2025 Was The Year Leadership Finally Broke; And Nobody Wants To Admit It
- saharandrade
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
First appeared on Forbes Coaches Council
The slides were perfect. The deck shared all the right things about innovation, agility and growth graphs. Your targets looked ambitious but achievable. But somewhere between slide seven and Q&A, you felt it—that weird tightness in your chest that whispered, "None of this matters anymore." That moment when, suddenly, mid-presentation, you realized you didn't believe a single word you were sharing.
I watched it happen in multiple boardrooms throughout 2025. Executives going through the motions, mouthing the mission, pretending the old playbook still worked.
It didn't, and deep down, every single one of them knew it. This moment is mostly what defined the year.
We've been performing leadership instead of actually leading.
Let me tell you what nobody's saying at leadership conferences: The exact skills that got you promoted five years ago are killing your effectiveness today. That persona you worked so hard to build? It's choking the leader you're trying to become.
In 2024, Korn Ferry surveyed senior executives and found something startling: Forty-three percent admitted to struggling with imposter syndrome. But here's the kicker: When they looked at CEOs specifically, that number jumped to 71%.
Let that sink in for a moment.
I would say those leaders are not impostors. They were just performing a version of leadership that doesn't fit who they've become.
2025 in Chinese astrology was the Year of the Wood Snake. Shedding. Transformation. And in numerology? Year Nine: the completion year, the ending before new beginnings. Two completely different traditions pointing at the same message: Let the dead thing die already.
But we don't do death well in corporate America. We rebrand. We pivot. We "iterate." Anything to avoid admitting the thing we've been clinging to has been dead for months.
So, instead of shedding, leaders doubled down. Added another certification. Adopted another framework. Built another dashboard. Confused accumulation with evolution.
The disruption kept coming anyway.
AI showed us who we'd become (and we hated it).
Nobody called this one. We were all following the same script: Increase productivity, cut costs, gain a competitive edge. You know the drill.
Instead, AI made us confront something we didn't want to believe: Much of our day can be managed by a good GPT. We always had challenges. AI just made it impossible to keep hiding behind busyness.
You can't out-work ChatGPT. You can't out-analyze a neural network. And you definitely can't fake strategic thinking when the machine generates 10 options before you've finished your second coffee.
So, what's left for us?
Turns out, all those things we dismissed as "soft" became the only hard advantages that matter. Wisdom that comes from actually living through multiple market cycles. Intuition you build by seeing patterns across decades, not just datasets. The ability to sit with someone's messiness and not immediately try to fix it.
Everything that many leaders have been too busy to cultivate.
The leaders who actually changed (and how they did it).
The executives who didn't just survive 2025 but actually grew? They stopped pretending to have all the answers.
I watched a CEO tell her leadership team, "I honestly don't know how to navigate this next quarter. Let's figure it out together." Her engagement scores went up 40%. Not down. Up.
I watched another exec tell his board, "My expertise has an expiration date, and it's approaching fast." Risky move, right? Except his credibility went up. Why? Because he named the thing everyone else was too scared to say out loud.
The research agrees.
Trust is becoming the defining leadership quality, especially with deepfakes and AI misinformation everywhere. But trust doesn't come from looking invulnerable. It comes from being relentlessly human.
The best leaders I observed in 2025 stopped performing expertise and started modeling curiosity. They asked better questions instead of having perfect answers. They created space for their teams to solve problems instead of swooping in with solutions.
They got what the snake understands instinctively: Real power doesn't come from never shedding. It comes from knowing exactly when to let go.
You already know the truth but won’t say it.
What are you still carrying that died six months ago?
Is it that command-and-control style that worked when you were climbing but now just makes your best people want to quit? That identity as "the smartest person in the room" when everyone can Google the same information? The belief that showing uncertainty makes you look weak?
You already know. You feel it every time you deliver talking points you don't actually believe. Every time you approve a strategy that makes your stomach turn. Every time you walk out of a meeting thinking, "I used to be better than this."
Here's a fact: Snakes don't struggle with this. When a snake's skin gets too tight, it doesn't form a task force to study skin-retention strategies. It doesn't workshop the decision. It sheds, or it dies.
Why are we slower to adapt than cold-blooded reptiles?
Your answers to these questions will define 2026.
I've spent 2025 watching brilliant leaders tie themselves in knots trying to avoid one simple truth: The disruption isn't your problem. The misalignment isn't your problem.
Your white-knuckled grip on what used to work—that's the problem.
The misalignment was your nervous system trying to tell you something. The disruption? That was reality saying you can't ignore this anymore. And the shedding: It's not optional.
2026 is Year One in numerology. Fresh starts. New cycles. Except you can't grow anything new that's still full of dead roots from last season.
The executives who actually changed in 2025? They stopped trying to transform around their day job. They realized transformation is the job. It's what happens when you quit performing a script that doesn't work anymore.
What are you still clinging to? And what would become possible if you finally let it go?
Snakes don't debate whether to shed their skin. They shed, or they die. Maybe 2026 demands the same clarity from us.
NOTE: If you are interested in digging deeper onwhy you feel empty despite your successes and looking to shed the dead weight you have been carrying. Join me on JAN 30th at 10A PST - in my FREE 40 minutes workshop: Shedding -mletting go of what is holding you back - https://saharandrade.mykajabi.com/sheddingworkshop Limited spots
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My name is Sahar Andrade, A Forbes Coach Council Influencer & a certified neuroscience coach; I help organizations increase employee engagement and performance by integrating neuroscience into leadership practices and delivering powerful leadership development coaching.
My new revolutionary book "The Coach's Brain Meets AI" is the #1 New release on Amazon.
I coach accomplished leaders who feel stuck—to reinvent their lives with courage, dissolve fear, gain clarity of purpose, and step boldly into their next chapter.
My teachings blend a unique global education with decades of experience, forming a proven method for lasting, positive transformation.
I use a proprietary framework grounded in human psychology, NLP practices, and cutting-edge research. Through a simple, step-by-step system, we deconstruct personal myths, reverse engineer blocks, and develop next-level leadership skills through modules, exercises, one-on-one sessions, and group coaching.
📘 Author of “49 Things About Entrepreneurship That Experts Don’t Want You to Know” (available on Amazon) 🎤 TED Talk: Overcoming Negative Thoughts 🎙️
Host of AI Café Conversations Podcast ranked #1 for "AI Coaching for Executives" & Page 1 visibility for "AI Neuroscience leadership" on GOOGLE
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