GFC White Paper on New Leadership Models for Future Generations 2026

Provide regularly updated tools for leaders to enhance their competencies and impact for long-term value creation, including training frameworks and leadership scorecards.Develop an interactive, digital repository of global research and leadership innovations, providing both inspiration and practical insights. Convene Curate Cultivate CatalyseThe global leadership lab Driving dialogue for trust and action Partner with government, business, academia and civil society to pilot new leadership models and projects.Create a space for ongoing dialogue across generations, regions and sectors on the evolution of leadership in an age of acceleration and transformation.These leverage points are interdependent, yet distinct. Together, they provide a valuable analytical and practical framework for change. For each leverage point, the paper highlights a few leadership innovations to inspire new thinking and encourage dialogue. Simultaneously, and perhaps more importantly, it also proposes strategic shifts to help reinvigorate leadership amid crises and mistrust, making dialogue a central leadership practice that builds bridges and fosters hope. These shifts include moving: –From linear to intergenerational: Incorporating youth voices and the next generation of leaders to consider the aspirations and realities of those who will inherit and reshape tomorrow’s systems. –From control to co-creation: Transitioning from commanding to convening, leveraging distributed intelligence and enabling collective problem-solving. –From individual authority to shared agency: Enlarging the space of responsibility for the pursuit and outcomes of decisions based on their co-creation. –From short-term performance to long-term impact: Rethinking leadership incentives and mindsets to prioritize positive long-term outcomes over immediate wins and popularity. Collectively, these shifts propel leadership that is distributed, adaptive, and builds on dialogue – capable of listening deeply, learning continuously, and acting collectively, thus helping to enhance cohesion and trust in and across societies. Since this report is to serve as a starting point for ongoing dialogue and action, it concludes with an open invitation to collaborate on a new global leadership lab. This lab is envisioned as an open and dynamic platform that turns insights into impact across four key areas: 5 Next Generation Leadership for a World in Transformation: Driving Dialogue and Action