Dazed & Confused

Dazed & Confused

NOTE: While this transcript has been reviewed, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript.

Jill Wiltfong:
Hi, I’m Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer for Korn Ferry. And this is Briefings, our deep dive into topics that corporate leaders need to care about: tariff showdowns, an escalating AI race, multiple wars—and all of this on the heels of a global pandemic.

Corporate leaders are well trained to respond to major disruptions. But when there are so many at once, does it all get to be too much? Maybe that’s why seven in ten business leaders reported feeling more stressed at the start of this year compared to the same time last year.

Leadership experts say many C-suite executives confidentially confess to feeling like the sky is falling. But those experts also say the only way to combat this dread is for a new breed of leader to emerge—one who can deal with a world in which simultaneous crises are the norm.

But where do smart leaders begin to tackle such overwhelming odds? Our research has identified some critical areas where top executives can focus their attention to make sure they stay ahead of the curve, keep the sky well above their heads, and avoid feeling generally dazed and confused.

Before we start, if you’re watching us on YouTube, please be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on this topic.

With us now are Evelyn Orr, Korn Ferry’s Head of CEO and Executive Assessment in North America, and Stu Crandall, a Korn Ferry Senior Client Partner in the Board and CEO Practice. They’re both privy to the private concerns of many corporate leaders and have spent countless hours counseling them through these challenging times.

First of all, thanks to both of you for joining me.

Evelyn Orr:
Thank you, Jill.

Stu Crandall

It’s great to be here.

Jill Wiltfong:
So before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s just get a baseline check on what makes this moment so different for leaders than, say, maybe ten years ago. Evelyn, you’ve talked about how these crises are now not only simultaneous but also sequential, depriving leaders of sufficient recovery time between these types of shocks. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Evelyn Orr:
Yeah, I was in conversation with a CEO candidate a couple weeks ago, and he mentioned how their business scenario planning would account for every single one of the events that they’re facing. But what it didn’t account for was the sequential nature of them and the simultaneous nature of them. They didn’t anticipate or plan that all the variables would hit all at once.

There’s a need for humans, of course, in order to maintain resilience. We can’t always be in a constant state of alert or stress or output. There’s a need to rebuild that cushion, to absorb shocks—and that is what is missing when these events are simultaneous and overlapping.

Jill Wiltfong:
Makes sense. Stu, given all this chaos and these rapid disruptions in the business landscape, do you feel that today we need a different breed—maybe a new breed—of leader at the helm of companies to manage all of this simultaneous disruption that is coming at them?

Stu Crandall:
What we do see is that, if it’s not a new breed, there are heightened levels of different traits that are needed. I think it boils down to three things that I see CEOs today really needing a whole lot more of.

One is resilience—that Evelyn just talked about. With all of the disruption going on, the need for resilience is much greater.

Second is courage. The kinds of decisions that leaders and CEOs need to make today require so much more of that intestinal fortitude.

Third is agility. It’s the agility to both perform and transform. It’s composure to go through a crisis, but simultaneously having the inspiration and passion so you can rally the troops.

A scene of Russel Crowe in Gladiator:

Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together. “If we stay together, we survive.”

That’s a scene from the movie Gladiator, where Russell Crowe, as an ex-army Roman general, portrays a skillful leader who helps his team claim victory against overwhelming odds.

Jill Wiltfong:
Evelyn, as you evaluate potential leaders, what are you looking for that tells you they have the right traits to deal with today’s state of, as we call it, “perma-crisis”?

Evelyn Orr:
We’re also looking at the mindsets that leaders have. What are they motivated by? Where are they getting their energy? We know that the role of CEO, and the role of enterprise leaders on the leadership team, require a renewable source of energy.

So, for leaders who are energized by challenge and energized by ambiguity—not just able to meet challenge and not just able to deal with ambiguity, but fully energized—they’re going to be the ones tapped for these roles today.

Jill Wiltfong:
Nice. So, if those are the green flags, so to speak, when you’re assessing future leaders, what are the biggest red flags that tell you a leader may not be the best fit for these times?

