In 2024, many organisations thought their biggest threat was external: supply-chain disruption, inflation, geopolitical instability. What they may have underestimated was the internal threat: a shortage of leadership talent.
Fast forward to 2025.
The world is more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous than ever. Policy shifts, tariffs, global trade realignments, remote/hybrid work-models, and accelerated technological change have all combined to create a truly VUCA environment.
Against this backdrop, CEOs are losing confidence. Optimism about their own company performance has dropped from 84% down to 60% in recent months. (Deloitte)
What does this mean for you? If your leadership teams are not ready to lead through disruption, you risk falling behind — fast. Leadership development is no longer an optional nice-to-have. It is mission-critical.
The data tells the story
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According to the Spring 2025 edition of the Deloitte / Fortune CEO Survey, 71% of CEOs say they will evolve their supply-chain approaches to mitigate risk.
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42% of CEOs plan cost-cutting measures to offset increased costs and risk.
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CEO optimism about their company’s performance dropped to just 60%, a steep fall from earlier optimism levels.
These numbers make a crucial point: organisations are preparing for external shocks — supply chain risk, cost pressure, geopolitical disruption — but they still need the leadership talent capable of executing through those shocks. (Deloitte)
Why leadership talent is now the linchpin
Here are some of the reasons leadership capability matters more than ever:
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Decision-making in ambiguity: In a world where policy or trade regimes can shift overnight, your leaders must be comfortable with incomplete information, rapid iteration, and strategic pivots.
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Leading across complex ecosystems: From global supply chains to remote/hybrid teams, your leaders need cross-cultural, cross-geography, cross-function agility.
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Embedding resilience as a culture, not a programme: It’s not enough to do one off leadership training. The culture must enable resilience, agility, adaptation, psychological safety, continuous learning.
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Linking leadership to business-outcomes: The data shows organisations are pivoting supply chains and cutting costs. The lever that executes those changes is the leadership team and their behaviours.
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Talent as strategic asset: As talent shortages continue globally, leadership development becomes a key differentiator. Many firms treat talent as “HR’s problem”. But the CEO’s agenda is now as much about leadership pipeline as anything else.
You are already behind (and here’s how to close the gap)
If you’ve not yet invested meaningfully in your leadership teams, you’re not alone, but you do need to act fast. Here are five clear steps your organisation can take now:
1️⃣ Secure senior leader buy-in.
Make it clear from the top: leadership development isn’t optional. It’s strategic. Without this commitment, the rest of your programme will struggle for traction.
2️⃣ Design a programme that cascades through your organisation.
Don’t stop at your C-Suite. Design for top-leaders → mid-managers → front-line. Leadership resilience and capability must be reinforced through the organisation in a layered way.
3️⃣ Link development explicitly to resilience, uncertainty, supply-chain risk, remote/hybrid, global operations.
Design modules on decision-making under ambiguity, agility across geographies/functions, adaptive leadership in hybrid/remote contexts, supply-chain risk management, cross-cultural collaboration. Make it relevant to the current VUCA context.
4️⃣ Embed measurement and feedback loops.
Treat leadership development as you would any business initiative. Use resilience surveys, leadership-behaviour metrics, retention/engagement metrics, leadership pipeline health. Measure before and after. Provide feedback. Iterate.
5️⃣ Tie the message to the business case.
When 71% of CEOs say they will evolve supply-chains and 42% plan cost-cutting, leadership capability becomes the lever to execute those strategies. Make the ROI visible. Show how leadership development supports supply-chain agility, cost efficiency, global expansion, talent retention.
A people-first approach that works
When organisations invest in their people — while providing psychological safety, day-to-day support, continuous development — the results speak for themselves. Teams become more resilient, morale improves, retention strengthens, performance rises.
At Impel Talent, this is our core. We believe in building high-performing teams with human connection at their heart. We also recognise that in a world of rapid change, whether supply-chain disruptions, global talent models, shifting policies. The differentiator is the quality of your leadership.
For engineering, supply chain and global-talent businesses (like yours) this matters more than most
In technical functions across organisations, the emphasis on leadership capability is magnified:
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Leaders must understand global vs local dynamics, remote talent, cross-timezones, contract margin models, client-partner ecosystems.
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They must navigate cost pressure, talent arbitrage, and risk in supply-chain and project delivery.
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They must lead distributed teams, embed psychological safety, maintain culture across distance and function.
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They must be prepared for shock events: supply-chain delays, regulatory shifts, geopolitical risk, and be able to mobilise talent quickly.
Your next step? Make it happen.
It’s time. The world won’t wait. Secure senior buy-in, design your leadership-cascade, link it to resilience, measure progress, and tie it to the business case you’re addressing (e.g., supply-chain risk, cost control, talent model).
If you’d like a bespoke leadership-development roadmap, aligned with your global talent/resourcing model and supply-chain/engineering client context then let’s connect. At Impel Talent we specialise in building leadership capability for precisely the complex, distributed, high-skill world you’re operating in.
Learn more about our services here
References & Further Reading
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Fall 2024 Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey – Fall 2024 Deloitte+2PR
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Spring 2025 Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey – Spring 2025 Deloitte+1
