Welcome to Leadership in the Line of Fire with your host, Brad Hauck. Join Brad as he dives into the heat of leadership challenges where the flames of business uncertainty meet the hard earned lessons of firefighting. Embrace change, master agility and become the trusted leader guiding your team through the smoke. Get ready to ignite your leadership journey. Leadership is changing faster than most leaders realised. The pressures are coming from every direction and quite frankly, the skills that worked five years ago may not be enough for what's happening now. In this episode, I'm going to look at eight major changes reshaping leadership around the world and what they mean for you, and also how to stay effective when the ground keeps shifting beneath you. By the way, please grab a copy of my book Run towards the flames@Amazon.com it's packed with storeys and strategies from over 20 years of firefighting and running a successful marketing business. I was recently talking at a conference and in between sessions everybody was discussing the rate of change and how every time they solve one problem, another one's thrust upon them. It just felt like there was no respite between all the issues that were going on. Working in digital marketing for so many years, I knew exactly how they felt because my world's always evolving. Every single day there's changes. Whether it's from Google or Anthropic or some other third party, that it's affecting people's rankings and how their marketing is online. It's exhausting. So how do you lead when it never ends? And why can't the world just slow down for a while so we can catch up? Sadly, it won't and we won't catch up either. So what are these massive changes that are impacting our leadership? Currently, number one, AI is moving from tool to team member. AI is no longer just helping people write emails or analyse data. The agents are starting to be able to complete tasks, recommend decisions and manage parts of business processes that originally were managed by people. And leaders must now decide what machines can handle, what humans must control and who is accountable when things go wrong. The real leadership question here isn't how do we use AI? It's what decision should never be handed to an AI. Hoyt and McKinsey both identify human and AI collaboration as a structural change that organisations need to grapple with if they're going to survive. AI is impacting on every angle of our life and no matter what you do, it's going to affect your leadership and it's going to affect business, whether it's using it as a tool or Whether it's using it as a team member. Now, as the tools evolve into assistance and people get used to working with them, we're going to be seeing more and more aspects of our businesses being changed over and being handed to AI. That's not necessarily a bad thing. There's plenty of things on a daily basis that should be handled by AI. The problem is, as a leader, drawing the line between when and where we hand it to the AI, and also who's going to be responsible for that AI. It's all very well to create something and let it loose, but in the end, just like anybody else that works for your business, you need to make sure that someone's overseeing the results of what it's doing. One of the biggest things we're seeing is AI slot. So you get some information back, you read the first couple of paragraphs and it looks fantastic. You think, that's great, I can send that report off to whoever, but we don't read any further. But what we often find now is that the information further down in the reports is absolute garbage. And so we get tricked up because as a leader, we take the information, we glance over it, we go, that looks good. Send it on. Because we're time poor, and that's a huge mistake because we wouldn't do that generally with any other sort of work. Why should we trust AI as well? When they send us something, we always should look through it. There'll come a point where you learn to trust people, and with AI, there comes a point that you should trust it up to. But make no mistake that you need to oversee what's coming out of your AI. As a team member, it can't be relied on any more than anybody else in the team. So it has to earn its trust just like anybody else. So AI is putting so much pressure on business leaders because they really don't know what it's capable of in many cases, and where to draw the line, where to say, yes, this is really good for AI, this is better for humans, and who are we going to put in charge of that? Because more often than not, I work a lot with AI, so I see people implementing it and they're basically letting it run free, or they're letting the human using it run free. And there's no guardrails, nothing in place to protect people. Number two, leadership authority is shifting from position to trust. Having a title doesn't automatically make people believe you. Employers increasingly are judging leaders on their behaviour, their transparency, their competence and whether their actions match their words. People are watching everything you say and do. And that's tough because in the past, a leader would give an instruction, someone would go and do it and that was it. There was no real issue with that because of the way that the business world was structured and most organisations didn't work that way. There was a level of trust that because you're in charge, there was no reason to question you. That's changed in 2026. The Alderman Trust Barometer found that 70% of people are unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values, different facts, different approaches or different cultural backgrounds. Employers are now expected to help bridge these gaps. Leaders are becoming what we'd call trust brokers, whether they're ready for that role or not. Being a trust broker is going to be very difficult for you. You're trying to help people understand things, yet get them to do it. And it's all very well to say, well, we're all on the same mission together, we're all heading in the same direction. But if people don't trust you or the people that they're working with, it's very hard to work together as a team. And so, as I said