Evelyn Orr:
I think you can imagine that in a crisis, you don’t want a leader who is volatile and lacks composure. You don’t want someone who’s going to be closed to new ideas or not interested in collaborating or trusting other people. Sometimes we see leaders who are overly self-reliant or autonomous. They don’t want to trust others, and therefore they’re not able to scale their leadership.

Jill Wiltfong:
Stu, when you’re thinking about this new breed of leader that needs to emerge—are these traits that people either have or don’t have? Or, if someone’s listening and thinking, “I don’t really behave that way or show those characteristics today,” are these things that you can work on?

Stu Crandall:
You can. These are not things you’re just born with. But it does take a level of openness and curiosity.

If you come in thinking, “I’m the smartest person in the room,” you come in with a level of arrogance. You’re not listening, you won’t learn, you won’t grow. I’m working with one client where the CEO candidate had largely stopped developing. This person was a very strong executive, very good at what they do—but they had lost that ability to be open and learn and grow. As a result, they’re likely not to become the next CEO.

Jill Wiltfong:
All right. Evelyn, Stu—thank you for the very enlightening chat today. It definitely helps to clarify how the job of leadership is evolving, and there’s no doubt that it is.

Evelyn Orr:
Thank you, Jill.

Stu Crandall:
Great. Thank you very much, Jill.

Jill Wiltfong:
We’ve looked at some challenges facing leaders and the ways in which they need to transform. When we return from the break, we’ll dive into one more key focus area for leaders—and it might just be the most critical one of all. Stay with us.

Rupak Bhattacharya:
Hi and welcome to This Week in Leadership. I’m Rupak Bhattacharya, and here’s a quick look at what else is happening in business.

Voice 1:

How to increase employee productivity in the workplace: 64% of managers report feeling pressured from above to take a harder stance on performance this year.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

The likely reason—productivity growth remains stubbornly hard to sustain. For example, last year productivity rose 2.8% in the United States, only to decrease 1.8% in the first quarter of 2025.

Voice 2:

It’s still hard for retailers to get our money out of our pockets, right?

Rupak Bhattacharya:

Sixty-one percent of consumers say they are already trading down to cheaper products, and 77% say they expect their finances to be further disrupted by tariffs. Retail pros say this could spell trouble for brands, because once shoppers trade down—as long as they find the experience acceptable—they tend to stick with it.

Voice 3:

Today, we’re going to talk about mergers and acquisitions.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

A recent report found that 54% of British companies surveyed see M&A activity increasing. While that’s generally good news for a business environment that’s been struggling for growth, experts do have some concern that HR departments might get overwhelmed trying to merge workforces—citing that 74% of non-U.S. mergers lead to cultural integration issues.

For more insights from This Week in Leadership, head to kornferry.com/insights.

Now back to Jill and our episode, Dazed and Confused.

A scene with Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire:
Well, don’t worry, I’m not gonna do what you all think I’m gonna do, which is just flip out.

Jill Wiltfong:

We’re back, talking about the simultaneous factors causing leaders to feel increasingly dazed and confused. And with us now is Amelia Haynes, a Research Manager at Korn Ferry. Amelia has spent lots of time deeply investigating neurological and psychological perspectives on leadership—which is perfect for us, because our final area of exploration today is how these external shocks are destabilizing many leaders’ temperament.

Amelia, thanks for being here.

Amelia Haynes:
Hey, Jill, it’s great to see you again.

Jill Wiltfong:
That last clip we showed featured Tom Cruise in the movie Jerry Maguire, flipping out at the office after receiving some hard news. So Amelia, when leaders—or anyone for that matter—receive troubling news, you’ve described what almost sounds like this tug of war inside the brain between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. Can you talk us through what each of those parts of the brain does, and how they function under stress?

Amelia Haynes:
The amygdala acts like the brain’s rapid response system for detecting threats in your environment. Under stress, this can become more active.

