Top Leadership Decisions of 2025

Botched rebrandings. Taking a selfie with controversial political figures. Laying off workers by text. This year has been filled with leadership decisions that have been questionable at best, and extremely costly at worst. A study from IBM says poor decision-making costs US businesses more than $3 trillion in wasted expenses and lost productivity and business.

But many leaders also made some good moves in 2025. Some of the moves were small (like personally posting on social media less frequently), while others impacted the entire workforce. Regardless of their size, these savvy moves helped organizations grow sales, reduce costs, and engage employees, among other benefits. Here are some of the best decisions of 2025.

They didn’t impose AI on workers.

Companies certainly spent money on AI this year (likely at least $360 billion before the year is out). But the leaders getting the best outcomes often looped their employees into the process at each step of the way. They recognized that neither they nor their employees had the right mindset or behaviors to maximize the new technology. To encourage adoption of the tools, leaders communicated that AI could enhance roles, rather than threaten job security. Experts say that leaders should devote 70% of their AI resources to reskilling people and changing the culture, 20% on the actual technology infrastructure, and only 10% on AI tools.

They were patient.

There were certainly plenty of opportunities to make big decisions in 2025—along with plenty of pressure on leaders to make those decisions immediately. But not giving into FOMO (fear of missing out) often paid big dividends. For instance, a new manufacturing strategy based on US tariffs circa last spring looked hopelessly out of date by the fall. Companies that were more deliberate in their AI strategy could learn from the missteps of firms that weren’t. And while uncertainty persists around the global economy, it has greatly diminished over the past six months, says Jeff Constable, co-leader of Korn Ferry’s Global Financial Officers practice. “That increase in certainty, coupled with enormous capital available to deploy, has led to more mergers and acquisitions in the latter part of the year,” he says.

They settled the return-to-office debate.

Many bosses made final decisions about remote-work policies in late 2024 or early 2025—and have stuck to them. “The debate is done,” says Renee Whalen, a Korn Ferry senior client partner and North America market leader for its Professional Search practice. Sure, some bosses remain upset that some employees aren’t in the office full-time. And some workers continue to be upset about having to go into the office at all. But most people are happy with the current equilibrium, it seems. Office occupancy has hovered between 50% and 55% in major US cities for most of the year, according to data from Kastle, which tracks employee-badge swipes. Employers are asking workers to be at the office an average of two days a week, the same level they were asking in mid-2022. The bosses that are really trying to build an in-office culture aren’t forcing existing employees to come in; instead, they’re ensuring that all new hires do so.

They tried the buy-now, pay-later strategy

Going into 2025, millions of consumers were anxious about inflation and worried about their jobs. They are still. As a consequence, savvy retailers and other firms have adapted their business models to incorporate more customers who prefer the buy-now, pay-later model. These services have exploded to encompass 91.5 million users in the United States, according to financial-services firm Empower. Consumers are using installment plans even for small purchases like meals. To be sure, this strategy could go south if consumer finances deteriorate, but for now it demonstrates the willingness of leaders to shift strategies. Many consumer-facing companies are managing to grow sales in an environment where there hasn’t been much growth. 

They stayed quiet more often.

Leaders still post on social media—but they’re doing it far less frequently. In a survey from software provider Benevity, 52% percent of companies said their CEO was less vocal in 2025 than in previous years. The reason: Talking usually led to backlash from employees, customers, or other stakeholders. “You risk your reputation, you risk the business, and it can blow back on the organization,” says Louis Montgomery Jr., a principal at Korn Ferry’s HR Center of Expertise. What CEOs talked about also changed: They deemphasized making themselves permanent presences, and stressed providing content with a real purpose, whether to attract new talent or introduce themselves to potential new customers.

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