Should retooling decision-making be the highest priority for leaders in 2026?

As 2025 ends, leaders face stark choices about how to continue value creation into the new year amid unprecedented pressures from climate change, AI, and social and economic challenges.

Leaders must continue to retool their strategic decision-making in the face of ongoing disruption and focus on being better deciders, which can lead to breakthroughs and reinvention.

According to a recent PWC article, it really comes down to three imperatives, which this article will highlight.

First, adopt a process mindset, because it can be fully controlled. This contrasts with relying on outcomes, which can be risky because they are determined by factors outside a leader's control, including pure luck. Regardless of the strategy leaders choose in 2026, following a good process increases the likelihood of achieving good outcomes.

Second, fostering trust, debate and dissent is significant, and leaders must cast a wider net to their teams and encourage contradictory viewpoints. Leaders must continue to promote and encourage transparency and a collegial, team-based decision-making culture. Trust must extend beyond the corporate wall and expand its pool of opinions and viewpoints sourced from partnerships and alliances to enhance value creation.

Third, leveraging uncertainty through process is advantageous in many ways, including strategy. As disruptions increase, corporations must introduce measures to reinvent their business by exploring untested opportunities. Leaders must explore whether they may be committing an error of omission by missing opportunities altogether.

Leaders must examine how decisions are made in 2026 more than ever and seek to overcome unconscious biases that can be deemed organizational barriers. They must focus on process rather than outcome; judge the quality of decisions; foster a culture of trust and collegial dissent; and leverage uncertainty for competitive advantage. When those perspectives come together, momentum builds, and organizations learn faster, scale smarter and align purpose for the road ahead.

Wishing everyone all the very best for 2026!