2025 will be remembered as uncertain, volatile, and unstable. It’s comfortable to settle for that. But it’s largely insufficient.
The year that is ending was not held back by uncertainty, but by something more uncomfortable to admit: the growing inability of organizations to simplify. Too many topics, too many initiatives, too many competing “strategic priorities,” too many meetings, and ultimately, too few clear decisions.
This year was not marked by economic, health, or military shocks, but by an accumulation of regulations, concepts, and strategies. Many organizations explain their delays with this environment. Few admit a more uncomfortable reality: complexity was not managed; it was endured, and then maintained. It settled in because it is convenient to have such excuses. But the situation now calls for a different conversation.
1. What really mattered in 2025
The end of the linear management illusion
In 2025, many organizations continued to act as if the world would become clear “after”, after the crisis, after normalization, after the next restructuring. That “after” never came. We are now in permanent change.
Observed consequences:
- Strategic decisions without clear ownership
- Steering committees that hardly steer
- Three-year plans revised every three months
- An abundance of tools claiming to “provide visibility,” but mostly generating noise
The reality is simple but uncomfortable: complexity is structural, inherent to how we work, organize, and manage projects. It has been a smokescreen: postponed decisions, lengthened processes, multiplied approvals. Not out of strategic caution, but out of fear to give up and commit.
👉 A strategy that does not make choices is not a strategy. It is a simple list of wishes and ideas, doomed to fail before it even begins.
2. Strategic clutter: When too many initiatives destroy value
The real enemy is internal
The costliest phenomenon observed this year is neither regulatory nor technological. It is what we can call strategic clutter.
Symptoms:
- Too many “important” projects, few truly decisive
- Too many KPIs, few real management indicators
- Too many simultaneous transformations, rarely sequenced
- Too many strategic messages, often contradictory
- Too many projects launched without stopping others
- Too many “priority” initiatives in parallel
- Too many tools intended to simplify — which actually complicate
- Too much reporting, too little meaningful analysis
When everything is important, nothing is. When everything is urgent, nothing moves forward. Strategic clutter is no accident. It results from governance that avoids tough decisions and prefers addition to subtraction — a habit we’ve carried since school.
👉 In 2025, many organizations did not lack ideas; they lacked courage. Most companies do not suffer from a strategy deficit, but from an excess of poorly arbitrated initiatives.
3. Why fractional leadership has emerged
Presence ≠ Impact
This context explains the rise of fractional or hybrid leadership in 2025. Not a trend, but a pragmatic response to three realities:
- Organizations need senior expertise immediately operational
- Challenges are too transversal for strictly siloed roles
- Value is measured by impact, not presence
The model of the “full-time” omniscient leader, permanently installed, becomes a handicap in a complex environment. Instead, we observe:
- Modular roles
- Outcome-oriented mandates
- Leaders called to structure, decide, arbitrate — then step back to rejuvenate another project
Like a finely tuned clockwork mechanism, leadership functions through precise interventions at the right moment, not constant presence. This is not a devaluation; it is maturation, creating a virtuous cycle.
4. What 2025 signals for 2026
Some sober convictions
2026 will not reward the most innovative organizations, but those that know how to choose. Emerging trends:
- Simplification becomes a competitive advantage
- Governance becomes active and demanding
- Cosmetic transformations lose credibility
- Leadership becomes more modular and accountable
In 2026, strategy will not be a collection of initiatives, but an exercise of deliberate renunciation, followed by rigorous execution: certainly less spectacular, but more effective, more profitable, and above all, more stimulating.
Conclusion: Complexity excuses nothing
2025 ended the implicit indulgence that allowed underperformance to be explained by “the context.” Context is given. It will not change in our favor.
The question is no longer: “Do we have a strategy?”
But: “Do we have the courage to have one clear, executable strategy — and abandon the rest?”
👉 2026 will not reward those who do the most, but those who know exactly why they do less. It is an act of responsibility.