originally, if you were in a position of leadership, it was seen that you'd know what you were doing. Now, that's not always the case. In fact, one of my favourite things is the Peter Principle, and that is where people get moved up in an organisation above their level of competence. It's a very powerful principle, but I've seen it in action so many times of late where someone doesn't get sacked, they get moved up. And that actually makes it even worse from a leadership perspective, because now people are looking at someone they know couldn't do their job before getting a higher position. They see people who they know they couldn't trust before and were incapable of doing their job properly, moving up to a higher position. So all of these things make it much more difficult and puts a lot more pressure on you as a leader to bring your team together to build the levels of trust, to get people with different values, different fact bases, different approaches and different cultural backgrounds to work together. There's no reason you can't, but you need to take the time to think about how you can approach it, because it makes it more difficult when you're balancing all those different aspects within one team. Number three, leaders can no longer assume everybody agrees on the facts. We've all heard the fake news going around. Deepfakes, AI generated information. Social media and political division have damaged the idea of a shared reality. And I must say this is something that makes me very sad. Misinformation and disinformation rank as the second highest global risk over the next two years, while cyber insecurity are actually ranked sixth. So misinformation and disinformation is a major issue within any organisation and certainly for you as a leader. A leader now has to verify information before acting. They need to explain where the information came from and they need to actually go and correct false claims without creating further conflict. And we know from watching political situations overseas that this is a major problem. Some people just will not accept the truth because they're just not willing to go and actually find out the truth. And when they're faced with the truth, they just say it's not true. And it's a level of stupidity that I've never seen before. Situational awareness increasingly includes knowing whether the information you're taking to make decisions is actually real. Every situation involving leadership involves decision making. But now we've got all this false information coming in, we really have to make sure that we're making informed decisions. So you need to make sure you have factual sources or a way of checking factual sources. For example, I use genspark AI, One of the tools built in there is actually a fact checker. It will go and cheque against qualified resources, a piece of information, and come back and tell you the facts around that piece of information. Sites like Skeptoid and Snopes will enable you to cheque information to see if it's fake, produced by AI, or it's real. You need to be taking the time to cheque that what you're saying is factual. And it's really easy to respond to rage bait that it's correct because it's come from someone that you trust. Please don't. Okay? You can't trust anyone. You must do your own cross checking. Quite a few years ago I did my master's thesis on how students search online and how they find qualified information. And what that master's research showed me at that time was that they were not cross checking their information to make sure that they had multiple sources, quality sources, to back up one point of view or one fact. Hey there, leaders and entrepreneurs. Are you ready to take your leadership skills to the next level? Introducing Run towards the Flames Leadership Lessons from a Firefighter by Brad Hawk. This book dives deep into the theme of dealing with rapid change, drawing parallels between the high stakes world of firefighting and the dynamic challenges of business leadership. Learn how to build resilience, adapt quickly and and lead effectively in unpredictable environments. You can now get your copy on Kindle, in print, or as an audiobook on Amazon. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity. Grab your copy today, run towards the flames and ignite your leadership potential. The sad thing is that even years later, I'm looking now and nothing's changed. People do not cross reference information, so make sure you take the time to double cheque your facts before you respond to something. Otherwise you could be heading right down the wrong path. Number four Geopolitical conflict is reaching ordinary workplaces. We've seen this with the elections overseas and how they dominate the news. Trade disputes, wars, sanctions, tariffs, national security concerns and changing alliances are affecting our prices, our supply chains, our technology access and customer confidence. Geoeconomic confrontation was ranked as the global risk most likely to cause crisis during 2026, and we've seen that happen with the war in Iran. This means leaders can't treat world events like something that happens elsewhere. A decision made by a government on the other side of the world can affect your supply chains, your staff, your software or your customers within days. We have seen this with price of fuel, with getting goods through the Strait of Mootz and thousands of other flow on effects over the last couple of months. Decisions made by other people are affecting nations around the world. So you need to be aware of the fact that geopolitical conflict is actually the major problem for any leader because of the flow on effects. There's been plenty of times in the last few years where political leaders have made decisions that have damaged countries and the flow on effects down to small business, all the way down to the bottom have been massive. And in most cases the decisions were stupid ones in my opinion that could have been avoided if people had just taken a little bit more time to think about what might happen. I know for many business a five year plan is actually becoming less useful now because unless it contains several fallback plans to