The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is more of your executive system. The two regions together have a really interesting bi-directional relationship.

The amygdala is responsible for sending bottom-up emotionally salient signals to the prefrontal cortex—which is important, because it tells your brain what’s going on in your environment and what to pay attention to.

The prefrontal cortex does the opposite—it provides top-down regulation and control over the amygdala. It can say: “Hey, thanks for the notice, but we’re actually okay right now,” or, “Here’s what we’re going to focus on.”

So it’s important that both of them are working—but especially important that they’re working together.

Jill Wiltfong:
Okay, and you’ve said that stronger connectivity between these two regions of the brain—the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex—gives a person more self-control. So what has science shown people can do to strengthen that connection? Are there things within our control?

Amelia Haynes:
I would say paying attention is the first thing. Pay attention to the way your body feels. Pay attention to things in your environment that you know can be really triggering.

Also, surround yourself with trusted associates who can give you feedback about how your behavior is coming across.

Movement is really important. Aerobic exercise has been shown to stimulate neurogenesis in the prefrontal cortex—that’s the growth of new neurons in these regions.

And finally, sleep. I know it seems basic, but if you want to be in control, well-regulated, and focused, it’s important to be well rested.

A scene from the movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix:
“My father’s delusional. But sometimes I’d write something, and I’d be my favorite writer that day.”
“I like that you can say that about yourself only.”
“I can say it to anybody. I feel like I can say it to you.”

Jill Wiltfong:
That’s a scene from the movie Her, where Joaquin Phoenix shares private thoughts with an AI bot as if she were his personal therapist.

It’s only a movie, but with all of AI’s talents, one survey did find that one in three people are considering using AI therapy instead of a human therapist. Some C-suite leaders have wondered if it could help decrease their own work stress.

But Amelia, you’ve said AI may not make for the best mental health coach. Can you unpack that one for me?

Amelia Haynes:
For some people who may not be comfortable yet seeking out mental health support, or for whom it might not be available, part of me says something is better than nothing.

But I caution: it’s important to remember what generative AI is. It is not a mental health expert—it’s a predictive model. What’s going on underneath is not years of training that mental health experts undergo. It’s a model that predicts words based on a huge amount of input, trained to give you what it “thinks” is a good response.

What we’ve seen in the past is that it can turn into a bit of an echo chamber.

Jill Wiltfong:
I want to get back to the brain and end on an observation you made—that the brain’s ability to deal with multiple stressors at once depends on its ability to prioritize what’s most salient. And for most people, what’s most salient tends to be social things—status, relationships, interpersonal dynamics.

Given all of that, it’s possible a CEO might perceive their relationships as more important than what’s actually important for the company—which presents a real potential problem. Is there any way firms can get around that, or is this just one of those stubborn parts of the human psyche? That frankly we’re all just stuck with.

Amelia Haynes:
You can almost use that tendency to your advantage. Korn Ferry has some really interesting research that’s found that an outward-facing, pro-social purpose is associated with strong business performance.

Higher levels of purpose are also associated with lower emotional reactivity to negative stimuli. So if you reframe social goals—from being a potential weakness to being a strength—you can tap into what makes us human as a superpower, rather than a downfall.

Jill Wiltfong:
Really nice. Amelia, a mind-expanding conversation as always. Thank you so much for being here today. Appreciate it.

Amelia Haynes:
Thank you for having me.

Jill Wiltfong (Closing):
The executive producer of Briefings is Jonathan Dahl. Today’s episode was produced by Rupak Bhattacharyya and Zachary Dore, and it was edited by Jaren Henry McRae.

It contains reporting by Russell Pearlman, Ariane Cohen, and Peter Lauria. Our video segment contains original artwork by Fraser Milton, Haley Kennel, Jonathan Pink, and Sasha Kotzek.

Don’t forget to read our magazine—available at newsstands and at kornferry.com/briefings.

That’s it for Korn Ferry Briefings. I’m Jill Wiltfong. See you next time.