A pivot point: Reinventing transformation in volatile times – HLB Survey of Business Leaders 2026

First conducted in 2020, the HLB Survey of Business Leaders was established to better understand the evolving global business landscape. The latest edition — HLB Survey of Business Leaders 2026 — explores how mid-market business leaders around the world are navigating increasing volatility and redefining their approach to transformation.

This overview examines how business leaders operate amid uncertainty driven by simultaneous technological, economic and political disruption. The survey highlights key priorities for 2026, including the importance of agile planning, the responsible adoption of new technologies — particularly artificial intelligence — the growing role of cybersecurity, and growth driven by genuine customer needs.

Living with volatility

Disruption has become the routine of the 2020s. The decade opened with extraordinary advances in digital adoption, buoyed by new technologies and faster innovation cycles. Yet a global pandemic quickly counterbalanced these gains, supply chain reshuffling, and a surge in inflation that strained operations worldwide.

Two years after the pandemic, the pattern repeated itself. Breakthroughs in generative AI have coincided with renewed trade tensions and armed conflicts. Following the biggest global election year and the return of President Trump for the second term, new international alliances and fractures have emerged.

Leaders now operate on a near-constant seesaw, moving between periods of momentum and pressure within a few quarters, if not months. In 2026, leaders feel the most preoccupied by disruptions across three axes: technological, economic and political.
Still, leaders remain optimistic. The majority treat the constant pressures as forces to be managed and, at times, leveraged. Evidence of this response is the increasing proportion of leaders who are very confident in revenue gains, rising from 35% to 42% year on year.

Overall confidence is edging up, too. The share of leaders anticipating an increase in global growth in 2026 has climbed seven points, pushing optimism to 53%.
Effectively, we’re seeing more companies thriving through volatility thanks to targeted improvements in three areas: faster planning cycles, technology-enabled agility, and customer-led growth.

Planning ahead under pressure

The current pace of change in market conditions calls for continuous adaptation. Consumer sentiments shift almost in a blip. Supply chain disruption is more frequent, and political changes add fuel to the fire.

To navigate uncertainty, leaders have channelled more efforts into creating leaner business models. The shift to faster operations has continued and is now paired with shorter and, oftentimes, dynamic planning cycles that companies in all regions have adopted.

Two distinctive schools of thought are emerging in how leaders plan for the future. An almost equal share — 46% and 42%— rely on adaptive planning or comprehensive long-term planning, suggesting that organisations are split between those favouring flexibility and those seeking stability through extended horizons.

The result is a form of ‘dual-speed’ operations. Organisations maintain the ability to pivot quickly when disruptions or opportunities arise, supported by adaptive planning and stronger executive decision-making, while still keeping sight of longer-term strategic ambitions.

Responding with agility

When it comes to execution, companies are increasingly focusing on ‘getting their house in order’. The top priority for 58% of leaders is improving operational efficiency in the next twelve months.

Leaders realise that emerging technologies are the crux of achieving faster business growth. Since the start of the decade, we’ve seen faster, tech-led companies disrupting industries like finance, insurance, and entertainment.

AI adoption levels have grown sharply. Only 9% of leaders say they are not using AI, compared with above 20% in 2025 and in 2024. Many companies have progressed beyond entry-point use cases toward more complex applications across operations, R&D, and customer engagement.

Digital-led agility requires a better security posture

Rising technology adoption is sharpening the focus on security. Cyber risk preoccupies three-quarters of leaders, having risen from a middling concern to a top two risk over five years.

To benefit the most from emerging technologies, digital footprint expansion and cybersecurity should be treated as two sides of the same coin. Security strengthens operations and builds customer trust at the same time.

Driving customer-led growth

Across industries, operational and strategic change is being driven by the same imperative: meeting customer needs more effectively. Strong customer experience has become a decisive source of competitive advantage, shaping loyalty, influencing switching behaviour, and increasingly determining where growth comes from.

Companies that redesign products, services, and workflows directly around customer needs see materially stronger performance as a result.

Conclusion: Leading through volatility starts from within

Volatility is no longer episodic; it is structural. In such conditions, resilience and growth do not come from speed alone.

The most effective leaders balance short-term responsiveness with long-term discipline, aligning technology, decision-making, and customer focus into a coherent, resilient whole.

Source: HLB Global

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