Growth Is a Leadership Decision You Make Years in Advance
In uncertain times, most companies reach for the cost-cutting playbook. The ones that grow do something different: they invest in the people who will carry the next phase.
Ask a board what keeps it awake and the answer is rarely a lack of ambition. It is uncertainty: geopolitics, interest rates, supply chains, and now artificial intelligence. Uncertainty has stopped being a phase between two stable periods. It is the climate we operate in. That changes what growth requires.
Cutting is not a strategy
Harvard Business Review has been tracking how companies respond to disruption for years, and the pattern is consistent. The instinctive reflex is to protect margins by cutting. The companies that come out of a downturn stronger combine sober worst-case planning with a willingness to invest. They make sense of the crisis rather than freeze, they act with a bootstrap mentality, and they balance the interests of all stakeholders instead of only next quarter’s figures.¹
HBR also argues that most classic strategy frameworks were designed for a more predictable world. In dynamic conditions, the advantage goes to organisations that can experiment, to leaders who can live with uncertainty, and to teams that treat strategy as a creative exercise rather than a spreadsheet.² A growth strategy today has to be feasible and durable at the same time.³
The AI growth paradox
Then there is AI. Expectations in the boardroom are high, yet HBR’s 2026 outlook notes that most AI investments are not yet delivering meaningful returns, and that layoffs justified by AI are running ahead of the productivity gains they were supposed to fund.⁴ We see the same in our conversations with clients in automotive, industry, marine and IT: plenty of pilots, far less real value.
The more worrying effect is less visible. When entry-level roles disappear in the name of efficiency, the pool of future team leaders shrinks. Fewer team leaders means fewer candidates for management, and eventually for director and board roles. HBR calls this what it is: a leadership supply decision whose full cost only shows up years later.⁵ Add the wave of retirements that is taking deep expertise out of organisations,⁶ and the growth ambition of 2030 may well stall on a lack of people who can lead it.
Our view
Growth is not primarily a market question. It is a leadership question, and you have to answer it early. Before a company decides where it wants to grow, it should ask who will lead that growth, and whether those people are already on board or still need to be found or developed. That is why our work does not start with a vacancy. It starts with the GOAL: where do you want to be, and which leadership does that destination demand?
Companies that answer this question honestly invest in leadership even when times are tight. They are not being sentimental. They know growth cannot be bought at the moment you need it.
Questions we ask our clients
- Which growth ambition sits behind your GOAL, and what kind of leadership does it require that you do not have today?
- Where does AI demonstrably create value in your business, and which part of your future talent pipeline are you trading for it?
- Who in your organisation is ready for the next step in three years’ time, and who is not yet visible?
Our work starts with your GOAL — not with a vacancy. Read more about our G.O.A.L. model or get in touch.
Sources
- Harvard Business Review, “Investing in Growth Through Uncertainty”, July 2023. hbr.org/2023/07/investing-in-growth-through-uncertainty
- Harvard Business Review, “Strategy in an Age of Uncertainty”, June 2022. hbr.org/2022/06/strategy-in-an-age-of-uncertainty
- Harvard Business Review, “Overcoming the Traps That Prevent Growth in Uncertain Times”, July 2025. hbr.org/2025/07/overcoming-the-traps-that-prevent-growth-in-uncertain-times
- Harvard Business Review, “9 Trends Shaping Work in 2026 and Beyond”, February 2026. hbr.org/2026/02/9-trends-shaping-work-in-2026-and-beyond
- Harvard Business Review, “Your Talent Strategy Has to Keep Up with Your AI Transformation”, June 2026. hbr.org/2026/06/your-talent-strategy-has-to-keep-up-with-your-ai-transformation
- Harvard Business Review, “9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2025 and Beyond”, January 2025. hbr.org/2025/01/9-trends-that-will-shape-work-in-2025-and-beyond