Today we are going to evaluate a recent article by Janelle Beck, Senior Copy Editor & Tracey Carney, EdD, Research Manager of Wiley, and then provide in-depth guidance for how to be an above average leader in 2026.
First, the article for reference:
And the review:
It is safe, polished, and vendor-adjacent—but some of the signal is real.
What it gets right:
Change fatigue is real, not theoretical.
Culture degradation didn’t happen because leaders stopped caring; it happened because pressure exceeded capacity.
Communication failures—not strategy failures—are what most employees experience day to day.
Optimism still exists, which means leadership leverage still exists.
That said, the article consistently describes the weather without teaching leaders how to build shelter.
Let’s dissect further:
1. “Change Isn’t Slowing Down”
True, but incomplete diagnosis.
66% anticipate more change in 2026.
No argument there. But the article subtly implies the problem is change volume. It’s not.
The real problem:
Leaders are asking people to absorb change without increasing adaptive capacity or considering what to subtract.
This is where the article stays polite instead of precise.
Change doesn’t break teams.
Unacknowledged tradeoffs break teams. Stacked priorities without subtraction break teams. Pretending adaptability is a personality trait instead of a trainable capacity breaks teams.
Above Average Leaders don’t “invite people into change” as a courtesy.
They do it because ownership is the only known antidote to uncertainty.
If leaders aren’t explicitly naming:
What stops,
What slows,
What no longer matters,
then “shared ownership” is just a morale poster with better lighting.
2. “Organizational Culture Is at a Crossroads”
Correct concern; overly sanitized explanation
Culture shifted from people-first to performance pressure.
Yes. But let’s be honest about why.
Culture eroded because leaders:
-Avoided hard conversations in 2020–2022,
-Deferred accountability in the name of empathy,
-Then tried to reintroduce standards without rebuilding trust.
That whiplash, not RTO itself, did the damage.
What the article underplays:
Culture isn’t rebuilt by reaffirming values.
It’s rebuilt by consistent enforcement of values under pressure.
If values only show up in calm conditions, they aren’t values. They’re branding.
Culture is not:
How people feel,
What leaders say,
Or what’s written on the wall.
Culture is what behavior gets corrected and what behavior gets rewarded when it’s inconvenient.
3. “Communication Is the Most Critical Leadership Skill”
Correct, and still undercooked.
64% say communication is the most important skill.
This is where surveys are accurate but misleading.
People don’t want more communication; they want clearer framing under uncertainty.
The article praises transparency, but avoids the hardest truth: Saying “we don’t know yet” only builds trust if leaders also explain how decisions will be made when clarity arrives.
Otherwise, uncertainty just gets outsourced to rumor.
AAL distinction
Communication isn’t about information flow.
It’s about sense-making.
Above Average Leaders don’t just share updates; they:
Interpret constraints,
Explain tensions,
Name paradoxes without rushing resolution.
4. “Technology Education Must Become Intentional”
Mostly right; quietly naïve.
35% identify learning new technology as a challenge.
True, but learning isn’t the bottleneck.
Judgment is.
AI doesn’t fail because people don’t know how to use it.
It fails because leaders don’t define:
-Where human judgment is mandatory,
-Where automation is acceptable,
-Where speed is less important than correctness.
The article talks about training but avoids decision rights, which is where tech anxiety actually lives.
Reframing:
Intentional tech adoption starts with three questions leaders must answer out loud:
1. What decisions should never be automated?
2. Where is speed more dangerous than slowness?
3. Who is accountable when the tool is wrong?
If leaders can’t answer those, no amount of training helps.
5. “Harnessing Optimism to Elevate Engagement”
Good instinct; weak mechanics
73% feel optimistic about the future.
Optimism is fragile. The article treats it like a renewable resource. It’s not.
Optimism survives only when:
-Effort is acknowledged,
-Progress is visible,
-And leaders close loops instead of opening new ones endlessly.
Engagement doesn’t come from recognition alone.
It comes from seeing that effort actually moves something.
Perspective:
Optimism isn’t morale.
It’s belief that action still matters.
When leaders don’t show cause-and-effect between work and outcomes, optimism decays into cynicism; quietly, then suddenly.
What the article ultimately avoids:
This piece never names the hardest truth about 2026 leadership: The challenge isn’t knowing what good leadership looks like. The challenge is accessing it when leaders are tired, overloaded, and under scrutiny.
That’s where we live. Not in ideals, but in:
-Self-correction under pressure,
-Consistency when incentives tempt shortcuts,
–Courage when clarity would be easier than honesty.
Final verdict
This article is:
-Thoughtful,
-Well-researched,
-And emotionally accurate.
It is also:
-Overly polite about leadership failure modes,
-Light on tradeoffs,
-And allergic to naming responsibility explicitly.
Useful as a mirror.
Insufficient as a playbook.
And that gap between knowing and doing is exactly where inspero belongs.
Now, check out our full article about
Leadership in 2026: Capacity, Consistency, and the End of Comfortable Illusions