cater for things like global pandemics and things like that, things are changing too fast. Be aware that all of these things that have happened since 2019 have been major events in many ways, but also shown us just how fast our world can be turned upside down. And if you aren't planning for that, if you aren't aware of these things, then you need to be as a leader now, you need to be aware of what's happening in the world, not just what's happening around you because you can't afford to sit on the outside anymore. Number five, the workforce is becoming less permanent and more complex Leaders are increasingly managing a mixture of employees, contractors, remote workers, specialists, older workers, younger workers and AI agents. At the same time, skills are changing faster and demographic shifts are creating labour shortages. In some countries, we're seeing lots of jobs going into one area and fall out of the other area. So, for example, you might say we have heaps and heaps of people working in it, but we actually need tradespeople. Technological change, economic uncertainty, demographic change and geopolitical fragmentation and of course the green transition, which is important in itself, are all expected to reshape the global employment through to 2030. And I think it will continue to change everything from then on as well. I don't think the world's slowing down. As you said, one of the earlier points is that change is just happening faster and faster and we just don't have time to breathe. In an earlier podcast, I actually talked about the fact that paid employees increasingly being led like volunteers. You can pay someone to attend, but you can't force commitment, initiative or loyalty. People can leave, disengage or give you the bare minimum. So working with the different members of our workforce is becoming increasingly harder. As a leader, when you've got employees and contractors working together, some people have got skin in the game, they want to keep the job. Others are contractors, they don't care, they can leave. Remote workers have an entirely different perspective on work life balance. I know I've worked from home office for many years, and how I see people who drive two hours to get to an office every day is entirely different to how they see themselves. Remote workers are very powerful because they can get online, they can get offline, they can work at any time of the day or night. But for many businesses, that's a problem. That's not what they want. They want people in the office. I think the truth is that's changed. Some businesses. You'll be expected to go to the office if you want to work there. Other businesses are going to be much more flexible and some may need to be in the office one day a week and home four days a week or three days a week, depending on what your schedule is. It's becoming less permanent. When I look forward into what's coming, I think there's going to be less jobs for life. I've never held a job for life. I've certainly never held a job for longer than five years. I've always rotated into different careers and different positions. I've never been at one company for longer than, I think six years. I certainly don't expect to be Somewhere, forever. And I know most young people don't these days. You need to understand that you're going to be getting a more complex workforce. So be prepared for it as a leader to take on the complexities of working with all those people. It's no harder in the end. They're just people. How they're working as part of the team, that's where the balance is going to come in. But again, if you understand what each of those people are doing, what their job is, then you'll be able to manage that fine. Number six, leaders need to provide stability while constantly changing direction. People want certainty in employment, but leaders don't have it. Organisations need to move quickly, but employees want clear roles, boundaries and priorities. Deloitte's described this as the tension between stability and agility, control and empowerment and automation and augmentation. Seven in 10 business leaders say being fast and nimble will be their main competitive strategy over the next three years. And why is that? Because everything's changing every single day. AI is the perfect example. Every day, something new happens. Every week, there's these massive changes in what you can do with AI. This is where, as a leader be the calm in the chaos becomes more than a slogan. A good leader doesn't pretend to know everything. They provide a stable process for dealing with what isn't known. Need to stop, assess, plan, act and debrief. You need to provide stability for the people in your team. And while everything else is changing, the stability that comes from you as a leader, knowing that you're there, how you think, how you support them, what's expected of them by you and what they can expect of you, is really important because so much is happening to them that they can't handle it. Now, I know as a leader, you're not handling it really well either. Okay, we're all feeling this and we're going to continue to feel this. And that's one of the problems of being in charge, is the fact that we're on our own and we're copying it left, right and centre. So take care of your mental health and your physical health, because they'll make a big difference when everybody else is relying on you as the leader. Being able to provide that stability, to be calm in the chaos is not always easy and there's going to be times where you can't be. That's acceptable. There's nothing wrong with that. As a leader, you've got to do your best, but it's not always possible to keep it together. Sometimes you've got to take some time out and chill out, cool down, get your head right and come back. So remember, stop, assess, plan, act and debrief. As always, sake, don't react, always respond. So don't react to situations. Make sure you stop, assess, plan, act and debrief and respond to the situation. Number seven, climate change is becoming an operational leadership problem. Well, some people will tell you that climate change doesn't exist. That's fine. Okay, We've got weather and we've got