal effectiveness.
McKinsey's research identifies six critical mindsets: reframing direction, making bold strategic moves, matching talent to value, creating psychological safety and engagement, maintaining personal effectiveness, and integrating across all responsibilities. These mindsets must be complemented by adaptability, emotional intelligence, digital literacy, strategic thinking, and collaborative capabilities. The convergence of these skills enables leaders to navigate uncertainty whilst creating stakeholder value.
Emotional intelligence serves as the strongest predictor of leadership performance. Leaders with high emotional intelligence build trust more effectively, resolve conflicts constructively, inspire team commitment, and create psychologically safe environments. Research shows 71 per cent of employers value emotional intelligence over technical skills, as it enables leaders to connect authentically with diverse stakeholders and navigate the human dimensions of organisational change.
Adaptability allows leaders to "bounce forward" from challenges into new opportunities rather than merely recovering from setbacks. McKinsey's research reveals that adaptable leaders who challenge teams to think differently correlate strongly with organisational resilience. In an era of technological disruption, evolving workforce expectations, and global uncertainty, adaptability enables leaders to pivot strategies whilst maintaining focus on long-term objectives.
Leaders must develop AI fluency without becoming technical experts, understanding both capabilities and limitations. The preparation involves building foundational knowledge of AI concepts, cultivating an AI-first mindset in decision-making, developing skills to scale AI projects effectively, and using AI insights for strategic business transformation. Critically, leaders must recognise that AI augments rather than replaces human judgment, particularly in areas requiring empathy, ethical reasoning, and contextual understanding.
Collaborative leadership emphasises shared ownership, psychological safety, and leveraging diverse perspectives over hierarchical control. It requires building cross-cutting networks, creating environments where all voices are valued, empowering others to make decisions, and facilitating constructive dialogue. Research shows organisations promoting collaborative working are five times more likely to be high-performing, as collaboration increases commitment, improves decision-making, and accelerates innovation.
Building resilience requires multiple strategies: practising stress management techniques like mindfulness and structured problem-solving, developing strong support networks including mentors and peer groups, learning systematically from past adversities, maintaining physical and mental well-being, and creating scenarios to anticipate future challenges. Leaders who model resilience inspire confidence in their teams and create cultures that view obstacles as opportunities for growth.
Strategic thinking enables leaders to anticipate future challenges, identify long-term implications of current decisions, and align short-term actions with overarching objectives. It involves six interconnected abilities: anticipating change, challenging assumptions, interpreting ambiguous information, deciding with incomplete data, aligning diverse stakeholders, and learning continuously. Strategic thinkers cultivate systems-level awareness, understanding how decisions ripple across interconnected organisational elements.
The leadership skills required for the future aren't entirely new—elements like strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and adaptability have always mattered. What's changed is their relative importance and the context in which they must be applied.
We are moving from an era of individual leaders to an era of networked leadership teams that steer the organisation. This new approach calls on leaders to make fundamental evolutionary shifts, well beyond the standard expectation that they continually develop additional skills.
The leaders who will thrive in the coming decades possess several distinguishing characteristics:
They embrace paradox: Balancing technology with humanity, speed with thoughtfulness, confidence with humility, and individual accountability with collective ownership.
They cultivate diverse networks: Building relationships across functions, industries, and demographic groups to access fresh perspectives and challenge their thinking.
They prioritise learning: Approaching each experience with curiosity, extracting lessons from both successes and failures, and sharing insights generously with others.
They lead with purpose: Connecting their personal values to organisational mission, inspiring others through authentic vision, and creating stakeholder value beyond profits.
They demonstrate versatility: Adapting their approach based on context whilst maintaining core principles, pursuing diverse experiences to build pattern recognition, and developing the emotional range to lead through various circumstances.
The question isn't whether you possess all these skills today—few leaders do. The question is whether you're committed to developing them systematically, recognising that leadership excellence is a journey rather than a destination. McKinsey's research provides the roadmap; your willingness to embark on the journey will determine your impact.
As you reflect on the skills explored in this guide, consider which capabilities matter most for your current context. Where do your natural strengths lie? Which areas require development? Most importantly, what specific actions will you take in the next 90 days to enhance your leadership effectiveness?
The future belongs to leaders who can navigate complexity with clarity, inspire diverse stakeholders towards shared purpose, and create organisations that thrive amid continuous disruption. By mastering the skills McKinsey's research has identified, you position yourself not merely to survive the challenges ahead, but to shape the future your organisation inhabits.