This special episode of Meet the Leader features interviews from the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, where global leaders shared the critical questions they should be asking themselves in 2026. Host Linda Lucina spoke with figures including IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and business leaders from Guggenheim Partners, Baker McKenzie, Circle, and The Atlantic.

The conversations centered on navigating unprecedented uncertainty in a multipolar world, where leaders face AI disruption, geopolitical tensions, climate change, and demographic shifts. Key themes emerged around building resilience, democratizing technology, focusing on meaningful work over busy work, and cultivating the right leadership character traits.

Leaders emphasized moving beyond nostalgia for the old order, with von der Leyen stating "nostalgia will not bring back the old order" and Carney declaring "the old order is not coming back." Instead, they focused on building new coalitions, developing corporate resilience, and asking better questions to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape.

Navigating Uncertainty as the New Normal

Kristalina Georgieva frames uncertainty as permanent: "I don't think anymore that we will go back in a world of predictability" due to multipolarity, rapid technology changes, climate impacts, and demographic splits between aging and youthful populations.

Anne Walsh from Guggenheim Partners advocates stepping back to see "the big picture" and separating "signal from the noise" in a 24-7 world that can be "very unsettling."

European leaders rejected nostalgia, with von der Leyen declaring "nostalgia will not bring back the old order" and emphasizing the need to build "a new form of European independence."

Geopolitics Enters the Corporate Boardroom

Sonny Mann from Baker McKenzie explains that "geopolitics and national security has really entered the corporate world and is dead centre" in C-suite discussions, requiring boards to make it "a recurrent board discussion point."

Trade has shifted from "multilateral trade" to "a bilateral patchwork of trade relationships" as the multilateral order faces stress, creating new trade and investment corridors.

Leaders must ask "what do you think?" more frequently, engaging experts in geopolitics, national security, and regulatory frameworks since "leaders won't always have that right information at their fingertips."

The AI Democratization Question

Nicholas Thompson from The Atlantic poses the critical question: whether AI will be "controlled by lots of different people" or dominated by "five big companies that build the systems."

Current AI dominance stems from "scaling laws" requiring "billions of dollars to train models," but new architectures like "world models" and "neural symbolic AI" could shift the paradigm from needing more money to needing better ideas.

Jeremy Allaire from Circle asks "how quickly can we really start to see autonomous work being produced by software agents" in ways that produce trusted outcomes.

Breaking Phone Addiction and Digital Overwhelm

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, identifies the core problem: "the very first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is check their phone" and "the last thing they do before they close their eyes at night" is the same.

Haidt recommends making lists of your first and last five daily activities, asking "is that really what I want?" to regain control over your day and intentions.

Willpower alone fails because apps "are designed by people who studied behaviorism" and "used techniques from Las Vegas," requiring environmental changes as described in Angela Duckworth's Grit.

Distinguishing Momentum from Meaning

Zuleika Juad, author of The Book of Alchemy, asks "Where am I conflating momentum with what's meaningful?" noting how "easy to confuse busyness with a sense of progress."

She advocates for pausing to "reflect about what I'm doing and why and where it's taking me" as potentially "the most productive, unproductive use of time."

Nikki Clifton from UPS Foundation emphasizes asking "what is the greatest challenge that is in front of us" both immediately and "around the corner" to avoid "too much thinking about the rearview mirror."

Building Corporate Resilience and Agility

Sonny Mann defines resilience as having "alternative sourcing" and "alternative markets" in supply chains, combined with "nimbleness and agility" to react to global shocks.

Leaders must build "corporate resilience" while maintaining the ability to "react with a degree of nimbleness and agility to some of those shocks that might emerge."

Georgieva trains IMF staff to "think of the unthinkable" by running "scenarios of things that are very low probability but high impact."

Rejecting Toxic Leadership Traits

Adam Grant identifies the "dark triad" of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy as "the exact opposite of what we should be looking for in leadership."

Great leaders "put their mission above their ego, not their ego ahead of their mission," embodying servant leadership and humility over arrogance.

Grant advocates that "character matters as much as competence and charisma," warning against leaders who won't "put the best interests of the collective above yourself."