DDI surveyed more than 10,000 executives from over 2,000 companies worldwide for the Global Leadership Forecast 2025, the eleventh edition of the world’s largest long-term study on leadership research. The research was conducted in more than 50 countries and 24 industries. The study examines trust, stress, and leadership quality in organizations—not AI tools or implementation strategies.
Nevertheless, it provides direct insights into AI adoption: Executives who trust their leadership team are 2.2 times more likely to adopt AI. Those who build trust are 2.8 times less likely to encounter resistance during implementation. What the study reveals about the state of leadership therefore has direct implications for anyone responsible for AI projects.
Trust Is the Key to Adoption
Only 29 percent of the executives surveyed trust their immediate supervisor. In 2022, that figure was 46 percent. This decline of 17 percentage points is the sharpest the study has recorded in its more than twenty-year history. The link to AI adoption is measurable: Executives who trust their leadership are 2.2 times more likely to use AI at work. And executives who actively build trust themselves are 2.8 times less likely to encounter resistance when introducing AI to their teams.
That shifts the question. It’s not: Which AI solution is the right one? But rather: Do the people who are supposed to implement it have reason to trust the leadership that is ordering them to do so?
The study identifies four behaviors that specifically build trust:
- listen sincerely and respond with empathy
- create psychological safety
- provide transparent justifications for decisions
- actively encourage the questioning of existing processes.
Managers who actively support their employees’ development are eleven times more likely to be viewed as trustworthy by those employees. Trust is not a cultural nicety. It is an operational variable.
Strategy and implementation exist in different worlds
74 percent of CEOs say they are enthusiastic about the use of AI at work. Among lower-level managers, the figure is 58 percent. At the same time, these managers are three times more likely to be concerned about the impact of AI than top management.
This is not a communication problem. Lower-level managers bear operational responsibility for implementation. They must guide teams through changing workflows, redefine roles, and answer questions for which there are no answers yet. Their reservations are not resistance to technology, but rather a sign that there is a disconnect between strategy and the reality of implementation.
Only 28 percent of lower-level managers have a high level of trust in senior leadership. In companies where this trust exists and senior management is united in its support for the transformation, lower-level managers are 2.4 times more likely to be enthusiastic about AI. Leadership visibility is not a symbolic gesture, but a lever with a measurable impact on the adoption rate.
Overburdened leaders cannot drive transformation
71 percent of respondents report increased stress since taking on their current role, up from 63 percent in 2022. 40 percent have considered stepping down from their leadership role. The study identifies the main cause not as the complexity of the tasks themselves, but as a structural lack of time: Only 30 percent of managers feel they can perform their work with the necessary care. According to the study, when managers lack the resources they need to make well-considered decisions, their risk of burnout doubles.
For companies that want to position AI as a way to reduce the workload, this is an important framework: Those who implement AI without addressing the issue of capacity risk having it become just another project added to already overburdened structures.
Research shows what helps counteract this. Managers who combine at least three coping strategies are 1.9 times less likely to experience burnout and 1.5 times less likely to leave their positions. Self-reflection, open dialogue, and the targeted use of learning resources are key to this.
The skills gap is real, and it can be closed
83 percent of HR departments expect a significant increase in the need for new leadership skills over the next five years. The gap between demand and actual training is substantial in nearly all areas relevant to the future.
Sixty-four percent of executives consider strategy development crucial to their professional growth, but only 37 percent have received training in this area. Sixty-one percent view change management as essential, while 36 percent have been trained in it. Identifying and developing future talent: 61 percent vs. 32 percent.
The impact is measurable: Companies that make targeted investments in at least two of these core competencies see a 2.7-fold increase in their leaders’ enthusiasm for AI adoption. Companies that combine five or more development approaches are 4.9 times more likely to report improved leadership skills overall. In this context, leadership development is not merely an HR budget issue. It is a prerequisite for AI investments to be effective.
What that means
The Global Leadership Forecast 2025 does not provide an AI playbook. It offers something more useful: an assessment of the organizational conditions under which technology either takes hold or fizzles out.
Trust between management levels, realistic involvement of those responsible for implementation, structural relief, and targeted skills development. Anyone who ignores these variables and instead relies on the next tool will see the same numbers in the next forecast.
About the study: The Global Leadership Forecast 2025 was published by Development Dimensions International (DDI). The study is based on a global survey of 10,796 executives and 2,185 HR professionals from 2,014 companies in more than 50 countries and 24 industries. It analyzes current trends, challenges, and success factors for effective leadership, as well as the requirements for leadership development in a changing economic environment.
Cover photo © Bhavesh