climate change and they both have different effects on the place around us. Extreme heat, floods, fire storms and disrupted infrastructure are affecting workplaces, communities, insurance supply chains and employee safety. The World Meteorological organisation confirmed that 2015, 2025 were the hottest 11 years recorded with extreme weather causing major disruption around the world. From my perspective, climate change is about the effect it has on weather, which is our extreme weather we're seeing. So rather than having our more stable weather patterns, we're having extreme events. So rather than having a little bit of rain, we get 100 mil of rain or we get 500 mil of rain. And so we're seeing these extreme weather events caused by the warming of the planet. But the point is that the weather is definitely being affected by the climate over the long term. Climate resilience is no longer only a government or environmental issue. As a leader, we need continuity plans, we need alternative suppliers, we need communication systems at work, emergency procedures and people who can act when normal systems fail. I see it all the time in Australia, where we have these extreme weather events, from cyclones to tornadoes, we're seeing more of flooding all the time. They're happening more and more frequently and they're interfering with business as usual. Suddenly we'll lose power for two weeks or suddenly there's flooding and everything's damaged again. So businesses are just rebuilt, get flooded and lose everything again. This climate resilience that we need to build is really important because it's affecting us all over the place. People can't get to work, some people can get in, some people can't get in. There's so many side effects from the weather that we're getting. So don't think that you're immune from it. What happens on one side of the country affects something on the other side of the country or affects the supply chain. With Australia being such a large country, moving things around is quite difficult when we've got flooding because all the roads get washed away or get damaged. And sometimes towns are cut off for weeks or supply chains are cut off for months. So as businesses, we need to be aware of that. And we need to, as leaders, be planning for these events, making sure we've got alternative energy sources. For example, when the power goes out, do we have solar and battery backup or do we have a generator? All those things need to be considered and it's now getting more and more important. Number eight, decision making is moving closer to the front line. Traditional organisation often sent decisions upwards. That's too slow in a fast changing environment. Modern organisations need people closer to the problem who can assess conditions and act within clear boundaries that you've set out as a leader. You've got your leaders who work below you. They need to be empowered to make decisions. It doesn't mean you're removing a command, it means you're creating clear intent. You're defining responsibilities and giving them to trusted decision makers. Think of it as span of control. On the fireground, we have a span of control of one is to five to seven. So there's one person in charge of five people or one person in charge of five trucks. Once we get more than that, we break off into a second section or a second area, whatever you want to call it within your organisation. If one person's looking after 20 people, they don't have control. It's that simple. The fact of the matter is it's been proven that if one person is looking after 20 people with no one in between, you're out of control. So making sure that you build your teams, breaking your teams down, giving them responsibility to make decisions at the groundwork, is really important. The world isn't waiting for us as leaders to catch up. These changes are already affecting how people work, think, trust and make decisions. We need to make decisions quickly, we need to move them closer to the front line because we can't always push them up through four levels of command. Yes, certain things need to go up, other things need to make a decision at the bottom. So there might be something that needs to be bought. There is a budget for that. If there is a budget for it, it's been allocated and the people at the bottom have the ability to purchase it, then let them make that decision. There's lots of other daily decisions that need to be made too, unless they're dangerous, life changing, whatever. Let people closer to the decision making area make those decisions and then report back to you. If you've trained your people well, if you trained your leaders well, then they will be able to make decisions, safe decisions and good decisions when they need to, without having to come to you all the time. The hardest thing for you is letting go. You can't control every decision below you. Yes, it'd be nice to kind of be able to do that, but micromanaging doesn't work, and we all know that because we've all lived through it. The world isn't waiting for leaders to catch up. These changes are all affecting how people think, work, trust and make decisions. The question isn't whether leadership needs to change, it's whether you're changing fast enough to lead what comes next, or whether you're still preparing your people for a world that no longer exists. If today's episodes hit home, take 60 seconds to share and like and send it to a friend you trust. These conversations matter and if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss the next one. We've got more real world leadership tips coming your way. If you want to go deeper into these fire ground leadership lessons, grab your copy of my book Run towards The flame at Amazon.com, packed with storeys and strategies about leading through change. Until next time, stay sharp, stay safe and run towards the flames. Thank you for tuning in to Leadership in the Line of Fire. If today's episode sparked some insights, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Your support fuels this journey. Join us next time as we continue to explore leadership lessons from the fire line. Until then, keep leading with courage and agility.