Special Interview | On Leadership, Power, and What Comes Next

Today's conversations set the tone for the days ahead, focused on leadership, collaboration, global influence, and of course, impact. Now, we begin day one with a conversation that you absolutely do not want to miss. As a global power dynamic evolves, so does our understanding of influence, responsibility, and who leads. It's a privilege to warmly welcome Moira Forbes, an executive vice president at Forbes Media and president and publisher of ForbesWomen, a global voice shaping the future of leadership and of course in conversation with Mark Evans, managing editor at Forbes Middle East. Please put your hands together as we welcome them to the stage.

Well, first I just want to say good morning. It's a real pleasure to be here. Congratulations to the entire Forbes Middle East team for putting together such an extraordinary space and the next few days of really important conversation. And I think Mark, it's a great question to talk about. What are these new leadership dynamics? We were just at a panel of CEOs before and I think what's become acutely clear is what it takes to lead to this time of unprecedented change where we have geopolitical uncertainties. We have issues of tariffs, trade dynamics and the like and also a different set of relationships with the stakeholders amongst this global ecosystem. It is much, much more demanding in terms of what leaders have to navigate but also some of the things that need to be prioritized. And a couple of just really quickly, a few things that have emerged even in the early conversations at Davos. And one, I think we've always expected leaders to have all the answers and solutions and to be experts. One thing that's become very, very clear is expertise expires now. The best CEOs today are lifelong learners, people who really appreciate that fluidity in their own skills and the skills of their workforce is really important. You saw that with the CEO of Microsoft even giving up a revenue-generating unit of his business to write a personal blog on the future of AI. I mean, that's sort of really important in terms of that dynamic. The other thing that we're seeing very differently from leaders is a need for radical transparency and communication. Trust in institutions has never been lower. 70% of employees in most global markets feel like they don't trust inherently who their employers are or large institutions. So leaders have to build that credibility and that trust really, really quickly. And the last thing I'll say, the biggest shift too is I think we talked about the need to have sort of strategy and strategy, which is always really important, but what's different now is you need to have sort of that really clear communication on where you're going and that mission and that goal and communicate it consistently. But more importantly, you also need to have a really clear operating plan for 12 months around how you're going to get there, recognizing that it's going to change. And so these are a lot of very, very different things even from the most seasoned leaders and I think it's really tasking all of us to skill in different ways and to think about our companies and opportunities differently.

Well, I think first you have to embrace that leadership today is just inherently very, very messy and that's very hard because I think institutions and leaders want to project certainty but today now you don't have necessarily the time to be able to research all the answers to be able to get it right. So I think the need to make decisions quickly and when things do happen, as I said, you have to have this radical transparency and communication, what happened, what the issues are and what steps you're going to take to really remedy that and also be much more vulnerable in the sense of when you're navigating with all these uncertainties and you look right now, leaders, the things that they could control they can no longer control. I mean even things like tariffs and the fundamentals to their business operations are changing weekly if not monthly in all of our regions. And so I think you have to really embrace that and communicate that that messiness is not messiness. It is just a reality of operating in this highly fast-paced but also very fragmented world.

Stop saying that you have all the answers. Stop being sort of the source, as I said, of expertise. And I think communicate that decisions need to be made intelligently and with good insight but time can be the enemy in terms of when you put strategies in place you need to have that agility. And I think what they also need to really, as I said, embrace before is communication. And an example in a different arena that really brought it to life for me was General in the US Stanley McChrystal during the Iraq war in any type of military environment and it now speaks to business more. So things are changing in real time. 24 hours can be an entire cycle. So what he did every single day was have a conference, video conference call with 7,500 people on his team. Why? Because when things are shifting that clearly, you need to have the most open lines of communication. And so that imperfection and that need to really be able to bring people along with you is things that we've always talked about Mark, but are now business imperatives and showing that vulnerability as a leader is something that we also have heard a lot more.

Well, first I'd like to say I'm so happy that these conversations around power and influence and women in leadership are happening in Davos. When I started coming 20 years ago, looking at this room, I would say vast majority of women in this room today would not have been in this room 20 years ago. And I say that because for all the things that have remained stagnant and the percentages that are very frustrating, I do think meaningful progress is happening in terms of the need and understanding that we need to really unlock and cultivate, you know, half of our talent pipeline. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but it is an economic imperative. And you hear it at WEF often. You know, it's going to take another five decades for gender equity if we move at the rate that we're moving now. I don't think you can always assume also that rates of progress are going to remain the same and that for every step forward we can take a few steps back. I will say we're seeing real pockets of influence emerge in terms of opportunities for women. I think more and more around the world why you are seeing CEOs and firsts and clusters which is important. Also we're seeing a lot more women in capital allocation positions which is incredibly important. A great example of that is in tech on the CFO side, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, so women who are making capital allocation decisions in industries that have some of the most seismic impact around the world. The other thing that we're seeing too is I think in this world we're living right now with AI, often times before when we looked at leadership skills we talked about hard skills, sort of analytical, quantitative, those are the things that AI is beginning to really take over and that we can outsource, those are things that are really automated decisions or insights. The things that women were known for which are quote-unquote soft skills, empathy, collaboration, communication, in a world of AI and radical change and speed, those are the things that really are coming to the forefront from what people are expecting of leaders. So I think you know in this moment of change ironically I think it will create openings for women where just those fundamental skills are what will be needed long term to really move companies and countries forward.

I think the barrier that people underestimate is that you really do need to create structural changes. So there's not one solution for every company or industry, but it's really structural barriers. And what I mean by that is you still have expectations around career paths being linear, being sort of, you know, steps in a ladder. You still have things like career tracks and performance reviews that are subject to bias or sort of a more homogeneous metrics. Oftentimes networking and mentorship groups are very closed doors and the like. So when you understand what these barriers are and you have leaders that are really intentional, that know how to measure and that are committed to advancing women just as I said because it's the right thing to do, but the idea that you would have half of your workforce come in, 50% in many countries, and by the time you make it through all that time and money invested and you look at the leadership team and it's, you know, 15, 20%, think of how much time and opportunity you've taken off the table and not recognizing that career paths and career development is often times very different than it is for men and women.