A Bold New Year’s Resolution: Restore Stability

The year started with volatility in the markets, uncertainty around tariffs, and questions about the impact of AI on business. Unfortunately for business leaders, it didn’t end much differently.  

Though the hope in 2025 was for a return to consistency and clarity, the year ultimately continued the unpredictability and turbulence of 2024. Again and again, firms had to shift plans, be it traffic-related changes in their supply chain or AI-driven hiring slowdowns. “Leaders can’t remove uncertainty,” says Laura Manson-Smith, global leader of organization strategy consulting at Korn Ferry.

That said, Manson-Smith points out that leaders can reduce the level of “unnecessary” uncertainty inside an organization. And already, economic and other developments are raising hope for more stability in 2026. Here are some steps leaders can take:

Focus on the core

It’s the same in business as it is in your gym workouts: If you don’t focus on your core, everything else you do will suffer. Korn Ferry senior client partner Benjamin Frost says firms have been caught up in a whirlwind of activity in recent years, much of it a reaction to macroeconomic volatility. He expects 2026 to be a year of retrenchment: Leaders, he says, will return to a focus on getting more out of the core strengths of the business. “I think this will be a year of leaders taking stock of what their firms do well and stabilizing that,” he says.  

Fewer AI experiments, more integration

It’s fair to say that most firms’ approach to AI has been more patchwork than methodical. There have been lots of pilots, but few large-scale applications and use cases. That’s partly because leaders didn’t fully understand the technology, says Torrey Foster, managing partner for the Consumer Markets practice in North America for Korn Ferry. “Now they have more confidence in how and where they can use it in their business,” he says. That confidence, he adds, should act as a stabilizing force for firms and employees—leading to fewer experiments for firms and less anxiety for workers.  

Quiet the internal noise

For most people, says Manson-Smith, the feeling of insecurity and instability comes more from what’s happening inside the company than what’s going on outside of it. “Shifting priorities, inconsistent messages, overloaded calendars—those are what create stress and anxiety,” she says. Simplifying communications and clearing up mixed messages can instill stability in employees, particularly around AI, she observes.  

A return to purpose

A funny thing happened after AI went mainstream: Leaders stopped talking about purpose. As a result, the goodwill and trust firms had built in the aftermath of the pandemic eroded. Experts say getting back to values and mission can help leaders restore stability and make firms more attractive to job seekers. That’s especially true in fields like retail and healthcare, which face perennial labor shortages. “This year for healthcare leaders is about shoring up their employee-value propositions,” says Scott Sette, a senior client partner in the Global Healthcare Services practice at Korn Ferry. 

Keep calm and carry on

It’s fair to say that over the last few years the C-suite’s instability has run parallel with the macroenvironment’s. CEO turnover has been at record levels for two years running, for instance; turnover for the rest of the executive-leadership team hasn’t been much better. Employees, say experts, mirror what they see from their leaders, and instability in the C-suite will permeate the organization. So the best way leaders can restore stability in 2026 is to model it themselves. “Leaders need to look at what they do in their own organizations to create stability or instability,” says Manson-Smith. 

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