It’s that time of year, the next-years trend-lists are coming in thick and fast. From food trends to literature trends to workplace trends, this is the time of year our attention starts to close in one year and prepare ourselves for the next. Or perhaps for you, it’s more a case of sliding into the Christmas break and waiting until January 6th to see what 2025 brings.
Whether your eyes are open and ready to consider next year or waiting until January, we’ve got a slightly different trend list for you if you want to sure your leadership is effective and you don’t burn out in the process! We also believe it will help you future proof your business.
Our mission at Frankly is three fold,
- to ensure as many leaders and managers have access to the resources they need to be able to lead effectively with both their sanity and dignity intact
- to dispel the myth that leaders are born - everyone can learn how to be good or even great as a leader
- to support mother earth by inspiring responsible, sustainable and regenerative leadership practices
In order to support our mission we’re constantly scouring the data highway for those nuances - the trends that don’t necessarily shout the loudest or make it to the top 10 lists (like AI), but matter just as much - if not more. The (little) trends that make a (massive) difference to your day to day sanity.
So without further adieu … let’s dive in!
- The Quiet Resignation - is going to continue into 2025. People quietly sloping off, realising that the “system” (or workplace in everyday language), doesn’t want to change. Staying and making it better will take too much energy. So leave and find somewhere that appreciates people better. TIP: Start looking into your workplace culture and auditing what’s working and what isn’t.
- Infantilising - I predict this is the new office buzzword starting to take hold in a workplace near you next year. What does it mean? It’s when an adult speaks to another adult as if they’re a child. It feels patronising, condescending, and a tad righteous to be on the receiving end of it and takes away any sense of personal power or agency from the other person. There’s a lot of unhelpful parenting behaviour in leadership and definitely one to clock if you want your people to respect you TIP: Avoid doing this!!!
- Hybrid working - is going nowhere. Although I do predict for those organisations that swung too far one way, a better balance will be sought next year in terms of time working remotely and time working together. Different types of tasks require different work conditions. And I suspect the pendulum will swing more toward ‘what does this work need from us?’ rather than what I do want vs what do you want. TIP: Read this article on navigating hybrid working
- Walking 121’s - officially not a new thing, it’s an old thing (been around for forever) but I really think we’ll see this trending next year with a greater connection to nature in workplaces already rising as a trend. To get the most out of 121’s, leaders need to be thinking about three things; performance, development/support, & relationship. Perhaps the latter is often the most neglected. Consider this… being side by side vs across a table, the openness of outside vs an enclosed meeting space, nature as inspiration vs office posters. FACT: We are more likely to open up to another when we’re side by side, moving, and outside. TIP: Get your 121’s outside in the fresh air as often as you can.
- Good contracting - We are most definitely caught up in a transition between the go-fast and go-slow movements. In the workplace this will translate to a movement between ‘getting shit done fast’ to ‘being more thoughtful about the way we get shit done’. We will see a move to more time spent at the start of meetings and projects having honest real conversations about the way that you work together and what the work needs from all the people involved in order for it to be delivered to it’s fullest potential. Rather than just getting shit done quick and ticking it off your list. TIP: Introduce contracting at the start of every meeting to see the value it can bring to the quality of your work. Watch this space for a future article on the art of contracting.
- Leader as Coach - This movement has been rising over the last few years particularly in larger corporates with the realisation that coaching cultures actually do improve performance through more innovation, creativity and empowerment. I believe that we’ll start to see this trend moving into SME’s and smaller organisations. If you’re interested in this watch this space as we’re launching our three day programme on this next year. TIP: Register your interest in our Coaching for Leaders programme next year - [email protected]
- Leaders with ego’s in check - the future that’s coming (an uncertain unknown one) requires more community and more collaboration, and less dictatorship. This is a big topic to cover in a trend article… so all I’ll say for now is this… organisations that are thriving (the likes of Patagonia, Vivo Barefoot, Finisterre) are dismantling traditional view of power in their organisations, learning to treat their people like responsible adults and creating cultures where leaders are there to support, nurture, and direct rather than enforce, control or dominate. TIP: how could you get your people more involved in the bigger decisions around the future of your business?
- The rise of collaboration - similar to the above point. When leaders shift to being more capable of leading for the ‘good of all’ rather than to ‘the benefit of my own career’, they need to encourage a different way of working in the organisation. We’re already hearing lots of language like collaboration over competition out there. And there’s a growing citizenship movement on a global level which will eventually spread into organisations. Power of the people and all that… Coming together to do good for all, rather than competing or taking binary views of right and wrong, good and bad. TIP: Start to consider what behaviour or values changes your organisation may need to adopt to become more collaborative and less silo or competitive.
- Embodiment - We’ve been taught through conditioning, to trust the intellect over any other wisdom, which has in fact chopped us off from relating to our bodies. There is great wisdom in our bodies. Call it gut feel, intuition, sixth sense. We all have access to it but use it so little. Research already shows that the wisdom of the body is far more capable of holding the truth than your brain. Your brain is hard wired to keep you alive and safe which means it does a lot of manipulation, fitting-in talk, adapting yourself to please others and play-safe. The body tells it like it is. Leaders who are able to access and utilise all the wisdoms available for them - to be able to sense rather than just think, feel into as well as think into, will be able to access better quality decision making and cut through a lot of bullshit TIP: Introduce mindfulness into your organisation which focusses on exercises that connect individuals to their body.
- Radical Listening - Most leaders are so busy, they’re listening only to respond or rush in to fix a problem. People are often far more capable of fixing their own challenges than we realise. Did you know there are actually five levels of listening? And listening to respond, is only the second level… When we radically listen to another, we empower them in such a powerful way. This in turn makes them way more resilient and resourceful. TIP: Read Nancy Kline a Time to Think
- Authenticity over Perfection - Perfection has lead to productivity and burn out cultures, particularly for leaders. They got the job done under incredible pressure to be perfect. This next year we’ll see an even greater shift to authenticity over perfection - leaders showing up as humans, flaws and all, reflecting a more realistic and healthy way of leading which actually leads to better quality decisions and greater innovation. TIP: read Brene Brown The Gifts of Imperfection.
- Micro-Inclusion - small consistent radical acts to include marginalised voices in everyday conversations and decisions. Diversity and inclusion is going nowhere, its going to get even more complex so buckle-up and get ready for even more complexity and way more radical inclusion. TIP: Introduce the concept of citizens assemblies on a regular basis into your organisation to stay awake to the voices unheard.
- Rest as a strategy - If the last decade taught us anything - it showed us very visibly that humans are not computers and cannot be plugged into an energy source 24/7 and still perform (even with the greatest amount of supplements, protein bars and vitamin injections). Downtime and recovery time is essential for high performance. Organisations that recognise that will find healthier ways to work-smart rather than work-hard. TIP: Leaders need to lead by example on this one (especially as they’re the group most likely to be sending emails and working at night once all their meetings are done). Incubate with your team to identify different ways of working that will alleviate the pressure to be ‘always on’.
So there you have it, thirteen quiet trends that leaders need to have their eye on, in order to sustain a business that can survive into the future.
What have I missed that you’re keeping your eye on? Do share in the comments below…
For more articles like this direct to your inbox, join The Frankly Leader Substack - https://thefranklyleader.substack.com
This is a good article with some very useful insights into 2025. Thanks Jen.